---sex scene!---

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---end of sex scene---

Two hours later, Luna and Agnès were deep in the forest looking for things to hunt and possibly bring back. Luna was as always, having the time of her life, enjoying the freedom and challenge of fighting new and unknown monsters. And while Agnès has slowly opened up to the idea over the course of the few weeks together, today she was feeling pensive and was lost deep in thought.

After frying the last batch of giant insects, Luna noticed that Agnès wasn’t really into it, a faraway look on her friend's face.

“Is there something wrong Agnès?” she asked, wondering what could be so distracting that she would stop paying attention to the dangers of the forest. “Are you as tired as I am of killing nothing but giant bugs?” she joked. “I admit, there are a lot more than I was expecting, especially lately.”

“Huh?” Agnès looked up surprised, then blinked as she registered her friend's words. “Oh… no that’s not it…” she said quietly, slowly sinking back into her thoughts.

Now Luna was a little concerned for her friend. She looked at the burnt corpses of the bugs around them, then back to Agnès. “Come on.” she said, grabbing Agnès and pulling her along. “Let's go somewhere with fresh air.”

Agnès didn’t resist, and the two made their way out the small clearing and forward to the unknown. After a while, Luna couldn’t wait anymore and asked Agnès what’s wrong.

Agnès paused, looked at her friend, then sighed sadly. “I’m sorry Luna, but…” she began, trying to figure out how to say what was on her mind without sounding rude. “I don’t think I want to have sex with you guys anymore…” in the end going for the blunt approach.

Luna looked like she had been blindsided. “What! Why!? You love sex!” she exclaimed, unable to comprehend why her friend would say such a thing.

Agnès shook her head. “No Luna, You love sex… and while I will admit that since I’ve awakened to how amazing sex could be, that I not only feel mentally healthier but also physically...” looking down at herself, feeling the power course through her body. “But In the end… it’s not me… or at least not yet...”

Agnès sighed, then looked at Luna. “Look Luna… I'm touched that you want me to be a part of your… harem… but I’m just not interested… maybe in the future, sure… but now?” she shook her head once more. “It just doesn’t feel right…”

“And I would also like to ask you…” now looking Luna in the eye. “Why do you… want so badly to grow Van’s harem? What’s the point of it?”

Luna blinked. In all honesty, she never really thought about it. It was just something a woman should do. She never really gave it more thought than that. It was just… that the more women that Van bedded… the greater feeling of dominance she had… after all… she knew, from the bottom of her heart… other than Anna or Lyn… Van would choose her over anyone else… and effectively… Whatever woman was under Van… was also under her…

Agnès continued. “Not to mention, if I do join the harem, I'm probably going to be soul bonded. Which means I'm going to be a true wife, whatever that is…” she said, shaking her head, not really understanding the order of things. “Is that something you really want?”

That even gave Luna pause, and put far more on her plate than she could balance in her head, what with everything she was now thinking about.

“And if I had to be honest… and I'm sorry for saying this because I know you wouldn’t mean to but…” Agnès gave a complicated expression before giving in. “I'm sorry but… I feel like I was manipulated into this…” she confessed.

“Don’t get me wrong! I know that probably wasn’t your intention, that you probably only meant to help but…” her words fell off a bit before coming back, her eyes doing the same. “But you and Van are… well… you know… and I’m… I don’t really have any defense against that… so I can’t even really be sure I was genuinely okay with all this happening from the bottom of my heart…”

She then bowed towards Luna. “I'm really sorry. I hope I didn’t offend you or anything. I still want to be your friend. I hope this doesn’t make things awkward between us…”

Luna’s head felt like it was spinning. Agnès was just putting more and more stuff on top of her, and it was hard to figure out her own thoughts with the breakneck speed of all this informational dump. But when Agnès finished, she knew she had to say something.

“Of course, we are going to still be friends!” she quickly said in a panic, moving forward and righting her friend up again. “Nothing is going to change that!”

“I just…” Luna sighed, and looked down, sad that she couldn’t see that her friend had been unhappy this whole time. In the end, she had no idea what to say, other than two simple words... “I’m sorry…”

She then looked up. “I’m sorry for not seeing this before it was too late… I thought what I was doing was helping you… but in the end… All I did was draw you into my pace without really asking you how you felt about things.”

“And… your right… maybe I am a little too obsessed with growing the harem…” looking downcast. “I think even Van is starting to have a hard time with all the women he has to deal with… and that’s despite being a…” she looked around quickly… “you know what…”

She then gently held Agnès’s hand in her own. “Agnès… there will always be a place for you in our family… and if I have to be honest… I want you to be… but if you want your distance… and some time to think things over… then take all the time you need. I will be waiting for you…” sounding like a star-struck lover, making Agnès blush a little with how Luna’s eyes seemed to passionately look into her own.

Agnès was completely aware that Luna didn’t realize what she was doing, and she simply meant what she was saying. But it was things like this that made it hard for her to turn down Luna, and it didn’t help that she was close enough to smell her perfume or that her hands were super soft, or her eyes where mesmerizing or her-

Agnès gave a mental shake of her thoughts to prevent her from going down that rabbit hole again and instead gave a heartfelt reply to Luna since she deserved it for being so sincere. “Thanks Luna… I promise you… If I ever change my mind… I’ll join your harem… and not joining it now, doesn’t mean we aren’t friends anymore, and even if I never join… we will still be friends. I promise you…”

That did much to relieve Luna’s worry. In fact… It was the first time she had a friend that wasn’t a part of the harem. And she wondered if that was a normal thing for most women. Now that she thought about it… being able to still be friends, despite not being part of the same harem… gave Luna a novel feeling that she quite enjoyed.

Luna gave one of her patented dazzling smiles. Full of happiness and joy. “Thanks, Agnès! I also promise you, that no matter what, we will always be friends!” bringing her friend into a big smothering hug. “If there is anything you need or anything you want to know, don’t hesitate to ask! I will do my best to help you! I mean… oh my gush! I just love you so much!” Her hug slowly constricting Agnès.

“I-I love you too! So please! Let me breathe!” Agnès begged her friend, unsure if she was red in the face because of what Luna said or due to the lack of air.

“Oh, oops.” Luna dropped her friend. “Sorry about that…” she said sheepishly.

“It’s no problem…” Agnès said, taking a few deep breaths.

After she got her oxygen back and was able to think again, there was one question she wanted to ask Luna that she felt she should know about. “Hey, Luna? What does it mean to be a true wife and a wife anyway? What’s the difference, and where do concubines, lovers, mates and all the other positions go anyway? What's the order and how do you keep track of it all?”

“Sorry if I’m asking something so obvious… but I never really understood it all… and with everything we talked about… you know… joining the harem or not… I just felt like I should have more information for any future decision making I might have…” she asked.

“Oh! Sure! No problem!” Luna said, happy to help her friend with whatever she felt like she needed. “Where to start…” she thought about it before giving herself a nod and began her explanation the best she could.

“Alright… so to start with the top… there are the true wives…” Luna then began her explanation. “True wives are those who have sworn undying love to their spouse and vice versa. They take an oath that essentially binds the couple together. To be together, even in death. It's far more common here in the vampire lands than it is anywhere else.”

“But wouldn’t having a long life together make the couple slowly grow tired of each other?” Agnès asked, wondering why these true wives were more common here than anywhere else if the couple had almost an eternity together.

“That’s where the binding comes into play,” Luna explained. “It makes it so that you can’t really get tired of your spouse. You will always love them, and they you, forever, as if your love for each other was always fresh. There are times when spouses would even feel like they were falling in love with each other all over again.”

Agnès didn’t know what to think about that, but remained silent for Luna to continue.

“After the true wives, we have the regular wives.” Luna continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted. “Wifes are those who wish to bind themselves to a powerful house, or individual, or just love the person in general and wish to combine their bloodlines together. Wives holding a higher standing in the harem, and are only second to true wives.”

“Concubines are those who love, or for other reasons, join the harem. But any children that concubines have, do not belong to the family they marry into. For example, if let's say you were a concubine, that would mean that while you love and will serve Van. You desire your children to remain of your own bloodline and not of Van’s. It could also be that you choose to be a concubine to work your way up to becoming a wife. Or that a powerful house wants to make connections with our house. It could even be just an agreement between you and him, in exchange for sex and children, you will serve him faithfully, while also gaining access to the family's power and influence. There are many more reasons I could get into, but I’ll leave it as that for now.” Luna said.

“After concubines are lovers. Those who bind themselves to a male in hopes of one day becoming a concubine or something more. In a way, they are effectively concubines but lower on the hierarchy. Any children they have is solely their own, and sometimes it's just an agreement between a male and a female, that in exchange for helping the women get pregnant, they would work for the male. It could also be the women’s way of showing loyalty to their liege or lord, showing they will have no other but him. But, because they are also just lovers, in some cases, they could move on from the men to search for greener pastures, something far harder for a concubine to do.”

“Then finally you have one off’s or sex friends. Those who have sex with a male, but are aware they will probably not be anything more than a friend at most. Giving the woman the freedom to search out her true love later should she ever find one. No strings attached sex, so to speak.” Luna finished.

Agnès thought over everything she heard and asked Luna a few questions. “Does that mean… girls like Isa and Kella are Van’s lovers? But everyone else… like the regular goblins and such are not?” she asked, a little confused. “Where does one begin and the other end? And where do ‘mates’? Play a role in this hierarchy?”

Luna nodded. “All good questions. Technically speaking, you are right. While I don’t think even Van is aware of it, Kella and Isa are examples of lovers, perhaps they are even concubines already… as for mates… you could say they are equivalent to concubines, wives, or just above lovers, maybe actually all the same… it’s hard to explain… but those with beast-like origins are extremely loyal to their mates. So much so that it makes no difference…”

“I see…” Agnès mumbled as she processed everything Luna had said so far. “So… if I were to marry Van… since I would have to be soul bonded… that would make me a true wife… someone who thanks to the binding… I would love conditionally and who would love me back the same… and… that’s fine with you?” she asked, looking at Luna.

Luna gave a complicated expression. “Well… I admit… I never really thought it through before… but even if we’ve only known each other for a short time, I feel like you and I could be very good friends… I mean, we already are! And…” she blushed. “I don’t mind becoming closer with you…”

“Oh…” Now Agnès blushed. Not knowing what to say or how to reply to that. And if she had to be truthful, the two of them becoming closer didn’t sound so bad… and for some reason, the relationship that Van, Evergreen, and Lyn had, though she never met Lyn, didn’t sound so bad either… perhaps…

Agnès gave herself a mental shake and decided to change the subject to something else.

Luna seemed to have picked up on that and didn’t mind the change, following along with what Agnès said with a smile.

The two then moved deeper into the woods, gossiping like only two girls could do and having a blast while doing so. Soon their conversations changed to questions about life and society, their views, their hopes and dreams and so much more. At the end of their little outing, the girls both felt closer to each other than ever before…