Emma's head darted back and forth before she finally looked up.

Tim paused, having been about to invoke a Poison Web to restrain her, and looked up as well.

Scipio was sitting cross-legged on the ceiling above them with a bag of potato chips. She reached slowly into the bag at an awkward angle while keeping it facing upwards. "Wasn't gonna say anything, but then you started talking about me, and I'm right here, so I figured…" She brought a handful of chips to her mouth and started chewing with a faint crunch.

Emma sighed, and her shoulders slumped.

"Have you been there the whole time?" Tim asked in amazement.

"Nah, I came in while she was stepping on your head," Scipio said. "Seemed interesting, so I thought I'd spectate."

"And you didn't do anything?" he demanded.

The woman on the ceiling shrugged. "You were gonna be fine, so I thought it'd be more fun to just hang out. Keep going though, I just wanted to do my part."

Tim let out a sigh as he rubbed a palm over his face. Yeah, that's Scipio, all right. Well, it's good timing, at least. "Okay, Emma, what the fuck's going on?" he asked more quietly, watching her face. "No more bullshit."

The blonde woman's face changed to the same expression of bottomless sorrow he'd seen briefly before she'd attacked him the first time, and then she took on a total absence of expression. "If your playing hero will allow me to leave in peace," she said, glancing up again at the ceiling, "then so be it. Here, the flaw you've so desperately sought." She brought her hands up in front of herself, grasped the first two fingers on her left hand tightly with her right, and jerked them roughly to the side.

A crisp snapping sound echoed in the silence of the room, and her fingers each bent sharply to the side at the first knuckle. Her expression remained entirely impassive through the process. She moved her hand to her third finger and slowly pulled it all the way back until it touched her forearm, her unflinching eyes never leaving his even when another, quieter crack sounded out and her finger became limp, flopping about unnaturally as she continued to move. She grasped her pinky and smoothly bent it until it hung down parallel to the side of her hand.

Tim stared, feeling increasingly queasy as he watched the woman break her own fingers.

"I've no ability to feel sensations of any sort, neither pain nor pleasure, coolness nor warmth," she said in a neutral tone. "Now, if you'll grace me with a healing spell, I'll be on my way, and you'll have all the time you wish to mock me." She stepped forward briskly and presented her mutilated hand to him, continuing to stare into his eyes without a trace of emotion on her face.

Tim's gaze dropped slowly to the hand in front of himself. That's fucked up. He looked back to the woman herself, though her face remained unchanged. "You…really can't feel anything?" he asked.

"A faint sensation of being touched upon my skin at times. Nothing further," she replied. "Is your curiosity now sated? Are you quite satisfied with returning your humiliation upon me? Determining a manner in which you've some sense of superiority?"

Tim glanced down at her hand. "Wait, so—"

"Only upon my skin," she said, her eyes growing frosty. "My fingers, Drake. If you would. I've the knowledge that you're capable of it. Unless leaving me in such a state suits you more?"

Tim reached out and gingerly took hold of her soft palm, trying to avoid touching any of her broken fingers. "Restoration," he murmured, focusing on throwing the spell the appropriate distance. What do I even say to that?

Her fingers began to twitch and jerk as they returned to their places, but she showed no reaction other than sliding her hand smoothly away from his once she was uninjured again.

"Can you taste at all?" Scipio asked, now on the floor as she walked up behind the shorter woman.

"If the flavor's potency is great enough, yes," Emma said, continuing to stare into Tim's eyes. "I'd prefer it if you'd not speak to me again," she said quietly. "You've—"

"I have an idea," Scipio said, sidling over to stand next to them. "Try this," she said, holding out a pink fruit with a small, but conspicuous bite taken out of it.

Emma glanced at the fruit, then at the other woman. "Must I?" she asked with a total lack of interest.

"Yeah, do it," Scipio said, inching the fruit closer. "This is gonna be really interesting. Probably."

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"Truly your sadism knows no bounds, scorpion woman," Emma said with a slight sound of resignation present in her voice. She took the offered fruit in her hand and brought it to her mouth without hesitation, taking a big bite.

Scipio leaned forward a little with a curious expression on her face.

Emma twitched, then she shuddered violently and let out a soft moan, her entire body going rigid as she squeezed her eyes shut. She continued moaning as her shudders intensified, gradually sinking down into a crouch.

"Huh, so that works," Scipio said.

Just as the dark-haired woman reached down to take the remaining piece of fruit back, Emma jammed it into her mouth, having to shove it in forcefully and turn it about to work it past her jaws.

"Hey, I didn't mean the whole thing!" Scipio complained.

Emma began to chew with some effort, and she started moaning again, this time more loudly as she shivered and shuddered. After a few seconds, her moans became a long wail, and she tipped over onto her side, continuing to twitch on the ground with her hands clenched at her dress.

"What the fuck was that?" Tim asked.

"Orgasm fruit," Scipio said with a frown. "Just wanted to see what would happen though. I wasn't gonna give her a whole one. Not like I have—"

"A what?" he exclaimed. "That's a thing?"

She looked up from the still-writhing woman to give him a shrug. "Sateus bribes me with them. He gets them from some pleasure deity who owes him favors."

"So…she's okay?" Tim pointed down to Emma, who was now laying on her side, breathing heavily.

"More than okay by the look of her," Scipio said with a smirk. "Might not even be sane anymore after eating that much of it."

As if to defy the supposition, Emma pushed herself upright at that moment. She patted her face, then her chest, then her legs, then pinched her arm before looking up at Scipio. Her eyes began to water, and her lips trembled. "How could a person so cruel as you exist?" she said with an agonized moan as the first tear streamed down her cheek. She rose to her feet and scurried towards the stairs, letting out the first of many loud, choking sobs as she passed through the doorway.

"That's fucked up," Tim muttered as he stared after her.

Scipio tore open a bag of potato chips and shrugged. "Eh. It was interesting, wasn't it? And what's she talking about cruel? Should be thanking me with how hard those things are to get."

He turned back to the dark-haired woman with an incredulous expression. "She… I bet she still can't feel anything though," he said, pointing to the stairs. "You gave her that, and she felt it, and now she knows she has to go the rest of her life never feeling anything again. That's fucked!"

Scipio crunched down on a big fistful of chips, her face set in a curious frown. "So? She had fun. I got to see something interesting. We both got something."

"Yeah, but…" Tim grimaced. She's not wrong in a certain sense? But I don't think there's many people who would think about it that way.

"Besides, why would I care what she thinks?" Scipio asked. "We're not friends. Barely even acquaintances." She studied his face for a moment. "Oh, it's because you two fucked, huh?"

Tim frowned. That's… He sighed. Alright, that's probably a lot of it considering she actually tried to kill me. If not for that, and if she wasn't so beautiful… Yeah, maybe she's right.

"Was it fun?" Scipio asked. "Never fucked someone who couldn't feel anything. Might be interesting."

"It wasn't," he said. "Feels pretty bad, honestly." The memories of it played through his head again, except this time Emma was staring at him with the same impassive face the entire while.

"Oh." Scipio crunched through more chips. "Huh. Well, she'll probably forget about it eventually. That's a human thing to do, right?"

Tim's frown intensified, and he looked anew at the woman. She seems…different. "No, probably not in this case," he said slowly.

"Huh," she said, rubbing her forehead with her free hand. "Really?"

His stomach growled. "Uh, yeah, I don't think it'd be very human to ever forget that, Scipio." He started to inch towards the nearest aisle of food, pulled along by his growing hunger, and she followed after him with a perplexed expression.

"You're sure it's not?" she asked.

"Completely sure," Tim said. He gave her a glance as he grabbed something that looked vaguely edible off the shelf without knowing what it was. "You…okay, Scipio?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" she asked, seeming even more confused. A grin spread suddenly over her face. "Oh, I get it. It's been a really long time since we fucked, so you wanna know if I'm interested again."

She's getting really weird now. "Uh, I… I was sort of just wondering if you were okay?" he asked again.

"Really?" she asked in a suspicious tone.

"Scipio, you're weirding me out more than usual," Tim said as he grabbed some sort of pasta-looking dish. "Seriously, what's going on?" He started back towards the table, passing by her, and she stopped in place, continuing to frown. He kept going, pausing only for the briefest of moments when he reached the table and found her sitting there with the same confused expression on her face as she stared down at the wooden top.

"I'm…just being human?" she said slowly, looking up at him like she wanted his approval. "Really human, right?"

He grabbed a fork from the nearby plate that held an infinite amount of dining utensils before he sat down across from her. "Do humans sit on the ceiling?" he asked rhetorically.

Scipio gave him an odd look. "This is a trick question, isn't it," she said. "Obviously they…" She frowned and rubbed her forehead again as she looked down at the table. "They don't," she said, sounding uncertain of herself.

This is starting to freak me out a little. As weird as she was, it was a dependable kind of weird. This is…something else. "How long has it been since I last saw you, anyway?" he asked. Hard to keep track with—

"Couple years maybe?" she said, sounding just as unsure.