“The first thing you need to know about harems,” Mikael began, once they were outside the Director’s office and walking back along the wood-paneled corridors, “is that they’re the most common Sekkie trait, and the easiest to spot. Wherever a Sekkie appears, inevitably they’ll form a harem.”
“It’s almost pathological, really,” Fiona chimed in. “Pretty sure it’s not even a skill; it’s just baked into their existence.”
Brock tugged at his shirt collar. He had a vague idea what a harem was from one of his history classes, but he was having trouble reconciling the image of shapely women in thin silks and colorful veils lounging around palm trees as some kind of isekai signpost.
“Sorry, I don’t quite get it. I thought harems were only something desert princes had. With like, figs, and dates and stuff.”
Fiona giggled and Mikael looked over at Brock, eyes slightly widening. He slapped a hand to his forehead.
“Still not used to you being relatively normal. My fault.” He opened a door, revealing the interior of an elevator ant, and all three stepped inside. The ant scuttled into motion, quickly passing through the Yggdrasil to the trunk outside. “A Sekkie harem is similar to what you’re thinking of, except it’s not always about sex.”
“Oh it’s always about sex,” Fiona interjected, staring out the clear elevator side at the passing air traffic, “but some don’t start that way.”
“Okay, yes, fine,” Mikael grumbled, “harems always end up being about sex, but the point remains - they’re not the same thing as what he’s thinking. Do you want to give the lecture?”
“I will if you write my reports.”
“You wish.”
Fiona pouted as Mikael cleared his throat, but he ignored her.
“Anyways. Sekkies have a habit of ‘collecting’ people around them. Usually they’re notable in some way, have a couple level ones or a level two skill in something, or the Sekkie thinks they’re someone important, or their hair color is just the right shade. That’s when the harem starts.”
“What happens?” Brock asked, fascinated despite himself.
“The harem member, in most cases a woman, finds themselves fixating on the Sekkie, in most cases a man, to the exclusion of all else, whether they want to or not. Eventually, all they can think about is the Sekkie, what he wants, and how they can help him get what he wants. Then the Sekkie moves on to the next one he thinks he can use.”
“Isn’t that, uhhh, well, ‘love?’”
“Love’s a two way street, kid,” Mikael replied grimly. “There’s nothing to do with love in what’s happening in a Sekkie harem. All they do is take, because they only ever think about themselves. It’s wish fulfillment - nothing more.”
“Ecchi, moe, hentai yaoi otome,” Fiona sang softly. “Lose your self and, never come back.”
Brock felt a chill run down his spine. It sounded like a lullaby, but at the same time, there was an echo of grief in Fiona’s voice.
“What’s that?”
“A nursery rhyme we teach kids to recognize the warning signs,” Fiona responded, her face going blank. “Not all of them listen.” The morning light outside went dark, replaced by the interior of the Yggdrasil as the elevator ant scurried back inside. A second later, the doors whisked open, revealing more wood-paneled hallways, and Fiona stepped out past Brock and Mikael. “I’m going to go write up those reports. Catch you two later.”
Brock watched her walk away and swallowed uncomfortably.
“Is she, uhhh, okay?”
Mikael ushered him out of the elevator into familiar corridors, not unkindly.
“Everyone here has scars. You’ll get used to it. For now, let’s go over the second thing you need to know about harems.”
“...there’s a second thing I need to know about harems?”
With a deceptively sinister smile, Mikael pushed Brock through one of the many non-descript doors lining the hallway.
“Yeah. They’ll kill you if you upset their master.”
The rectangle of light slowly slid shut, leaving Brock in utter darkness. A slow hissing rose into his ears.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“...stranger...”
“...meat...”
“...feed”
Brock didn’t piss himself, but it was a close thing. The combination of impenetrable darkness coupled with reptilian hisses forming comprehensible speech was doing a number on his mammalian hindbrain, but he sucked in a deep breath.
Mikael isn’t a jerk. I hope.
“...uhhh, hello?”
“It speaks!”
“Does it know the master?!”
“What does the master desire??”
Brock clutched his arms around himself.
“What... uhhh, who are you?”
“...it does not know us.”
"It does not know the master.”
“...it is meat.”
“Uhhh, no, no, I don’t think I’m supposed to be meat, uhhh...”
Sibilant whispers coiled through the air like drifting mist. Sinuous figures clad in wisps of nothing writhed just below comprehension, soft curves and slicing edges.
“It is meat.”
“Delicious, delicious.”
“The master loves us to bestow such a gift.”
A pinprick of sensation, just enough to touch the nerves, then numbness.
“Uhhh...”
Agony. Impossible agony in such a small location.
“Look at it squirm.”
“Delicious, delicious.”
“The master loves us.”
More pinpricks. More singularities of destruction.
...high-pitched squeals, a rodent gasping its last breaths in a back-breaker trap.
“...writhe, writhe”
“dELiCiOus”
“LOVE.”
“...that’s enough.”
After the fires cleared from Brock’s mind, he realized he was curled in the fetal position against one of the wood-paneled walls of the corridor, plush carpet beneath limbs just barely regaining sensation.
“What,” he gasped, “what was that?”
“My harem,” Mikael said slowly, one hand at the hilt on his hip. Shadows Brock had somehow never noticed darkened the Blade’s cheeks and brows, turning wrinkled laugh lines into something far more menacing, and his prowling walk now resembled the stalking killer’s gait it had always been. “Want to join?”
Brock gulped heavily, mind still trying to process the nightmare slowly fading from his memory.
“I’m... uhhh... I’m okay, thanks...”
Mikael leaned down, peering closely into Brock’s eyes, then nodded sharply.
“Excellent. Come, follow me. We need to debrief.”
“...hngrghhh...”
Mikael dragged him to his feet and then through another unremarkable door. The room beyond was depressingly boring in its nondescriptness, two forgettable chairs facing each other across an even more unmemorable table. Wasting no time, Mikael dumped Brock in one chair, then sat down in the other, producing several sheets of paper and a pen from somewhere in his suit.
“When we first met, what were your emotional impressions of me?” Mikael asked briskly, pen poised just above the top sheet of paper. “Full honesty, please.”
“...uhhh, dangerous, competent...”
Mikael ticked several spots on the paper, then turned it over.
“And after our subsequent meetings? Before this most recent one, of course.”
“...maybe a friend... still dangerous... wait, what the fu-”
“Splendid!” Mikael’s genuine outburst of pleasure silenced Brock, and the pen scratched several more times. Sighing happily, Mikael turned over the paper to the next page. “Are you able to identify when you first lost emotional control to a Harem-class manipulator?”
“...buh?”
“That’s a ‘no,’ then. Fantastic.”
Brock shook his head, trying to regain some semblance of normality. Once again it felt like he’d taken a high-dive into the depths of surreality.
“Mikael. Please. What. The. Fuck. Was that?”
The Blade tucked his pen away and squared up the papers before fixing Brock with a soulless stare. The eyes of a sword that could cut death itself.
“That’s what a harem is, Brock. Ever since we met, I’ve been preparing you to join mine. Any fond feelings you have regarding me were me manipulating you entirely towards that goal. One of the Director’s backup contingencies, in case you turned out to be... worse than you are. It’s amazing how many physically oriented Sekkies have no defense against mental persuasion.”
Brock felt blood rushing to his face.
“I thought we were supposed to be teammates! I thought we were friends!”
Mikael smiled, an uncanny valley slowly morphing into something that might be generously described as human.
“We are teammates, which is why your subversion was repurposed into a training exercise.” He reached down a hand, and Brock let himself be reluctantly pulled to his feet. “You now have firsthand experience in how a harem indoctrination works.” Mikael’s fingers tightened around Brock’s, to the point of pain. “It is an insidious thing, reviled by anyone with an ounce of morality. The slow replacement of one’s will with another’s, carried out beneath the guise of trust, eventually ending in the absolute subsumption of an entire being. It is abhorrent, and the most terrifying part is that someone sufficiently experienced will make sure you do not feel it happening.”
Mikael shoved Brock back against the wood-paneled wall.
“Just like you didn’t feel me doing it until I deliberately broke your conditioning.”
Brock shuddered, tiny quivers at first, then progressing to full-body shakes.
“That’s... my mind...”
Mikael’s face softened, harsh angles smoothing back out into his normal genial lines.
“And now you understand why harems are so dangerous. The more victims a Sekkie gathers, the greater the crime. It’s an absolute violation of what makes a person a person - the loss of their free will.”
Brock wiped an arm against his nose, sniffling.
“Then what about who was in that room? Your harem. Didn’t you take their free will away?”
The Blade stared at him expressionlessly, hand once again falling to the hilt at his waist. His fingers drummed a near-silent tattoo on the intricately wrapped leather handle.
“Their choice was taken from them ages ago. I’m just the latest to bear the burden.”
"I don't understand," Brock said plaintively.
Mikael chuckled, his face once again switching to the gentle expression Brock now knew was a mask.
"You're one of less than a handful of people that have met all three of my blades and still draws breath. Be content with that." He clapped his hand on Brock's shoulder. "Now, let's go. We need to get you processed properly into the system as a member of the squad."
Brock let himself be led away down the corridor, arms still clutched around his shaking midsection. Harems sucked.