She walked over to the dining room table and sat down, scratching at the wood with a nail. "Could you tell me more about Rises?"
“Sure!” Julia put down her rag. “What’cha curious about?”
“I was just wondering how you and Yuli get along so well when- well, how can humans and fae be in relationships when they’re so different?"
“You mean, how can we have relationships when fae eat humans?”
Phoebe nodded.
“Of all the unbound fae I've met, most of them only kill to eat, and a fae only needs to eat once or twice a year. So I don't think we're that different; we're both just tryin' to survive. Circle of life and stuff. Except fae are doing it without factory farming and war. Once I thought about it that way, the whole 'eating humans' thing stopped bothering me."
Most people would stay bothered, and Phoebe herself still found herself instinctually put off at times, but she let her friends continue.
"And then," Yuli said, "the Rise was needed to get rid of my hunger. Many fae would rather not kill."
"Yes! Fae are choosing to become familiars so that they won't have to hunt, and we're choosing to feed them in a way that doesn't hurt us. It's hard to have a relationship—any relationship—without that. Our Rise links me and Yuli together so that…” Julia paused, trying to find the right words. “Every bit of energy my body uses, Yuli is fed by some of it. My energy flows into them, and it happens at such a steady pace that I don’t even feel it unless they turn into something big, or we’re in a fight. Then I’m giving more to them."
"Or we're dancing, or exercising." Yuli smiled.
"Or in bed together," Julia said, returning her partner's grin.
Phoebe had heard some of this before. Her kneejerk reaction was to view Yuli as a parasite, leeching off of Julia. But that wasn’t true. Julia was happily supporting Yuli, and in turn they protected her and Avernus. Together they had a friendship more intimate than Phoebe had ever seen before.
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02.05.2025
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Wild fae eat rarely, which gives them a large amount of energy that slowly dissipates. A fae who's just eaten is more powerful and can take on larger forms than a hungry one. This is why wild fae are typically lure/ambush predators. Familiars, on the other hand, receive smaller amounts of energy but the flow is pretty much constant. They don't go hungry, and have a more stable range of shapeshifting capabilities.
I use "energy" as an intentionally-vague term. When Julia is feeding Yuli, she's feeding them the energy from burnt calories, more or less. And wild fae don't exactly "eat" the way that other predators consume their prey's flesh. But energy, as it pertains to the more magical parts of the Katabasis universe, isn't limited to that.