A mature, civilized discussion (Chloe)

After a few minutes, Chloe opened the door. She thought it was Cheeto at first. Her excitement waned considerably when she realized her error; now she was just confused. “Oh… hi, Dorito. What’s up?”

Behind her, the goblin would be able to see her room. It was rather small, as was common for single dorms, with all the standard furniture: bed, desk, swivel chair, mini fridge. There were precious few touches that made it hers: a few posters here, a few plushies there. The snowglobe that Cheeto gave to Chloe for Christmas sat in a prominent location on her desk, next to her laptop and a mess of papers and textbooks.

Chloe had gotten a lot better at reading goblin facial expressions, or at least she thought that she did. She could tell that Dorito was feeling something. The demon girl stepped back and gestured for the goblin to come in. Whatever this was about, she believed it would be a welcome distraction from her homework.

There was something about Dorito’s tone, something about this out-of-the blue visit, that made Chloe begin to worry. This might be serious. She closed the door, then sat down in her chair.

Before Chloe closed her laptop, Dorito would be able to see that Chloe definitely wasn’t studying. Her screen displayed a colorful wiki page with a picture of a rock-golem-looking guy and a bunch of information about “stats” and “levels” and “scaling.” Dorito would not be the first “welcome distraction” from Chloe’s studies.

“Alright,” said the demon-girl, worry and uncertainty filling her voice. “What about her? Is… everything alright?” Chloe was beginning to expect the worst. Did Cheeto die? Did she have terminal cancer and only a few weeks to live? Her imagination used every second of silence to torment her with terrible possibilities.

Chloe couldn’t move. Dorito had some kind of mind control power, and she was stopping her from moving. By the time she could move again, the rope was doing that job for her. She was too confused, then too scared to even protest.

Now, Dorito was standing on her desk, pulling on her hair. Chloe stared back with wide eyes.

It took her a few seconds to realize what was happening – or at least, what Dorito thought was happening. The realization hit her in the gut, it made her sick, it came to her lips like bile. “You think I raped her.”

This was bad. She already knew it was bad when Dorito tied her to the chair; she didn’t know what the goblin was planning, only that it wouldn’t be in her best interests.

“I’m…” she started to speak, then trailed off. People had enough trouble believing that she wasn’t a sex demon when they weren’t accusing her of rape. Explaining what she was would be a waste of time. She needed a different strategy “I mean… holy shit. Did you ask Cheeto about this? Don’t you two have literal telepathy?” How could Dorito have possibly come to this conclusion?

Chloe’s stunned, shocked expression gave way to frustration. Her eyebrows furrowed. She silently mouthed the words what the – before the goblin’s hand moved to her jaw, restricting her ability to silently sass her.

Although all of Dorito’s accusations were complete nonsense, there was nothing Chloe could say to prove her innocence. She couldn’t prove that she didn’t have demon-magic mind-wiping powers any more than she could prove she wasn’t secretly a dragon in almost-human form. But she at least had to try.

“Your sister and I are friends because we both like the same things and we enjoy each other’s company. That’s how friends work.” It was Chloe’s term to be a little condescending, and maybe even a little sarcastic. “I’m not using some kind of evil demon-charm horseshit, and I haven’t had sex with her or anyone else. I’m not a sex demon. Where are you getting this stuff?”

Chloe stopped just short of asking Dorito if she was high on something. She didn’t know how to interpret that nosebleed. Was that a cocaine thing? Did that happen to people who snorted cocaine?

On some level, Chloe noticed the burst of blood from Dorito’s nose, and she recognized that it happened at the same time as the telepathic command. But she wasn’t allowed to think about it. For the next few seconds, she was no longer a thinking, feeling human being; she was a search engine. Her face relaxed, her eyes lost their focus, and her tail went limp. Every mental resource at Chloe’s disposal was committed to finding the answer to Dorito’s question. She didn’t try to fight the command at all.

When those two seconds were over, her mouth moved of its own accord. Not that she wanted to stop it. “It was probably the time we learned that playing with my tail is like giving me a handjob. She started playing with it while we were watching Star Trek in her room the day we met. I don’t know why she was doing that, but it felt really good. It was the first time anyone ever did that to my tail. I told her how it felt, she made the handjob comparison first. She stopped and we both felt very uncomfortable.”

Chloe regained control of herself. She looked into Dorito’s eyes and raised an eyebrow. “Can you please let go of my hair now?”