23.1 Visitation

'Stanley has a sister.'

Ezraphel didn't know why this news came as a shock to her but it did. Or rather the implication of said information did anyway since Stanley seldom speaks about his family. Out of everything they've shared about each other for some reason the topic of his family has always been taboo. The few times she's ever brought the topic up Stanley shuts down and Ezraphel is bombarded with a great many conflicting emotions through their bond. It made her realize that she would get no information about them from him so she opted to do her own investigations.

Said investigation got her nowhere pretty quickly as her Stanley did not keep anything that would give her a hint as to the identity of his relatives, their personality and most importantly their relationship. If she wanted to she could have employed her magic to track down and spy on his relatives however she would rather have her Stanley open up about them to her. In fact Ezraphel was only aware of their existence because Stanley himself wasn't able to completely abide by his taboo. Over the course of their relationship he has slipped and let out some information about them. 

So far Ezraphel is aware that he has a mother, a brother and a father. She could also tell from his emotions when mentioning them that he has a strained yet somewhat positive relationship with his mother, a good relationship with his brother and as for his father. Ezraphel has never felt her Stanley loathed someone so and that said a lot considering he makes it a point not to bother wasting energy with such emotions.

Regardless her Stanley has never mentioned having a sister which she found to be odd given his current reaction. Currently Ezraphel and Stanley were in the car making their way to the hospital. They were both still dressed for their date which was very much cancelled at this point not that Ezraphel cared. No the Lilim cared more about her Stanley and the emotions roiling off him at the moment.

Anxiety, fear, anger and impatience are the ones that stood out to her and the ones that mattered. It hadn't been lost on her that at the moment he was using the two latter emotions to mask the two former ones. 

Case in point…

On their way they met a bit of light traffic and Stanley seemed to be very close to inciting a 'road rage' incident. So to prevent that Ezraphel laid a comforting hand on his shoulder causing him to flinch and glance at her. Neither said anything and he visibly calmed himself down until the traffic moved forward. This silence persisted though it was far from awkward or stifling, if anything it was actually companionable. 

They arrived at the hospital almost an hour after they left the house and Ezraphel couldn't help but marvel at the building. She's only ever seen hospitals through various forms of Earth media and this particular building looked drastically different from how they are depicted. That is not even mentioning the differences between it and the hospitals in Eos not that she could opine on that as much.

Ezraphel couldn't say she spent a great deal of time with the healers on Eos. Most of them are under the purview of the Medical Sabbath and whilst she had been interested in learning their techniques at one point they would not allow her to apprentice under one of their doctors unless she actually joined the Sabbath. Needless to say Ezraphel had no intention of losing her mature and voluptuous body even if it was merely a formality and she would be free to leave.

Of all the Lilims Ezraphel is said to have a body closest to her mother's physical form despite being one of the youngest, a fact she took pride in. Ezraphel very much liked the way she looked and would not change one of the very few advantages she had over her siblings in order to learn a few spells. At least that was her thought process when faced with the decision at the time though now she realized the medical profession was much more expansive yet intricate than she thought.

She ended up learning medical spells secondhand from other sources. Now granted they were not as intricate or extensive as what she could have been learned from the Makai's premiere healing cult but it provided a good enough foundation for her. It was through this foundation that she was able to contrast and compare Eos and Earth medical care.

Mamono don't really get sick and even then Mamono born diseases are hardly truly debilitating unlike human diseases. Usually Mamono cannot contract human diseases or so it was thought but the truth is that there is such a thing as cross contamination with human diseases being caught by mamono and turning into something else entirely. This was actually the basis behind the Medical Sabbath's formation by Greilia Little. 

As for human healers on Eos they have middling success as far as she was concerned especially outside of magical healing. Mamono healing methods are just vastly superior if only because Demonic Energy was already predisposed to not being harmful in general. If anything Demonic Energy could actually be used as a healing agent itself under the right circumstances. Of course with the side effects being increased libido and such. 

Shaking her head of such thoughts Ezraphel focused on what she knew of earth medicine…which turned out to be not much at all. Seriously she thought human medicine on Eos was difficult (if not a bit simple) but medicine on earth was a convoluted mess. It is generally agreed upon by online consensus that medicine is one of the more difficult professions to pursue. Not just because there is a lot of knowledge to cover but also because the healthcare is ever evolving and expanding with innovation. 

Doctors are charged with keeping up or losing their profession. There will always be new technologies discovered, new methods formulated, old methods that need to be updated or expunged and so much more. With all that said Ezraphel was still very curious and despite the circumstances she was actually a bit excited about what she would find inside what is essentially a modern apothecary.

Arriving inside the building Ezraphel was hit with the scent of something she could not quite indentify however if there was a description for it then it would have to be sterile. From the windows to the walls, from the air to the general aesthetic of the interior there seemed to be an emphasis on cleanliness that was just too systemic to be coincidental. Given that this was a building for healing maladies she understood the need for it and far be it for her to cast judgment but damn did it make the interesting architecture and curious design choices seem muted.

Not that Ezraphel thought of such things for more than the minute or two it took for her to venture deeper into the building. The thing Ezraphel could clearly note about the hospital is its size. Like all very important buildings the hospital is big, huge even, practically a castle onto itself. Naturally with its size it houses a great many people, some are staff but most are patients. Ezraphel knew this because she could sense them, the patients that is.

'Ah, now I remember why I do not stay in the company of healers more than I have to back home.'

Said reason being that healers, by the very definition of their job, have a tendency to stay around the injured and afflicted. Now Ezraphel would never ever disparage a healer or their duties however all succubi possess empathic abilities and a Lilim's are so precise that some of her siblings are able to make it seem as if they could read minds. Ezraphel herself has some mastery over this innate ability and a rather wide range which bodes ill for when she is surrounded by misery and suffering.

And make no mistake for all its uniformed cleanliness and sterile aesthetics the hospital was basically a focal point for misery and suffering. It wasn't just the patients either but also the some of the staff who seemed anxious, overworked and generally miserable. Stanley didn't seem to notice this fact being a bundle of nerves concealed behind an impressive veneer of calm.

"I'm here to see Natalie Berkowitz."

The name had Ezraphel pivot most of her attention back to Stanley who after a brief back and forth with the receptionist was ordered to wait for a nurse. The waiting room wasn't filled to capacity but there was at least a dozen other people in the waiting area. Not all of them were patients but all of them did turn their gazes to them at some point or another. Since both of them were set to go out on a date and were dressed as such having people stealing glances, especially at Ezraphel, was expected,.

Stanley didn't seem to notice or really care and usually Ezraphel would be of the same mind but there was a problem. Well there were actually several but the most immediate (following her empathic abilities picking up negative emotions) came in the form of another couple in the waiting area. The woman was visibly pregnant and as Ezraphel beheld her swollen belly the Lilim could not help but feel a spike of jealousy and longing.

It is incredibly difficult for Mamono to become pregnant considering that they use semen as sustenance, literally feeding on it. The difficulty only gets worse for Mamono who are powerful and/or magically inclined as they are fairly high maintenance and demand even more spirit energy in the form of semen to be satiated. It is unfortunate that Ezraphel falls into this category and there wasn't much she could do about it.

Right now her Stanley has the most potent seed in the entire world with such virility that a single drop could guarantee pregnancy in a normal human woman. It is also packed with Spirit Energy fit to feed a voracious Lilim like her but only just. The fact that they've had sex dozens of times and she's had her womb drenched in his cum without it fertilizing her eggs spoke volumes. 

Don't get her wrong Ezraphel very much likes having sex with her Stanley and it was far from a means to an end but the ultimate goal of every Mamono is child rearing. Even the most obstinate Mamono in the world would jump at the chance to have children and if they say they don't then they are lying or delusional. Ezraphel is no exception and it is her personal dream to have Stanley's children but with no clear metric on how, when or what could spark a natural pregnancy in Lilim she didn't know a way to expedite the process. 

That's fine though because she was patient and while did not think about it too much about it seeing other women carrying children did bring up feelings of jealousy, impatience and dare she say a bit of inadequacy as well. Then, as if taunting her with the presence of a pregnant woman wasn't enough, Ezraphel peeked from the corner of her eye before turning to find a child sitting on his mother's lap. He looked adorable wearing blue overalls and holding a toy.

He was also looking right at her and for a moment the two stared before he gurgled some kind of baby babble and held up his toy with a smile.

'…that's not fair~' she internally whined at the absolutely adorable display.

"Mr. Berkowitz?"

Luckily at that moment a nurse came calling and Stanley hopped to his feet with Ezraphel following a moment later. As they walked away however she heard an infantile voice call out to her.

"Bye-bye"

Ezraphel stiffened and looked over her shoulder at the child who was waving goodbye to her. Resisting the urge to gush and coo at the display had the disguised Lilim almost mechanical in her own wave goodbye. Following this she made haste to catch up to her Stanley who was speaking with the nurse, the click clacking of her heels going at a quicker rate.

She did not catch whatever was said between them however she did feel dissatisfaction from Stanley which said all that needed to with the conversation. They spent a minute in relative silence as the nurse guided them to their destination. The entire time Ezraphel tried her very best to ignore what was happening around her. 

Finally they arrived at a room where an older man in a white coat she recognized from various media came into view. Clearly this man was the doctor and Ezraphel felt a bit guilty that the man momentarily got distracted by her before Stanley snapped him out of it. Ezraphel lowered her charm effect to absolute zero after that.

After the man introduced himself as Dr. Harrison and confirming Stanley's identity the latter got down to business.

"What happened to her?" Stanley demanded with a scowl.

The doctor seemed to hesitate for a bit perhaps put off by Stanley's attitude. Ezraphel tuned them out for a bit as she looked through the open door to the woman currently laying unconscious on the bed. From her position she could see a passive resemblance to her Stanley in her long brown hair but that was about it. 

Ezraphel let her more esoteric senses wash over the woman and there she found something peculiar. There was something off about the comatose woman that prickled Ezraphel's memory but she couldn't quite put her finger on it…

"What?"

The single word practically echoed with the sensation of Stanley's negative emotions doubling in that same instance. Turning back to the two men she could see that once again the doctor looked put off though this time Ezraphel can see the reason why. Her Stanley's emotions were so overwhelming that his mana reacted instinctively lacing his words with palpable intent. Luckily he seemed to have caught on to this (his training in mana manipulation showing) and reigned himself in.

"I'm sorry but could you repeat that" Stanley said with a calmness that was betrayed when opened and closed his fist with an audible *pop* of his knuckle bones "and please don't spare any of the details."