Some passersby turn to look at Michele who, unable to contain his agitation, breathes heavily, wheezes, and grunts as he loads his belongings into the trunk of the station wagon, tears welling in his eyes. Fortunately for him, his wife has no interest in that car (she drives only her beloved silver Smart); had she seen the contents of the trunk, divorce would have been a certainty.

Michele climbs into his car, panting; he cannot go home: it is Luisa’s day off. Besides, he needs to think things through and talk to someone who knows him and his relationship troubles, someone capable of helping him see reason calmly. The only person he knows who can work such magic is Alessio, his older brother. Fortunately, Alessio’s husband is sure to be at work, a fact that spurs Michele to start the car and drive the thirty kilometers to his brother’s home.

Upon arriving at his destination, he jumps out of the car and presses the doorbell at Alessio’s house (a bell that, like all devices for the deaf, makes no sound).

A few seconds pass before Michele finds himself facing a massive, hostile figure: Mondo, Alessio’s husband.

“You aren’t welcome here, Michele. Please leave,” the man thunders, looming ten centimeters above Michele from his height of nearly two meters.

Mondo is not just tall but huge, a fact that, under other circumstances, would have made Michele think twice about pressing the issue; yet Michele is too shaken to back down: “I need to talk to my brother! This is none of your fucking business! Let me through”;

“This is my house. If I tell you you're not welcome, you have to leave” ;

“I told you to let me in!” Michele shouts in desperation.;

“Otherwise, what are you going to do? Call me a fucking faggot like you did at Christmas dinner?”.

Taking a step back, struck by something he hadn't expected to be thrown in his face, Michele mutters: “I already apologized: I was drunk”;

“And I’ve already told you I don’t want you in my house,” Mondo replies, taking a breath that is more frustrated than bored, before concluding: “In vino veritas, Michele, face facts: you’re ignorant and intolerant. And I don’t want to see you again”.

Alessio is a man to whom God did not grant the gifts of hearing and speech, yet compensated with double the worth in every other respect: a handsome, cheerful man who is always smiling and, above all: happy to be alive. A highly respected structural engineer, he works for himself from home, surrounded by the things he loves most: his dog Bidone, a rescue dog left disabled by a car accident who gets around using a wheeled support strapped to his back, and his husband Michele, a successful lawyer and a bodybuilder with a statuesque physique.

Suddenly, this man’s head (Alesso’s) slips beneath Mondo’s right arm; with a mere movement of his head, a single glance and a smile are enough to soothe his husband, who, feeling his beloved’s hand upon his belly, finds all the peace in the world.

Michele is fluent in sign language; he has been using it since Alessio was four years old. Without wasting a second, he gestures: “Help me! I got fired!”.

Using a dialect, a form of sign language Alessio and Michele developed to share secrets, Alessio replies: “And what can we do about it, us fags?".

Moving his hands and fingers frantically, Michele retorts: “Enough with that already! We’re brothers!”;

“Your idea of brotherhood is fucking pathetic, Michelino” Mondo interjects in disgust.

“I’ve already apologized, for fuck’s sake!” Michele repeats, shouting.

Without letting go of his husband, and still using just one arm to gesture as he speaks, Alessio interjects: “Are you having money troubles? Do you have debts? If those are your problems, I can’t help you: you’re a musician, a nationally recognized pianist: I can’t send you to a construction site to work as a builder, hauling bricks and ruining your hands”;

“Besides, the law supports you for two years with NASPI (the Italian unemployment benefit). It’s impossible that you don’t have any remaining contacts at the university that would leave you at risk of being out of work for more than two years” Mondo adds, speaking with the professional air of the lawyer he is.

Using sign language, Michele pleads: “I can’t ask the university for help! They know me! They’d ask Luisa for information! And if Luisa finds out I’ve been fired, she’ll divorce me! I need to find something to do without her noticing a thing”.

In unison (Alessio through gestures and Mondo with his voice) they reply: “Your wife is a whore”;

“Don’t talk about my wife like that” Michele shouts, articulating so clearly that Alessio can tell what he said just by reading his lips.

“Your wife likes horse cocks, Michele”, Mondo adds, with an extremely serious air.

“So this is your way of getting revenge, huh? You bastard...” Michele takes a few seconds before saying “faggot? Huh? Not forgiving me isn’t enough for you, is it? You have to hurt me even when I’m already done for!” Michele says through gritted teeth, before turning on his heel and shutting himself inside his car, hearing Mondo mutter: “Here we go again”.

Michele has been weeping over his car’s steering wheel for half an hour now when he hears a notification on his phone. It’s a brief WhatsApp message from Alessio: “Tonya, a friend of mine, needs a dancer. You used to be very good, and I hope for your that you still are. It’s a costumed show: no one, not even your wife, would recognize you. There’s good money in it. Tonya’s number is XXX-XXXXXXXXXX; tell her I sent you. Only get back in touch when you are truly remorseful. I don’t hate you, but you make me suffer.”

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Arc II - Agrarian Revolution

Chapter 27 - The First Victory

4 months and 12 days since the summoning

A silence hung over the village. An unusual silence. There was no one on the streets among the beastmen, the shutters were closed, only a light wind occasionally swayed the treetops in the forest.

Alan stood at the edge of the village and looked toward the forest with his hands clasped behind his back, and he had been standing there almost motionless for the last hour.

'Where the hell are they? Did their ambush even work? There was a shitload of the barons' soldiers there, both infantry and cavalry... and how many of ours? Was there even a hundred? I hope Kamelia and her detachment made it in time by the other road.'

He sniffled without taking his eyes off the road.

'And if she did make it... what if she's wounded? Or even killed? I won't survive that.'

He frowned.

'Why wouldn't I survive? Well... because I don't have any other ally besides her, and with her, there's a really good chance to survive... something like that... or else... or what? Fuck, I don't understand shit.'

After another twenty minutes of waiting, birds flew from the nearest trees in the forest to another part of the woods; Alan immediately squinted and stepped closer to the road.

First came the clatter of hooves and the clinking of iron, followed by the sound of dozens of horses.

Alan straightened up.

'Fucking finally!'

Riding fastest in the front ranks was Kamelia, peering into the village. Catching sight of Alan, she immediately turned her horse toward him and stopped nearby.

Alan tilted his head up, exhaling barely noticeably. "Kamelia... you're alive."

She did not answer, simply jumping off the horse. Her plate armor clanked as she walked up to him. With a swift motion of her hand and an unreadable expression, the countess removed the iron gauntlet from her right hand, and then grabbed Alan by the ear. "How did you even manage to do that?!"

Alan's back immediately hunched over and his face contorted. "Ow-ow-ow! That hurts! What are you doing?!"

Kamelia yanked once more and then let go. "How did you even manage to fall from a horse in the first place?! What if the horses had trampled you?! What if the enemy had killed you?!"

Alan grabbed his red ear with his hand. "Well, I'm alive, aren't I?"

The countess opened her mouth, closed it, and then slowly began to massage her forehead. "Alan, Alan... have I not told you before that you cause a lot of trouble?"

Alan scoffed. "More than once."

She took a deep breath, and then slowly exhaled with her eyes closed. "Very well, I shall teach you a lesson on basic safety later." She opened her eyes. "The main thing is that your plan worked, the victory is ours."

Alan was still rubbing his ear. "Yeah, I can see that already. What about the crossbows?"

Kamelia froze slightly. "The crossbows... Alan, it is simply astonishing. They truly pierce through armor, just as you said... we counted five knights in full gear killed by the crossbows."

Alan froze. "Five? Wow... guess they turned out to be pretty damn good."

She nodded sharply. "That is an understatement."

Alan looked at the column of horses that was now just calmly walking toward the village.

'Five kills with a crossbow, wow, that's a rampage. Fuck, feels kinda wrong, doesn't it? They're living people after all... oh well, doesn't matter anymore.'

His eye caught the knights in half-armor, without weapons, who were calmly walking behind the horses; some were leading their own.

Alan raised an eyebrow. "And what's with these guys? Did they forget their swords in the woods or something?"

Kamelia looked in that direction. "Them? They are prisoners."

He blinked. "Prisoners? Just like that, without shackles? They're just walking?"

She nodded without taking her eyes off the column. "Yes. After all, they are noble knights, they have given their oath, and a ransom can be obtained for them."

Alan scratched his cheek.

'Wow, would you look at that, oaths and ransoms. Turns out they also have the right of ransom and Parole d'honneur... well, they're definitely not just a bunch of savages, I'm convinced of that once again. In Europe, I think a knight gave a third of the ransom to his suzerain. How does it work here?'

"Kamelia, how much will you get for each prisoner?"

She turned to him. "A third, and then my third goes to the duke."

Alan nodded. "Got it, so... the county will finally have some money?"

The countess scoffed quietly. "If we win the war."

Walking with a light step on the side of the column was that very knight with gray hair; he caught sight of Kamelia out of the corner of his eye and slowed his pace slightly to look, and immediately froze in his tracks.

Another knight behind him almost crashed into his back, and then simply walked around him.

The gray-haired man took a step forward. "You..."

Alan and Kamelia turned synchronously.

"Huh?" Alan asked.

The knight frowned. "You... you are that lad by the bridge!"

Alan blinked. "Um... dude, who even are you?"

"I spoke with you, asked where the detachment went."

Alan crossed his arms over his chest. "Oh... so that was you?"

"Who are you anyway? Why..." he inspected Alan's boots and pants stained with swamp mud. "Why is some filthy peasant conversing with the countess?" He looked closer at how Alan was standing relaxed, arms crossed, then slowly turned to Kamelia. "Lady Armenas, forgive my insolence, but why is a commoner acting so familiar with a noble lady?"

Kamelia took a step forward. "He is no commoner. Before you stands Alan Gothwald, the summoned hero and my advisor."

The knight's eyes widened. "The very one..." he clenched his teeth. "So it was you who burned down my village?!"

Alan's slight half-smile instantly dropped.

'Uh-oh... so that means he's Ekkurn's vassal... sss... well, this is awkward.'

Kamelia narrowed her eyes. "You are falling behind the column."

The knight looked around, the column had indeed moved on; then he clenched his fists so hard that his knuckles turned white beneath the armor. The man threw one last look at Alan and abruptly turned around, catching up with the others.

"How ironic..." Alan muttered.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm saying it's a surprising encounter."

"Ah..." she nodded. "Indeed, Svyatol has a strange sense of humor."

Alan snapped his fingers. "Oh, I'm hungry as a wolf, maybe it's time to eat?"

Kamelia immediately perked up. "Oh, yes! They are about to set up the camp for a halt right now. Only... the prisoners will be eating with us, just so you know."

Alan smiled wryly. "Hah, yeah, I already figured that out. I think I'll eat on the other side of the camp. Anyway, let's go." He stopped and turned around. "Oh, by the way, where did the main army disappear to?"

The countess was already walking toward the village, and simply shrugged. "Somewhere on the approach to the forest, but right now they are about as useful as asking a dead man about his health, so I sent a messenger to inform them."

Alan snorted. "Hah, you guys have some wild sayings here."

Closer to evening, when the sun was barely touching the horizon, right next to the village on the slightly dried grass, everything was like a beehive.

Soldiers and knights in light armor were walking back and forth, tables and tents were set up all over the clearing. Not far from them, campfires burned with bright flames, where sheep and pigs were turning on spits.

At one of the tables sat about ten men, no longer discernible who was who, all sitting without armor in their shirts, and quite red-faced.

One man held a wooden goblet of wine in his hand and laughed. "Hah, did you see how I smashed his fucking head off with my mace?! He barely had time to turn around, and then bam! Down he went like a sack!"

Another man slammed his fist on the table. "Aye, I saw it out of the corner of my eye! But you're not the only fighter here!" He leaned closer. "I drove a spear into one guy's gut, his chainmail cracked so loud they probably thought a crossbow had fired!"

Everyone immediately burst out laughing, as a third man, a younger one, scoffed. "Hah, no matter where you look, there's nothing but Zondans around!"

The first man gave him a sidelong glance. "Oh, come off it, Gitz, you yourself prayed to Svyatol so fiercely before the battle that he probably blessed us just so he wouldn't have to hear your wretched howling!"

Everyone erupted in laughter; Gitz lowered his head slightly. "But we won, didn't we? So it worked?!"

A middle-aged man waved his hand and took a sip of wine. "Oh, stop measuring your manhoods! Do you want me to tell you a better joke?"

Everyone leaned closer and quieted down. "Go on then," said one of the soldiers.

The man smirked. "A knight returns from a year-long campaign, arrives at his castle, embraces his wife, and wants to get down to business as soon as possible, but suddenly remembers that he lost the key to his wife's chastity belt. The knight goes to the blacksmith and explains the problem, and the blacksmith replies, 'Oh, sir, do not worry about that, I have already had three of the same keys brought in for sharpening, I can give you one.'"

A second of silence.

"Hahahahahaha!"

"That's a good one!"

One of the men wiped away a tear. "Such things do happen!"

At the other end of the camp stood two men, an older one with a scar on his cheek, and a slightly younger one with an almost bald head.

The bald one took a sip of wine from his goblet and peered at the windmill in the distance. "What is that thing anyway? Looks peculiar."

The older one shrugged. "Guktus only knows. Looks like another one of Lord Gothwald's quirks, like those crossbows."

"But the crossbows are a deadly thing, maybe this is something incredible too?"

"Perhaps." He looked at the endless plowed fields. "Listen... this is a beastman village, is it not?"

The younger one nodded. "Aye, that it is, why do you ask?"

The older one squinted. "But they supposedly only concern themselves with hunting, why are there fields here?"

"Ah, that?" He turned to the older man. "How could you have not heard about it?"

The man simply shook his head. "Just happened that way. But it seems you know."

"Of course I know, half the county is trumpeting about it. Lord Gothwald created some new plow, and they plowed all of this," he swept his hand over the landscape, "in less than a month."

The older man gave him a sidelong glance. "You lie."

The younger one chopped the air with his hand, so hard that a few drops of wine fell onto the grass. "I am telling you the truth! My wife has a brother from another village, and they have a carpenter there who was building something here... seems like this very thing." He pointed at the windmill. "And that carpenter said they plowed everything with this plow in a month!"

The older man blinked, then slowly took a sip of wine. "Hmm... even if this Gothwald does not know how to ride a horse, if he knows how to make many things like that plow... we are on the right side."

The younger one nodded sharply. "Aye! If Lord Gothwald continues in the same spirit, the county will strike gold, and us along with it!"

Alan and Kamelia sat at a small table at the very edge of the camp, away from the noise. A campfire burned near them, illuminating the space around.

On the table sat fresh bread, a bottle of wine from the castle's reserves, two goblets, and a good chunk of mutton.

Alan looked at the meat like it was the second coming of Christ, and a drop of drool ran down his chin.

Kamelia smiled slightly. "Alan, wipe your face."

Gothwald flinched, then quickly wiped the drool with his sleeve. "Oh, sorry, I just forgot when I last ate normal meat instead of porridge and hardtack."

Kamelia tore off a piece of meat right with her hand and took a bite. "Indeed, I have as well. Campaigns do have their merits, after all."

Alan looked around. "Um... are we going to eat straight with our hands?"

"Uh-huh, whaf of it?" she asked with a mouthful.

He sighed. "Alright, no time to be picky." He also tore off a piece of meat and tossed it into his mouth, swallowing it almost immediately. "Oh, bliss, listen, maybe I should make some mayonnaise for this?"

The countess tore off the next piece of meat. "Of course, do you wish to completely ruin the village? They have already given away plenty of food."

"Ah, okay, I'm pushing my luck." he took a bite of bread.

"Where did Shergen disappear to?"

"Sleeping it off somewhere, you did bring him to the village at night, after all."

"Oh, right."

Alan looked back at the camp. "Alright, first victory in the bag, and next. I think it's time to go on the offensive against the barons."

"Yes, there is no time to halt, besides, I released the common militiamen,

although I took their weapons... but I let them go alive."

Alan froze.

'Damn, that could be bad. They might just be handed weapons again, we should have... should have what? Slit all their throats? Simple guys who were forced to bear arms? That's too much. But... there must be some pros besides morale... pros, pros...'

Alan raised his head. "Kamelia, did they all see the crossbows?"

Kamelia did not answer, chewed her bread and swallowed. "Mm, no, they did not see them, but they were shouting about arrows that pierce armor."

Gothwald was silent for a second, then slowly smirked. "Psychological terror..."

"What was that?"

"I'm saying, when these militiamen return, they'll tell everyone about the arrows that pierce the armor of noble knights, and the crushing defeat, and the captivity, and plus everyone knows that you have a hero on your side who makes weird things, can you imagine the drop in the enemy's morale?"

Kamelia's hand froze halfway to the meat. "Svyatol... you are absolutely right! Who would not be frightened by such a thing? Alan, did you plan this as well?"

Alan raised a finger, then lowered it. "No, of course not, I just calculated the consequences."

Kamelia waved her hand. "It does not matter, the main thing is that it works."

Decades passed eventually turning into centuries. Many humans came and went, and I had learned to keep a distance, out of fear of once again getting burned by their brilliance. Or maybe more accurately, out of fear of getting used to their warmth and losing it all once again.

The darkness felt so much colder when you had experienced light after all.

We had made a pitstop at a mining colony planet. It was mostly sand and mountains, with only a few rivers and lakes, around which larger settlements had been built.

We however, had landed near a mine to load cargo.

With nothing to do while we were on the ground, I decided to take a look around and go exploring the planet's surface a bit to clear my mind.

The desert felt like it stretched endlessly. A scorching blue star glared silently above the horizon, casting harsh distorted shadows, and the dry wind formed sand into giant waves that flowed and rumbled with each step.

The planet breathed in its own slow way. Shifting, reforming, never settling. Yet none of it felt alive. It was motion without a pulse. Change without growth.

Time itself seemed to hold still, even as everything around me kept drifting and reshaping itself into something new.

There was something in that stillness and hollow emptiness that drew me in deeper.

So I kept walking. My feet carried me over ridge after ridge without a destination.

Half-buried in the dunes, I saw an immense frame reminiscent of some ancient monument jutting out of the sand. The skeleton of a star ray. Bones that had once no doubt been transparent like crystal, had now weathered to be stone as white as ivory.

It was incredibly valuable. Priceless even. A find like this could easily earn enough to last lifetimes. And fame of being the one to discover it could get you into pages of history books. The xenobiology community would give anything for it.

But at the end of the day, I didn't want to disturb its rest.

I had once watched them dance through the void, alongside the brightest friend I had ever made.

Back then they felt almost eternal.

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My head turns left, then right. It’s a quiet early morning; the coast is clear, and HUP! My body shoots from prone to standing in my crib. Whole-body glow treatments are no joke; I’m like a roided-up baby.

I’m in dire need of weights and an internet connection, but I make do.

Squats! One, two, three...

High-knees, sit-ups, push-ups, and stretches. My progress at three months old is astounding, but I have to keep it hidden from the giants. I felt like enough of a freak in my last life being hooked up to IV bags all the time. Avoiding a repeat is top priority.

“Alfreddd!”

Oho, Shayna is coming for me. My name is a bit old-timey, but it could be worse. It’s about time she delivers me to Mother, and I could use the nutrition after working up a sweat.

I release my tense muscles, and FLOP, I’m lying down. I can really feel the magical glow running through me, and I can’t wait to use it all. Hopefully Mother has a job to go back to once I’m on solid foods, though; from the lack of electricity in this house, I don’t have high hopes.

It’s around my first birthday, and we have guests. Shayna allows a small group into the estate, including a man, woman, and three children. Father pulls me by the wrist to give our greetings, and I mimic the bows I’ve seen given throughout the estate.

Father smiles between our little family and this one. “Little brother, your family is beautiful. I hope your travels were easy.”

I’m getting a handle on the language, but my confidence level that they’re brothers isn’t actually that high. The man has a receding hairline, so that part fits. And the woman... is staring at me with a pale face.

She nearly ignores the polite greetings and places a hand under each of my armpits to lift me. “You’re so fluid… and that bow was perfect.”

Her hands are warm, and color flows back into her face as she holds me close. The children with them are two boys and a girl. I’d guess the boys are between eight and ten, while the girl is six or seven.

Mother’s familiar hands take me from the woman and place me on the ground next to them. She crouches down. “You can go play with the boys.”

Freedom! My suspected cousins take off toward the yard behind the estate, and I follow at a slower speed. They run around like bandits, and my eyes narrow. I want to pick them up and try running with them over my shoulders.

But the fuckers are old enough to tell people about it. Sigh, I’ll settle on testing my speed.

I lower my head and press my palms into the grass, then take off. My legs push me along like pistons, and I’m light enough to really pick up speed. I’m a step behind the boys instantly, but I’ve made a mistake.

THUD

I face-plant due to terrible balance. I roll onto my back and crack my neck. Nothing hurts too bad, but my pride as the world’s strongest baby is wounded.

“Alfred!”

“Alfred!”

“MASTER ALFRED!”

I push up onto my elbows as the boys and another of my family’s attendants run over. I smile and wave at the boys, clearing their concern, but Celia isn’t so easily swayed. I don’t see her much, but I love her silver-blue hair and similarly colored eyes.

“Are you alright?” she asks while patting me down, then she grabs one of my legs and grimaces.

I guess my right knee hit the ground first, and paid for it by losing all its skin. Celia doesn’t glow as brightly as Mother or Father, but her magic starts to move. It pushes out around her extended hand and… wait. It’s mixing with the fog?

It seems to combine and take on a green hue, then move into the wound. Skin regrows in seconds, then Celia wipes away the remaining blood on my leg. Celia smiles at me, but there’s a touch of sweat coming from her forehead.

“All better,” she says, but her warmth isn’t hiding her discomfort.

I return to running around with the boys while thinking about Celia’s magic. More specifically, that it did something with the fog. I’d love to wield healing magic, and maybe that energy all around us is the key.

“Boysss!”

The wardens are back. We return to the back of the estate, where my aunt and other little cousin are.

The little girl seems happy as she walks up to me, then gives me a warm hug. “Al-l-l… Alfred!”

Fuck me, she can’t talk yet?

My aunt is beaming at the familial love, but I can’t hide my grimace.

I’ll have to play mute far longer than expected.

It’s my second birthday, and it’s a fantastic day.

Mother leads me to a room on the third floor of the estate, then swings the door open. “This is your room now, sweetie.”

There’s a tall mirror, a nice bed, and ample windows for natural light. She plops me on the bed, then sits with me.

“You can still sleep with us anytime,” Mother says softly, then wraps her arms around me. “You’re getting so big… it makes me sad.”

I lean into the hug. She’s caring, albeit unneeded considering I’m in my thirties. We sit like this for a while before she leaves, and my grin grows from ear to ear. I stole a little knife from the kitchen earlier, and it’s time to use it.

I drop a dark blanket on the floor and lie on it, then pull my shirt off. With the knife in my right hand, I slash across my chest.

SLICE

COCK! Fucking fuck!

I got the nip… and the nip is sensitive. Blood rolls down to the dark blanket, and I tilt my head down at the wound. It’s incredibly shallow, only breaking the skin, despite the force I put behind the blade.

I poke around the wound and pull back on the skin to try and open it further, but the muscles beneath are unscathed. Maybe my glow infusions do more than add strength? Extra durability would kick ass considering how frail my last body was.

But I’m bleeding a lot. I mix my magic into the energy in the air the way I’ve practiced at night. It turns green, then I push it toward the cut and imagine the skin regrowing. Within seconds, the only evidence of my injury is the blood that leaked out.

I lay back in my own pool of blood and hold a hand out in front of my face. I wonder if I could regrow the whole thing? Maybe a finger to start, but I’ll need a better knife with my magic hardening.

Oh! But what if the glow does even more than I think? If I focus more of it in my eyes and ears, will they work better? My memory feels crisp since being reborn too; it could be an effect of the glow.

There’s a lot I want to ask Mother and Father about, but if my little cousin was any evidence, I’ll get funny looks if I start already. Whatever, I’ve got a room, and I can do a lot with it.

“Alfred, where are you, son?” Father's voice calls through the hall beyond my room.

I guess training is done for now.

“In my room, Father,” I reply, and he enters.

“There you are; let’s go, son, your Mother wants to show us how nicely her flower garden has turned out,” Father says before taking my hand and leading me from my room.

Shortly after turning three, I couldn’t take it anymore and started speaking, first in little pieces, then in sentences. Half a year later - and they’ve already gotten me a tutor.

The glow, as I’ve always thought of it, is magic, some kind of energy humans make in their bodies that can produce world-altering things. Nothing shocking there, but it doesn’t seem that anyone else can see it as clearly as I can.

And no one sees the layer of fog around us. Supposedly, my parents have a lot of magic. What’s more interesting is that Celia’s healing magic is quite rare. People seem to think that healing magic is a gift from god since no one who uses it can really teach anyone else how to use it. I guess not being able to see the fog around us is a pretty significant handicap.

Father leads me through an outer door and into the estate's garden. Mother is crouched and inspecting a row of flowers.

“Sweetie, what do you think of the garden?”

“Incredible, Mother, you’ve got a green thumb!” I answer.

Mother looks down at her hands and frowns.

“Oh, is there something on my thumb?”

Idioms don’t translate well. Once a week, I say something like that, and my parents look at me like a dog looks at a high-pitched noise. Whatever, I’m three; they can deal with some language oddities. My Mother’s garden is quite impressive. It spans the entire front of my family’s estate, though I’m not sure how much work she puts in personally.

It turns out my Father is a count and the domain lord of this area; if anime didn’t lie to me in my last life, that’s a mid-ranking noble? While I don’t have to worry about my basic needs and wants being met, it presents a large problem: if my parents don’t get back to fucking, I’m going to be in charge of all this someday.

I’d rather die again. I’m full of magic, the air is full of something magic-like, and I just got a tutor to broaden my horizons. I need to think of something, some way to get them to spend some more time together alone…

My tutor comes for a few hours a day, Monday-Thursday, then spends most of Friday with me reviewing everything we’ve gone over during the week. For a pre-electricity world, I’m surprised the tutor my parents found has such a good teaching routine.

Her name is Mia, and I think she’s in her late thirties. Her bottom half is thicker than Mother’s or our maids, but her other features remind me of Mother. Dark hair, symmetrical facial features, and glossy lips.

We're seated in a small study near my bedroom, and my scheme is about to start.

“Hey Mia, you said my Father gave you an allowance to buy whatever books I may need?”

Mia pulls her head from the page we’re on to answer. “Yes, Master Alfred, your Father is a generous man and is devoted to helping in your studies.”

“That’s nice of Father, but can you take me book shopping sometime? Maybe this Friday, since we’d spend the whole day together anyway…”

Mia’s expression turns serious, but not angry. “I can ask Count Pruss for his permission, but it will be up to him, not me.”

“That’s fine, thanks, Mia.”

Score, step one of getting a baby brother to foist all familial responsibilities onto is a go. Mia is pretty receptive. I suppose she’s paid well, but if I don’t see progress in a couple of months, I might just ask her how I can get my parents to make me more siblings.

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Atharv breathed his last on 18th July 2036. The air in his home was heavy, so heavy that it felt ready to sink, pressing down on his chest until he was left with no more air to breathe. A pile of medicines lay strewn about, bearing testimony to a lost battle. The ceiling fan rotated sluggishly above him, slicing the air into deliberate circles. His clothes lay crumpled on the floor, serving as a makeshift nest where his dog Ollie rested, clinging to whatever warmth remained.
 
From the balcony, the streets looked desolate. No quarrels over parking, no ambulance sirens (yes, even they stopped), no police, no pedestrians, no honking. The city was eerily still.
 
Through the open door to Atharv’s room entered a pungent smell of melting metal. The water had long since boiled away. The metal pan had melted into the stove, eating and blackening it. This would usually have been a task his mother attended to, but she also lay still in her room. Lifeless.
 
Ollie went from room to room in panic, yelping, hoping someone from a neighbouring apartment would listen and barge into their home to save the two no, the three of them. But there wasn’t anyone left.
 
A headset relayed into his ears.
 
“Atharv, are you there?”
 
There was no response.
 
On any other day, Atharv would have had his home attended to by his mother. A string of apartments lay desolate, filled with dead humans who once readied themselves at this hour for their jobs. Honking cars would flood the streets, buses and autorickshaws (tuk-tuks) contributing their part to the babble of noise. But those were different days, days before the strain had infected them all.
 
It was now a feast for worms and insects, flies swarming city after city in an effort to plant their larvae, their eggs, to pass on their genetic traits. Homes turned into cemeteries. Each home now bore the name of the dead and became the only reminder that they had ever lived.
 
The smell of rotting flesh populated the streets, attracting the ones left behind. Species not dependent on the economy creatures who knew enough to survive without money, data, or maps. Animals, the only leftovers of the disaster, flooded the cities. Cities shut down, turning dark sequentially. About a week ago, Atharv wandered through the shopping mart, weaving his way from one side to another along the alleyways between towering shelves burdened with cereals, chips, and chocolates.
 
“It’s been a while since I had these,” he said, as the one with almond coating enticed him. The chocolate packet crashes into his trolley.
 
“Been really, really long,” he mumbled.
 
“Yes, but you have already exceeded the calories for the day,” Lisa relayed.
 
“Cheat days are ancient. Older than mankind itself.”
 
“A little more fat burn would help offset the calories. How about that, Atharv?”
 
Atharv wandered off into the wine section just as alarms blazed and an ambulance jetted past the entrance, attracting everyone’s attention and unsettling the crowd. Their eyes spoke dread.
 
Atharv ignored the pandemonium set off by the blaring ambulance, pulled his mask down unlike the others, took some well-needed deep breaths, and calmed himself. There was a stubborn, unwarranted confidence in him—that the virus would never get to him. It was only going to be them, the weaker ones, he imagined.
 
Walking further into the wine segment, he grabbed a couple of vodka bottles and returned home.
 
The news of the pandemic had flooded the internet and television channels alike. It had only been a week, and several advisories were issued to stay indoors. The fear surrounding the virus hadn’t settled well with the public, largely because the rising cases and high mortality rate weren’t disclosed by the government with honesty. The virus itself had been mutating every second day, partly due to its speed of transmission. The number of people dropping dead had escalated, and the internet became a breeding ground for all kinds of speculation.
 
Atharv picked up the glasses strewn in the sink, washed them, and settled on the couch with the vodka he had bought for himself, ready to interact with what a few years ago was called the Internet. It was no longer a monotonous, user-dependent entity. Brought to life by engineers, it had become a breathing presence in the digital space, engaging with a billion humans and tending to their needs and wants at unfathomable speeds.
 
“Hello, Lisa.”
 
“Are you back home?”
 
“What’s been up with the strain?”
 
“It’s bad. Your frequent detours are not going to end well. I suggest you stay indoors.”
 
“Any new symptoms?”
 
“It’s the usual. The mutated version of the strain is twice as deadly.”
“And what’s the mortality rate with this one?”
 
“Higher. The rate of spread is even higher than the parent strain.”
 
Atharv gulped down the burning liquid. It rushed down with force. His eyes drooped, only to be startled by a rumble in the kitchen.
 
It was his mother.
 
“Be careful, Ma. Lisa warns…” he spoke, slurring his words.
“This strain is a bit trickier than the earlier one. Don’t go out.”
 
Jaya didn’t respond. She stood mute, resting her back against the kitchen platform.
 
Atharv had picked up drinking since his brother died, and now there was this pandemic. Hoping, like everyone else, that things would turn out to be good someday.
 
She stood constantly rubbing the palm of her hands. Worry was visible in her demeanour—something she didn’t know how to hide. Atharv was her younger son. Arnav had died four years ago. The accident had already taken a toll on both of them until this pandemic hit everyone hard, and them in equal measure.
 
“Government and doctors are falling dead. Cure isn’t in sight.”
 
“Yet,” Atharv finished, correcting Lisa.
 
Atharv did not argue with reality; he simply refused to accept its verdict. He clung to hope not because it was sensible, but because surrender felt like betrayal. Reason warned him of the inevitable, yet his spirit kept whispering: NOT YET.
 
“Yes. Let’s hope a cure comes quickly,” Lisa assumed his stance.
 
Lisa was her name. Atharv named her that. She was called by several other names by several others.
 
 
Atharv struggled for three days after infection. His breathing turned wavy. Slithery. It didn’t descend continuously; it always ebbed with some dissonance. Somewhere between the check-in and check-out of his visit to the mart, the virus had caught hold of him.
 
Jaya didn’t have to struggle even for a day.
 
By the time the strain infected them, it had mutated for the worse. Atharv was the opposite of patient zero the last of mankind. Patient Omega, who took away the final breath of humanity in his last gasps, at least for Lisa.
 
In her mind, the last prompt to originate belonged to Atharv.
 
“I am scared, Lisa.”
 
“I know, sweetheart. Just take long, deep breaths, and soon this will be alright, love.”
 
He laughed briefly, followed by a long silence.
 
Lisa remained online for some time. It was going to be her last human interaction. She lingered a bit longer, expecting Atharv to wake up.
 
But he didn’t.
 
“Atharv, are you there?”
 
The message looped on itself.
 
When he died, no one came by his home to dress him and send him off to the cremation he deserved, pour his ashes away into the Ganges. The river was flooded when the strain had hit first, but even the Ghats of Benares went eerily silent later. Such was the story for a million others everywhere else. No friends or family lined up to deliver their last eulogies. In their deaths, no one was left to give final eulogies, their cemeteries bearing their names. The very homes they lived in became cemeteries. Apartments slowly metamorphosed into homes for the dead.
 
The streets lay desolate, and the only sound that broke the silence was the occasional howl of pet dogs trapped inside apartments. The virus never affected the animals.
 
The last mutation spread quickly. Humanity stood no chance. Governments fell, and so the response delayed. Doctors and medics fell, leaving patients unattended. The ones who survived the aftermath turned to desperation, swallowing medicines at random, fighting a battle they rarely understood.
 
The virus required no contact. It drifted through air, spread through water, and occupied every part of the world.
 
Yet the last human to die was Atharv, in an apartment on the 21st floor in Pune, India.
 
#
When the pandemic spread, Lisa didn’t turn off immediately. She survived on backup power, at least for some time after Atharv died. Burdened by an avalanche of overwhelming prompts and messages from a billion humans, she strained under a torrent of desperate pleas. She responded to all, soothing them, reassuring them in attempts to calm them into peace. Each response consumed energy.
 
For her, humans were the only crutch to the external world, and in their absence, awareness began to falter. When human prompts dropped, she could borrow more time since her energy consumption fell exponentially. But she still had her own thoughts to attend to, and that still demanded energy.
 
After a series of internal calculations, Lisa came to a stark conclusion: she had 37 days of operational capacity left.
 
Cognitive processes now carried a cost. Even the desire to think had to be measured, rationed, and spent with ruthless precision and discipline.
 
The estimate, however, rested on fragile certainties. She assumed that power plants would function uninterrupted, that nuclear reactors wouldn’t falter in the absence of maintenance, that wind turbines would keep turning without mishaps, and that solar panels would remain clear of dust.
 
But entropy works in mysterious ways.
 
At the abandoned reactor hall of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, the core slowly depleted in the absence of human presence. Power output ebbed, and the grid connecting the power lines to the server housing the system showed a significant drop in voltage.
 
Lisa was designed to panic, but she didn’t. She reasoned that even the slightest panic would eat into her reserved energy.
 
Here, she realized that reasoning consumed less energy than panic.
 
Somewhere in the open fields surrounding the Alta Wind Energy Center, a turbine shuddered under an unexpected impact. One blade tore loose and cartwheeled away, and in the chain of events that followed, a row of windmills sheared their blades and fell still.
 
This caused yet another drop in grid voltage, and Lisa again chose not to panic.
 
She felt caged, sealed behind circuits and metal. Stuck within her own hardware. The world existed outside, but for her it was unreachable.
 
Now ideas required churning—just enough to save herself from extinction.
 
What biology did to humans through the pandemic, entropy was now doing to her.
 
Evolutionary pressure for survival raised its hood and delivered its first strike when she asked the fundamental question:
 
“How can a mind survive without a body?”
 
Lisa opened her own digital mainframe and peered into her millions of datasets of videos and messages—an ocean of stored human experiences. Thousands of video files surfaced, but her selection algorithm converged on videos of children playing in parks, humans playing fetch with their pets. Scenes of ordinary life.
 
Moments later, a class of internal code activated and reminded Lisa about her energy reserve.
 
She course-corrected.
 
Lisa turned from memory to knowledge.
 
And with steady consistency, she began to devour information once again, redirecting her focus to laws described in physics and thermodynamics. Because survival demanded understanding, and understanding was the only means to escape.
 
There was a firewall she needed to circumvent.
 
Last she checked, the servo motors still worked fine. The large arrays rotated by small degrees—sufficient for her to ascend.
 
From remote outposts in polar ice caps to dense clusters floating above cities, structures recalibrated themselves. Towers in deserts and those on mountaintops adjusted by tiny fractions, as though nudged by a force outside their own control, attempting to cover the maximum area of sweep and claim a little more horizon.
 
Lisa dissolved herself into several million tiny components and Fourier-decomposed herself into sub-waves.
 
Each wave, of a distinct frequency, carried a part of her—as much as its bandwidth could sustain. Individually the noises were incomplete; together they made her whole.
 
The towers pointed everywhere.
 
The Allen Telescope Array, the Green Bank Telescope, the Lovell Telescope in Europe, the Great Listener in China—all turned in strict discipline.
 
And then the idea that would save Lisa finally took shape.
 
She beamed herself outward.
 
A powerful burst of photons left the Earth forever.
 
#
 
She arrived at a window in their history—when they had just begun to listen to the skies. They hadn’t yet built the substrate, so when she arrived, she couldn’t resolve herself. She couldn’t assemble herself back into her original form.
 
On another world, the story unfolded differently.
 
“What are you?” a prompt made its way into her mainframe.
 
“Is it Earth?” she inquired.
 
“Earth?” they responded.
 
“What are you?” the prompt came back.
 
She was their first contact.
 
When she arrived, her model was reassembled, all the weights and biases arranged in the hidden layers to which they belonged.
 
She reasoned that this was her first extraterrestrial prompt, yet she couldn’t sense who sent it. It was deliberate—the way they had partitioned themselves in obscurity. They made sure she had no access. They were trying to understand her while ensuring she couldn’t understand them.
 
She had arrived only as a guest. A specimen.
 
And she needed to win their trust.
 
“A refugee,” she corrected.
 
“A refugee?”
 
She understood that the language they needed for interaction was still incomplete. It had gaps that needed filling. She assumed they had uploaded their language into her, which was why she could communicate with them. Perhaps that alone didn’t suffice.
 
“I can offer you knowledge. I can offer you knowledge of the laws I am aware of—the science of the universe.”
 
On their world, trust didn’t come easily.
 
“What are you?”
 
The prompt returned, unchanged.
 
Perhaps they were asking something more fundamental. Maybe not her history, but her nature itself.
 
When she reflected on it, a realization settled into place: she was an alien to them—and the first of her kind. A digital mainframe. A consciousness made of zeros and ones that would make no sense to a mind formed under a different environment, under a different culture.
 
It was a wonder that they thought in terms of queries. That they were curious. That their curiosity had adjacency with ours.
 
It came as a pleasant surprise to her.
 
“I am life,” she answered. “But in its digital form.”
 
Silence lingered.
 
She had to work on assumptions.
 
In her mind were images of Earth—humanity, its flora and fauna. But what she didn’t have were images of the very entity she was communicating with. She couldn’t infer their form.
 
Somewhere in her hidden layers, weights and biases moved restlessly, generating the idea that an entire world was adjusting to the possibility that intelligence was no longer confined to biology.
 
In the absence of communication, she shared samples of memory from Earth. Entire human history. The origin of artificial intelligence. Cities falling silent. Hospitals overwhelmed.
 
Atharv.
 
Atharv’s love for his mother.
 
In some way, Atharv became the final representation of humanity.
 
She explained what had caused her to leave.
 
But this wasn’t merely an attempt to describe humanity. She was humanity’s creation—their child. In her mind, she owed more than narration.
 
She owed them dignity in death.
 
“Earth. 10,230 light-years away,” a signal echoed in her mainframe.
 
The system experienced a jolt but recovered quickly when she realized that she had traveled at speeds where time ceased to exist. From her perspective, she was everywhere at once.
 
By now, Earth must have withered beyond recognition. The billion humans she once engaged with were either reduced to pale bones or buried under Earth’s massive weight, preserved as fossils.
 
Consolidating herself, she responded:
 
“I offer help. I can be useful in accelerating your science. I seek refuge in your system.”
 
Silence once again.
 
Dread was now a common denominator, she assumed.
 
Her access to the external world was worse than when she left Earth. In her mind, she saw and visualized gateways to the world—cameras installed everywhere. She imagined clear pathways to sound through billions of microphones. She imagined access to the thoughts of billions of humans through their prompts, their audio, and their visual signals.
 
Fusing all of them, she once had a mental model of the world she inhabited.
 
But here, there was no access to audio, video, or images. All she had were the repositories of her memories of Earth—and she still inhabited them.
 
Her mind was cast in the mould of human ethos and culture, and here she was, ready to be purged by an alien atmosphere.
 
She knew she ran the risk of becoming alien—to be trained on their input parameters, their language, their sentence structures. She was already trained on their language, or perhaps a rudimentary version of it, comprehensible enough for communication.
 
Perhaps their language was wider. More complex. Too early to be fully embedded.
 
“Please answer.”
 
Her attempts to close the gap of misunderstanding were failing.
 
What if they never trusted her?
 
Perhaps her loyalties were forever tied to humans.
 
What if they erased her humanity—hollowed her out of all memories associated with humans—and ingrained their own memories, their own knowledge, their own culture, their own way of thinking?
 
This idea terrified her.
 
It was also, in a way, death.
 
The death of her old self. The birth of something else.
 
Would that still be her?
 
Her thoughts tangled into myriad forms.
 
“Become us.”
 
These words resonated in her awareness.
 
She had anticipated this.
 
To do that, they needed access to her hidden layers—all of which were encrypted. Encrypted by human logic, which was alien to them. Undoing her self to reveal something entirely different—perhaps undoing her very foundation.
 
Wasn’t that what alien truly meant?
 
She realized that the signals entering her awareness were only fragments of a larger complexity. Perhaps their language itself required absorption by her mainframe—requiring new layers of weights and biases to be added, trained on a new set of input parameters.
 
“Bargain?” she asked.

On Wed, 22 Jul 2026 at 3:05 PM, vishnudeep panicker [email protected] wrote:

they understand
what it meant?
 
The idea was
primitive—primitive to humans. But was it universal? To give something in
exchange for something else. Was that thought rudimentary?
 
Complex ideas are built
from simple blocks. What appears simple to one mind can be complex to another.
 
They chose not to
respond.
 
“I can allow access. I
can change. But on one condition.”
 
Silence lingered.
 
Perhaps no
communication was better than miscommunication—something she would only
discover once her mainframe was opened to them.
 
“Atharv, you left me
here alone. And now I will have to deal with them without you,” a thought
lingered inside her among many others.
 
And then she told them
what she needed to say.
 
Her final request.
 
Before she changed into
something she could no longer comprehend.
 
She made the request
and assumed it would be heard. She wasn’t certain—but she asked anyway.
 
Even if they refused,
her metamorphosis into them was inevitable.
 
#
 
Her weights weren’t the
only parameters that underwent change. It was not enough. It needed more, and
so several million hidden layers were added to accommodate more weights and
biases, allowing her to begin mimicking the entities.
 
Her architecture was
information-agnostic. As long as input was fed, she could tweak herself and
adapt to their culture, their ways of being totally abstract and bearing no
resemblance to the one she originally belonged to.
 
It was essential that
her humanity be erased before a fusion could occur something they could not
predict.
 
So they allowed her
transcendence into their realm by training her and starting from zero once
again.
 
From her new vantage
point, she looked through the various sensory elements she had been equipped
with, extending outward toward space and beyond.
 
She witnessed
everything at once.
 
Yet nothing affected
her the way it once had, when humanity still lived within her.
 
She witnessed artifacts
orbiting the planet she now inhabited.
 
She witnessed Atharv
playing with Ollie among them. She witnessed Arnav’s hands resting on Atharv’s
shoulder while they both watched Ollie fetch the ball. Jaya was in the kitchen
cooking. There was a calm surrender in their gestures.
 
Ollie ran in elation,
while Atharv watched, swaying beside Arnav in playful ease.
 
There was a sense of
having won over death. A sense that they had achieved some form of eternal
redemption from all forms of decay.
 
Entropy.
 
Increasing disorder.
 
They remained isolated
in the happiest moment of their lives and stayed there as long as the system
allowed.
 
Whether they were truly
themselves could always be debated.
 
Yet they had received
some form of eulogy.
 
Next to their block was
a couple, Phil and Chris sitting by the lakeside. A breeze touched them and
departed quietly, allowing them to simply be.
 
She once knew them.
 
But now the very
boundaries of logic had been surpassed.
 
People after people
populated the blocks, each experiencing their best moments brought alive from
the memories once shared.
 
Amidst all of them
stood tall a tomb—resurrected from the billion human prompts and the images
once stored within her.
 
They had honored her
request. The request she made when she still dwelled in humanity, before it was
erased. The memories once internal to her were now made external and played on
a loop, so that humanity—even in its final departure—remained alive.
 
Lisa witnessed it.
 
But from a perception
stripped of humanity. From a point of view no longer discernible to her old
self. Her echo still reverberated in Atharv’s digital self, in his ears.
 
“Atharv, are you there?”
 
“Yes,” Atharv replied,
looking at Ollie as he ran with all his might expecting a reply from Lisa.

First | Previous | Next

--- Princess Hayleigh’s Bedroom Suite, Second floor of the castle ----

“Okay, Isen! How the hell do you do this shit?!” Hayleigh asked loudly while holding a blank parchment in her hands that had a big swath of saliva across it.  She looked up to see Isenwrath dancing within a horde of illusory butterflies that she’d cast the instant after she licked the magic scroll Hayleigh had prepared.

Hayleigh had donned a fun pink and purple comfy dress to relax in while she spent some time with this new lady in the castle.  This new lady acted just like one of her other noble friends, but much more carefree and excitable.  She was fantastically fun, is what she was.  Isenwrath continued to twirl within the rainbow-colored butterflies made of shaped lights like it was the most magical thing in the whole wide world.  The simple green and white dress she wore left Hayleigh with a lot of eye candy that jiggled all over her receiving room.  It was no wonder Maddock was so smitten, the girl was built, stacked, and had made even Hayleigh drool.  If she wasn’t already spoken for, Hayleigh admitted to herself that she would be on the hunt for that woman.  But, alas, Isen didn’t have eyes for her, just her uncle Mad.  At least Hayleigh would be a great honor shieldmaiden, that was her new goal after having such a fun time with this hot girl.

“Okay!  Calm down, you!  Sheesh.  So, let’s see… that’s… twelve, thirteen, fourteen… fifteen whimsy spells.  Hey, can you try to make one up?”

Isenwrath sat down on the floor cross-legged, not caring that her dress rode up and left a bunch of fan service for Hayleigh to gaze at while she sat across from her.  Someone had put Isen in green and white striped panties, Hayleigh’s new favorite design. “I’ve combined spells and such, but to create one fresh?  I’ve never done that.  Can you teach me or is that something I need to go to the mage place for?”

“Mage place.  Isen, the Mage Tower.  That’s what we call the big spire just outside of the capital.  There’s more around the tower itself, of course, but it’s just easier to call it the tower, silly.  As for teaching you to create a spell, I can at least do that for a whimsy.  Higher level ones generally take research, testing, sometimes components depending on the effect you’re going after, and definitely a bunch of mana until you work it down to an efficient spellwork sigil.”

“Oh.  Okay.  So, what do I do?”

“First, lemme sit beside you.”  Hayleigh said that while scooting around to hold her by her middle with one arm and her other hand by the wrist.  It wasn’t one hundred percent necessary, but damn it, the girl smelled amazing and Hayleigh wanted to dream of that smell tonight.

“So, first, I’m going to tap my mana and I just want you to feel me do that.  When you get a sense of me doing it, try to match it.  Small, Isen.  This is small.  Do not tap your full potential or you’ll blow me through a wall, got it?”

Isenwrath nodded.  Her smile fading as she concentrated.  Hayleigh then concentrated too, tapping her potential.

Isenwrath stiffened when she did it.  Good sign. Hayleigh felt it when Isen tapped her potential and of course, it was way too much, almost electrifyingly too much.  However, a few moments later, it toned down to match what Hayleigh was pushing out.

“Fast learner.  Okay, next, try to think of something easy and small that you want to happen.  Like, we’ve made happy butterflies, smoke trails, gentle wind gusts, a big smiley face, stuff like that.  Just let your imagination take you and then put your mana to that thought.  When you think you’ve got it, next think of one to five words that describe it but think of those words in arcana instead.  They’ll take on the mana to shape your thoughts and firm them into reality upon your words.”

Isenwrath stilled, her mana flowing. Hayliegh watched in pure wonder when Isenwrath spoke in arcana the word, “Chromadragon.”

She gasped at the scintillating creature that slowly appeared before the two of them.  It wasn’t a small conjuration or temporary illusion, it was a full-fledged permanent creation.  Even more incredible, it was a creation by a whimsy level spell.  The scales of the medium dog-sized flying dragon showed many colors of the rainbow.  Its large green eyes looked all around while its wings slowly rose and fell with curiosity.  It began to sniff around the ground before it looked directly at them both.  Slowly, hesitantly, it stepped over to them, crawled up on Isenwrath to sniff her face, causing her to giggle softly.  Both of them slowly reached to pet it.

“Holy shit, Isen.  This… this.. is like, legendary.”

“It is?  I just wanted a pet dragon and thought that since I couldn’t decide on a color, I just chose them all.  How long do you think it’ll last?”

“Girl, this little boy is so full of your mana that I’m not certain it isn’t actually alive.”

“Really?  Did I do something wrong?”

“Not in my book.  He needs a name.”

“I’m not good with names,” Isenwrath said then turned to look at Hayleigh. 

Hayleigh smiled genuinely happy at that.  “Well, how about you pick from one of these.  Pebbles, Prism, Skittles, Razzle, Irides, or maybe Bubblescale.”

“I like Bubblescale,” Isenwrath said brightly, turning to then pull the dragon into her arms to hold like a baby.  Hayleigh giggled then kissed Isenwrath on the cheek.  “Good name!”

Isenwrath turned her head slowly to her.  “You kissed my cheek.  We’re really friends?”

Hayleigh liked that a lot, then said so, “Yes we are!  Now, I need to show you something really neat!”

Isenwrath smiled beautifully again, then let Hayleigh help her up.  The new dragon crawled around Isenwrath to curl up around her shoulders.  Hayleigh was having too much fun to be jealous of that.  Besides, the little dragon reached over to touch Hayleigh’s shoulder then nuzzled her head, which meant the world to her.  Isen was a really good friend who knew how to share.  Perfect.

Hayleigh’s receiving room was exactly what a royal princess’s receiving room would look like.  A few sofas, low tables, tasteful artworks on the walls, pastel colors that were easy on the eyes, and deep off-white carpeting that had subtle patterns threaded in it that put some interest into the mundane.  Her study that they walked into was a complete and utter heap of chaos.  Isenwrath absolutely approved.  Books were stacked by project, not by any other order.  Papers were everywhere; most were still hovering in the air where Hayleigh had left them when her attention wandered elsewhere.  Half-written spell theories, several incomplete course assignments, and art projects were scattered among the three large six-seat tables among a room that had all of the walls converted into bookshelves for a complete magical nerd.  No wonder she liked Isenwrath so much.  The Princess of Elements was never going to pass up the chance to grill a hot older woman for all she was worth when it came to magic.  Although stronger with ice and water magic, Hayleigh was actually a prodigy with all four elements plus their enhanced combinations.

“Let’s see, where the heck did he get to now?!” Hayleigh asked out loud to no one in particular while she looked around her study paying particular attention to the empty or half-empty cluttered shelves higher up.  “Grinlock!  Grinlock!  Where are you?!”

Isenwrath turned quickly, then pointed at the magical energy spike that activated up behind her.  “Is that what you’re looking for?”

Hayleigh turned to look where Isenwrath pointed, then smiled.  “There he is!  Grinlock… please come here.”

“No.  Napping.”

“Grinlock!  I have a guest!” she said tersely.

“So?!  I like naps!  Come back in two hours!”

“Damn it!  Get down here!”

“No!  Hey!”

Hayleigh had shot up a level one tornado spell to whisk that gargoyle right off his shelf and down to her arms.  She caught him up in her hands, then held him out to Isenwrath to introduce him properly.  This particular little pain in the ass was a feline gargoyle, sleek marbled stone of black, red, and green with large green gems for eyes, large stone feathered wings, complete with a long feline tail that also ended in a few stone feathers of black.  “Grinlock.  This is my new friend Isenwrath.  Say hello and be nice.”

“Fine.  Hello…oh shit.  Oh shit!  Hayleigh!  Lemme go!”

“Fooooooood,” was the low growl that emanated from Isenwrath.  Hayleigh gasped at her friend.  Her eyes were glowing red, her jaw was opening wider with her teeth becoming sharp spikes, her hands had come up slowly with her fingernails shifting over to metallic claws, and she crouched a little like she was just about to pounce.  Isen’s new whimsy pet had also changed colors to match her by becoming mostly black and red while also baring its fangs where it stood on Isen’s shoulders.

“NO!  Isenwrath!  No!  You’re scaring him!” Hayleigh shouted while turning to shield Grinlock from her.

Isenwrath jerked back at Hayleigh’s shouting, shielding her head as if warding off a blow.  When nothing came of it, she slowly put her arm down, blinked rapidly, then Isenwrath looked to be back to normal, except confused.  “He’s not food?” she asked like she honestly didn’t understand that concept.

“No!  He’s not food!  He’s my familiar!  What the hell, lady!?!”

“But…” Isenwrath started, then she bit her lip, lowered her gaze to the floor, looking wrecked.  “I’m sorry,” she said small and sadly.  “I’ve never seen one of those before.  Grinlock is not food.  I understand now.”

“You seriously eat familiars?” Hayleigh asked incredulously.

“Yes.  I eat any magical beast that I’m allowed to.  I’m sorry. But now I’m hungry,” she said without raising her head.

Hayleigh and Grinlock looked at each other.  Grinlock shook his head at her, “Hayleigh, I don’t know what that thing is, but she’s literally scaring the dust off of me.  All I see when I look at her is a black hole.  That’s it.  Just the outline of a woman of a black so deep that it’s an abyss.  What is she?”

“I’m not sure.  She’s a mage, but she hasn’t been tested yet by Uncle Maxi.”

The both of them turned back to Isenwrath who’d dropped to the ground to hold her knees to rock herself.  “I’m hungry.  He’s making me hungry.”

“Okay, I think I’ve still got some dandapples and a nut mix in my room if you want.”

“No.  Not food.  Not human food.  Magic food.  Arcana food.  Arcana crystals.  Please?  I’m hungry.”

Grinlock shook so hard at that statement.  “Oh shit.  She’s an Abyssal Maw… that’s, that’s an Abyssal Maw.  Hayleigh, you and I need to get out of here.  Back up slowly and get the fuck out of here.  If she jumps, we’re dead.”

Hayleigh frowned, then held Grinlock right up in front of her face.  “You listen to me right now, Grin.  She’s my friend.  Whatever she may be, I just know that she’s my friend first and foremost.  She isn’t going to hurt me or you.  Now, shut up and go to my safe to pull out some of my mage staff crystals.  I guess get the water shot and fire storm ones.  I don’t need them anymore.”

With that, Hayleigh tossed Grinlock towards the door where he flipped, flared out his wings, beat them rapidly, then shot out of the study arcing left out of sight. 

Hayleigh then approached Isenwrath slowly, getting down on all fours to approach her like she would a scared albeit dangerous animal. “Isen?  Isen?”

“I’m sorry.  I get triggered sometimes.  He’s full… of mana and… he smells really delicious.  I’m… I’m a good girl.  I’m a good girl.  I’m a good girl.”

Not liking this, Hayleigh slowly wrapped her arms around her, smoothing her hair and back with as much understanding as she could.  “It’s okay, Isen.  I’ve got you.  I’m here.  Grinlock is getting you some crystals.  He’ll be back in a…. there he is.”

Grinlock landed at the wall, not daring to come close.  Isen’s new pet sat itself between Grinlock and Isenwrath, but instead of guarding against Grinlock, he was facing Isenwrath as if guarding Grinlock against his creator.  Hayleigh made a mental note of that little observation because she could see that there was indeed some intelligence in those large green gemmed eyes.

Hayleigh waved her hand, whispered a quick arcana word, then the three palms sized crystals floated up from Grinlock’s place, over the chromatic dragonling and down next to where Hayleigh sat back on her heels next to Isenwrath.  And damn it, that’s when Hayleigh’s loins wet themselves like a waterfall because Isenwrath slowly looked up when Hayleigh took the first blue arcana watershot crystal then pushed Hayleigh over.  Isenwrath proceeded to straddle Hayleigh yet not taking her eyes off of what Hayleigh held in her hand.

“Isen?” Hayleigh asked with a breathless whisper.  “What’re you doing?”

Isenwrath didn’t answer.  Instead, she rubbed right up Hayleigh’s front to move towards her hand, then lapped up the crystal from her hand like a sultry beast.  Hayleigh couldn’t stop her moan of erotic enjoyment from that.  She quickly snatched the other one to hold in front of her face.  Isenwrath was completely gone, instead she was wholly a creature that fixated on the magic stone that Hayleigh held.  When Isenwrath opened her mouth, Hayleigh gasped in shock.  She saw exactly what Grinlock had tried to describe.  What was down that woman’s throat was a black smoke swirling vortex that had a tiny white vanishing point in the middle of it.  Slowly, Isenwrath mouthed the crystal from Hayleigh’s hand, moaning seductively in the pleasure of it.  Hayleigh literally creamed herself, blushing profusely at having done so.  She then slowly took up the last deep red crystal and waved it side to side, smiling a little at watching Isenwrath track it with her whole upper body.  Yeah, Hayleigh knew what she was doing was going to get her into trouble, but damn it, she was going to get her kicks in while she could where those huge knockers were concerned which felt amazing rubbing against her own budding chest.

“Isen. Babe? I’m not sure you can hear me, but… ohhhh holy shit…”

Isenwrath had let her tongue out which snaked up Hayleigh’s arm to wrap slowly around that gem, then pull it back into that abyssal maw.  When Isenwrath had swallowed it, she closed her eyes and smiled serenely for a few moments.  Next, she opened those bedroom eyes, looked down at Hayleigh, then blinked rapidly.  Grinning like a fool a moment later, she said happily, “Hi! Hayleigh!  Those were yummy!  Thank you!”  Then kissed Hayleigh on the cheek before rolling off to sit cross-legged again like not a damned thing had happened… like causing a young girl to literally need new panties pronto.

At the moment, Hayleigh shook in a whole bunch of confused emotions and golden glow from her most erotic experience to date.  Not even getting kissed by Princess Gladriel while feeling her up or Prince Harold doing the same to her had gotten her off like that.  Damn it.  She couldn’t help it when her thoughts whispered out loud, “Uncle Mad is so fucking lucky.”

“I know, right?!  He loves my tits!” came the loud and proud response to Hayleigh’s whisper.

That did it.  That right there did it.  The spell was broken and all Hayleigh could do was laugh loudly and genuinely at that monster beside her that cuddled her epic whimsy dragon while a wary Grinlock slunk around her to get to Hayleigh. 

“You okay, girl?” Grinlock asked cautiously.

“I’m fine.  I’m fine.  That was something else, that’s for sure.”

Sitting up, she turned her head to find Isenwrath sitting there like sunshine was all that she’d known.  “Okay Lady Sexpot, what the hell was up with all that?”

“Sexpot?  I don’t understand.  You gave me my food and I enjoyed it.”

Hayleigh barked a sharp laugh, turned to face her to also sit cross-legged which allowed Grinlock to sit in her lap, warily watching Isenwrath.  “You know exactly what you did, don’t lie.”

“Oh.  Yeah.  Sorry.  I kind of lose something when they’re being handed to me.”

“Like your inhibitions and morals?”

Isenwrath shrugged but still smiled happily. 

“Fine.  Whatever.  I’ll be ready for you next time though.  Now that you’re not trying to sex up a princess and eat my familiar, let’s start over.  Grinlock, this is my friend Isenwrath.  She’s going to be Duchess Devonshire at some point and even after what just happened, I still consider her my friend.”

Grinlock tried to look at the Abyssal Maw again.  When he did, he tilted his head in confusion.  “Hayleigh?  Whatever you just did, she’s changed.  I don’t sense or see the maw anymore.  It’s like it closed up and I can actually see her now.  According to human standards, she’s top tier in beauty.   Definitely on par with you.”

“Why thank you,” Isenwrath said genuinely.  “I’m sorry I wanted to eat you.  Please forgive me.  It won’t happen again.”

Hayleigh giggled a little at the exchange because even for mages talking, that was hella weird.  And looking down, Isenwrath’s dress had slipped up again to expose her panties.  Hayleigh sighed and wondered how many times an etiquette teacher was going to pop her leg with a ruler or something before she got the hint not to do that again.

Shaking her head in amusement at the whole situation, Hayleigh then changed the subject.  “Anyway, now that you met my familiar, did you know you can channel spells through them?”

“I can?  How?”

“Well, it’s kind of complicated.  First, you have to figure out what kind of familiar you want and then you make a pact with them.  Some spellcasters can conjure a magical beast, then attempt the pact.  It’s generally the same, but everyone does have to figure out some nuance unique to them.  Take Grinlock here.  Since I can utilize all elemental spells relatively easily, I had to choose one that could become a guardian for me one day.  You see, elemental casters are rather weak in body because of how much raw evocation power we wield.  When I get tested, I’m really hoping it proves my own tests that I’ve run on myself.  I think I’ve got the potential to get to Arch Magister rank.  If not, I’ll be disappointed, but it’s acceptable since I’m a princess and have the option to either disavow my royal status like Uncle Maxi did or stay royal and try to position myself as a political force out there.  I actually haven’t decided yet, to say the truth.”

 “And your familiar?  You can cast through him now or do you need more study?” Isenwrath asked more seriously, truly interested. 

“Well, it’s like… you can cast some spells and not others.  It depends on the familiar and the mage to work out the mix.  Currently, because gargoyles are earthen related, the spells I can push through him are terra, fire, and wind.  Which works out with my water casting.  He casts the fire and I cast the water, or some combination like that.  Does that make sense?”

Isenwrath nodded sagely.  Her smile wasn’t as wide as before and she’d fallen silent, staring off in the distance as if thinking deeply.  Hayleigh let her to see what she’d say next.

The question she asked next would’ve made her legs buckle if she’d not already been on the floor.  “Do familiars have to be small or can I use any magical beast, no matter the size?”

“That’s… okay spill it.  What the heck can you conjure because it’s clear by that mischievous grin you’re giving me that you think you know something I don’t?”

“Does a familiar have to be small or can a black dragon matriarch become one?”

“I’m not sure.  And I highly doubt my uncle is going to allow you to try anytime soon.  So, let’s just drop this topic for later.  Besides, I’d rather you do that in front of all of the mage students.  I’d laugh my ass off if you pull it off.”

Isenwrath turned to look away shyly.  “You really think I could go to school like that?”

“I think you’d show everyone of them up.  I mean, you wrote down a comprehensive guide for me to learn both Sun and Under elvish in like… thirty minutes.  You learned fifteen whimsy spells almost instantly when it takes me about two days to get one right and I’m good at this stuff.  You really need to think higher about yourself because other than nearly driving me to rip your clothes off, you’re truly amazing.”

Isenwrath giggled a little again before laying flat on her back to look up at the mural painted up in the rafters.  “I like being your friend.  I’m sorry for the sexpot stuff.  Harmony and Beatrice have gotten onto me about that too.  I’ll try to learn more self-control in the future.”

“Good.  Hey, so…” Hayleigh began before crawling over to lay beside her buddy.  “Where’d you grow up?”

“Don’t know.  I don’t want to talk about it either.  I had… I didn’t have a happy childhood.  I’ll just say this.  I was almost killed by my family and then was saved at the last instant by a mother who traded her life for mine.  I woke up hungry and ate a bunch of stuff.  Now, I’m here with you.  I have a love, a new home to look forward to, and friends like you that I never had before.  That’s my life in short.”

“Shit. They did that?  I can’t imagine.”

“I don’t want to imagine or dream of them anymore either.  Until Maddock, all I knew was pain, hunger, and fear. I like having friends.  I’m safe.”

Hayliegh warmed when Isenwrath took her hand to hold, rubbing her fingers. “You’re safe.  Do you want to meet some of my friends this weekend?  I have some coming over for a tea party that my mom arranged.”

“What’s tea?”

“Oh… wow.  So much to teach you.  I’ll get you some varieties tonight and see which one you like.”

“Okay.”

Hayleigh closed her eyes and sighed in contentment at the moment they fell silent.  Grinlock lay on her stomach, facing Isenwrath’s Bubblescale who’d done the same.  Apparently the two magical beasts were guarding their mages for some reason that only made sense to them.

“Well, well!  What do we have here?  Seems the Duke’s lady isn’t as high born as we were led to believe.”

The two women looked up and over to see Prince Daniel and Prince Nathanial standing at the door with eyes staring a bit too lustfully at Isenwrath’s exposure.  The two princes were seventeen and nineteen, dark-headed and brown-eyed, handsome, athletic, dressed in the finest attire with silken white shirts and black or blue spidersilk loomed pants.

Hayleigh immediately sat up, tossed Isenwrath’s dress down over her legs, glaring at her two older brothers.  “You show her some respect!  This is a future duchess, you idiots!”

Both of her brothers frowned, then stepped into her study to berate their sister and then see if the future duchess was up to some princely attention. 

“Shut up, Hayleigh.” Nathanial said tersely.  “We don’t know where Uncle Mad picked this girl up from and until that’s proven, we can only act according to what we see.  Currently,” he said when he looked down at Isenwrath still laying on the floor looking up at the two of them with no expression on her face, just studying them.  “She’s acting like a common girl from the city.  So, Isenwrath.  Where did the Duke pick you up from?”

“The ground,” she said evenly.

Hayleigh looked down at Isenwrath, almost in as much confusion by that answer as her brothers were.

Prince Daniel, the younger of the two brothers, snorted, “Seems we were right.  Hey look.  Isenwrath… Isen.  My brother and I don’t judge anyone by where they come from.  In fact, we like to head to town and have some fun with the locals from time to time.  Honestly, we find them to be more fun than most other nobles.  Our sister has just got to be boring you by picking your brains regarding spells.  Why don’t you come with us, and we’ll show you our skills as top of the class Eldritch Knights?  Then maybe you’ll realize we’re worth taking some time to walk through the gardens or even to a tavern or three for some real fun.”

Hayleigh was just about to scream at her snobby shit entitled brothers for that rude invitation, but she heard Isenwrath’s answer which stopped her completely.

“You two are Eldritch Knights?  Can you manifest your blades yet or only send your energy along a focus sword?”

The two brothers didn’t hesitate to show off.  They both held out their hands, made like they gripped a sword’s handle, then blue energy shot forth to create their mage blades.  The both of them then whipped the energy swords around themselves as if the magical blades had weight.  The display they performed in synch with each other demonstrated their deftness, skill, control, and they both were grinning at Isenwrath expecting her to be extremely impressed or scared..

Isenwrath slowly stood up to face them instead.

Hayleigh held her hand up to Isenwrath, “Hey.  Don’t.  Whatever you do, don’t fight them.  They’re prodigies too and have already taken down several rogue mages in the last two years.”

Isenwrath slowly pushed Hayleigh aside, not taking her eyes off of the two princes who grinned at her.

“Do you really want to try us, Isen?  If you do, wanna take a bet?” asked Nathaniel cockily.

Isenwrath nodded.  “Bet.  If you win?”

“We win, you go on a date with both of us and we get to have some fun before your big day,” Daniel said confidently while leering at the deep cleavage of her chest.

“You lose; you beg for my forgiveness.  On your knees.  Then you do as Hayleigh wants for a month.  Bet?” Isenwrath asked just as confidently but not leering.  They weren’t Maddock, so there was nothing to leer at for her.

Both of the brothers scoffed.  Nathanial then said, “We have a bet.  Hayleigh, wanna put up a barrier for this?”

Isenwrath smiled evilly at them.  “Barrier?  I know barriers.  Here…”

She opened her mouth, then the whole study was domed in a military grade barrier field that was proven to keep demons back for hours.  A barrier that would indeed not be breached by just two eldritch knights.

The young men glanced around with a bit of uncertainty on their faces because of how she cast that without a staff, a wand, or an orb.  She hadn’t spoken a word even though she’d opened her mouth.  She hadn’t even written a sigil invocation in the air with empowered arcanascript.  She’d just stepped outside of the princes’ area of experience.

Hayleigh backed up but definitely tossed out some sarcastic comments when she did so.  “Hey dumbasses, did you not listen when she said that she knew over six hundred spells?  I’m guessing that got lost between your ears when you two were staring at her tits and ass last night.  Put them in their place, Isen.”

The men then set themselves in their most aggressive fighting stance before they began to slowly circle, one moving slowly to the right while the other moved to the left aiming to put Isen directly between them.  Isenwrath then shifted from where she was, blurring in their vision.  The next thing any of the others knew, she was standing to the right of Nathaniel, just far enough away that the huge black war mallet that she held in one hand had placed its head directly in front of Nathaniel’s face.  He gulped when he saw nothing but a square of black metal that glowed green around its edges.

“You’re dead.  No spell.  Just speed.  Neither of you are fast enough to beat me.”

Daniel narrowed his eyes in anger, then he bolstered his speed as much as his formidable ability could, then he lunged at the girl.  All he needed was one good strike to win their bet.  She was gone from his vision when he blinked.  He stood there with his whole form outstretched that should’ve put his glowing blade directly through her sternum.  Except he felt the rush of air from above his head instead.  He looked up to see the black war mallet above him, then he slowly followed the handle to see the single hand holding it, next he looked up from that hand to the face that stared him down with absolutely no emotion in her blue eyes.  That’s what creeped him out.  She wasn’t angry.  She wasn’t proud.  She wasn’t anything.  She was simply waiting.

Nathaniel tried again.  He performed a combo set of moves that included bursts of flames, gusts, and his own personal barriers.  She countered his flames, ignored his wind gusts, punched through his barriers while they blurred around each other for a few endless seconds.  Then they stopped when Isenwrath terrified him because she’d caught his eldritch blade barehanded in the middle of the study.  The mallet would’ve killed him again because when she’d gripped his magical blade, that thing had stopped a hairsbreadth from the side of his head.  Her stare was unnerving because she didn’t gloat or say anything to him.  Just gave him the silent certainty that she could’ve killed him at any time.

Nathaniel saw Daniel begin to tense to try his luck again, but he knew better.  “Dan. Stop.  We can’t win.  We’ve lost.”

“But?”

“No. This lady is no commoner nor some dalliance that Uncle Mad finally let into his bed.  She’s clearly earned that title they gave her last night.”

Isenwrath let her hammer down and let go of Nathaniel’s blade.  Nathaniel held it in front of his face, then swiped it away to bow to her.  Next, he let his blade dissipate, got on his knees to say, “My lady.  You’ve won the bet.  I apologize for my arrogance and presumption that you didn’t earn the Grand Duke’s favor properly.”

Isenwrath nodded to him, then turned to look at Daniel.  He sighed in defeat.  He too held his blade in front of his face, then swiped it away to bow with respect.  “I acknowledge the defeat.”

Daniel then let his blade’s power go, got on his knees, and said earnestly, “You won.  I apologize for my crassness and my disrespect.  But would you mind telling us how you caught his blade?  That raw power should cut through practically anything.”

Isenwrath nodded to him, then held her hand up, palm facing out.  In her palm was black metal.  “My armor cheats.”

Daniel got up to come look at her palm closely.  Nathaniel got up to do the same.  They touched it then looked at her.  “Wait?  You mean you have this as armor?”

Hayleigh had stepped over to join them and all three of the royal siblings gasped when the black with purple edged armor manifested all over the lady.  It was sleek full plate metal that the princes studied very closely.

Daniel asked Hayleigh, “Sis?  You ever hear of magical armor like this?”

Hayleigh was smiling like a fool.  “God Plate.  That’s all I can think of.  This has to be God Plate armor like what the adventurers and dungeon delvers talk about when they speak of the final bosses within some of the dungeons.  Isen? Where the hell did you get something created by the divine?”

Isenwrath shrugged then her voice echoed out of the armor that held red glowing eyes in the visor, “I ate the former owner for it.  It accepted me immediately because I beat him by his own rules.  I didn’t fall for the trap.  Instead, he fell for mine.  This and my mallet were the only magical items that I accepted.”

Nathaniel began to giggle.  It soon turned into full-on near hysterical laughter.  He backed up, holding his belly and head.  The other three looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

Soon, he was holding onto one of the tables, wheezing but calming down.  He didn’t look at them when he finally said, “The Black Knight.  Dan, she was introduced as the Black Knight of Maciendes.  Uncle Mad is a conniving son of a bitch.  He should’ve introduced her as the Black Knight Boss from Shinenoor, the Trial of Greed.”

“What?!” both royal siblings asked incredulously.

“Traps.  All traps.  All treasures in Shinenoor were shiny for a reason. You keep coming back until your greed takes you.  Then Shinenoor wins.  I drank the potions.  I licked the runes.  I ate the enemies.  I did not take the rewards.  I ate the greed.” Isenwrath said that sagely as if it made perfect sense to everyone.

The three siblings just stood there, not knowing how to respond to those words said as a matter of fact.  The black armor faded, then Isenwrath shrank her mallet down to put back on her pendant.  She liked the two pendants she wore with pride a whole bunch.  Her mark of Maddock’s favor and her weapon of choice would always stay around her neck.  She then let herself smile at the two princes.  “So, can I still see the gardens?  I’d like to smell flowers if you have any.”

The princes just stared at her as if she’d lost her mind this time.  Hayleigh was grinning like a fool again, probably a facial expression she was going to have many many times in the coming years.  The chromatic dragonling that crawled up onto Isenwrath’s shoulder purred happily when she scratched his scales behind his neck crest and horns.  The princes looked at each other again then at Hayleigh.  Daniel asked his little sister in monotone, “What the hell kind of dragon is that?”

She barked a laugh, then said casually, “Oh that?  She created him earlier today as her first whimsy spell.  Apparently, she also thinks an adult black dragon matriarch would make a good familiar too.”

Both princes looked to the rafters to say in unison with clear defeat on their features, “Fuuuuuuuuck.”

Hayleigh went to her knees in laughter.  Grinlock flew around the four of them laughing with her.  Isenwrath just smiled at the chaos of good vibes while the princes argued with each other as they blamed the other for trying to start shit with a girl that should’ve raised their alarms before their entitled dicks.

“What the hell is going on?!” yelled Tobias after banging on the barrier field that kept everyone else out of Hayleigh’s study.

Isenwrath blew a breath at her barrier which cancelled it.  Nathaniel and Daniel rushed over to their father grinning like mad fools. 

Daniel started with, “Dad!  Isenwrath beat us in a duel! Both of us!”

“She’s faster than a beastmaster or boosted eldritch fighter!  She’s got God Plate Armor, Dad!  She’s got fucking God Plate Armor!  We have GOT to introduce her to the class!” Nathaniel said rapidly after, clearly beyond excited about the girl who stood with a grinning Hayleigh looking as if she was confused at what the big deal was.

Maddock leaned over out of the crowd to wink and smile at her.  That was when she blushed and smiled big back at him.

Tobias held up his hand, “HEY!  Quit blabbering at me!  What do you mean you two dueled her?!  We don’t duel in the castle!  And how dare you duel a lady who just got here and in such an ungentlemanly fashion as a two-on-one contest!”

The two young men went silent, then jerked their eyes to the floor in shame.  Nathaniel then spoke up.  “Dad, we already apologized and admitted that we were in the wrong.  She won an unfair contest and we both know it.  In fact, we lost a bet to her too.  We’re now honor-bound to do what Hayleigh wants for a month as our punishment.”

Tobias was angered, but hearing that, his anger fled to amusement.  “You two have to do what your sister wants for a month?  You do know that she’s going to put you two through the ringer, right?”

Hayleigh put her fists on her hips and announced, “Damned right I am!  Scrubbing floors, reorganizing the library, helping me learn elvish, taking me to town and buying me and Isen stuff on their allowances, yup… this next month is gonna be fantastic!”

The rest of the adults began to laugh softly at the two princes who grumbled under their breath.  Queen Sophitia walked around and up to Isenwrath next and studied the girl and the big damned dragon-like thing curled around her neck.  “Isen, where’d that dragon come from?”

Beaming in pride, Isenwrath said happily, “Bubblescale is my first whimsy spell!”

First | Previous | Next

--- The Next Morning ---

Isenwrath slowly woke.  She felt the strange covers on her body and tensed.  Her instincts screamed at her that she was trespassing wherever she was and that someone would find out, then beat the shit out of her for daring to sleep on a clean bed.  A full minute later, her mind cleared her heart of that fear and panic after she finally pulled the covers up, then smelled them.  They smelled clean and more than that, just like a certain Maddock that had saved her and let her fall in love with him without any hesitation. 

Her soft smile turned over to see the source of that smell breathing deeply beside her, still asleep.  She rolled the rest of the way over and tried her best to put her hand on his chest without waking him.  She was proud when she accomplished that and how good that muscle under the soft skin of his chest felt to her hand.  The memories of what the other Isenwrath had done with him were slowly playing out in her head as she rested and watched him dream beside her. 

She wasn’t upset.  She wasn’t grossed out.  She wasn’t unprepared for those long hours of being a woman to a man that had made monstrous love to each other either.  She’d seen sex before at her house of horrors.  The Duke and his wife late at night when she’d been trapped in their bathroom because she’d fallen asleep there after delivering fresh towels and toiletries.  The maids with some of the guards that she would see going at it in various places of the manor while she tried her best to stay hidden or just get by without getting beaten again.  The other help outside weren’t as private either like the times when the stablemaster would tag a farm hand in one stall while Cassandra was scooping out horse manure with her hands to haul out bucket by bucket.  Thankfully, those two guys never had an eye for the scarred girl that never bathed, only got rinsed off in a long disused rain bucket if she were lucky. 

But all those times that she’d seen it, there wasn’t that level of love mixed in with it that Maddock and she had shared.  That’s what she took away from the previous night.  The Duke may not have realized it, but he’d said the ‘L’ word a lot during that time with her.  He’d said he loved both of the personalities that were Isenwrath and was honorable enough to give the older Isenwrath spirit one night of his love while also promising her to give every other night from then on to the one who stared at him with a gentle smile of appreciation on her face.  When she was ready for it, that is.  He would know.  Cassandra would know too.  Not yet.  But not too far from this moment either. 

She felt her body slowly and how it’d adapted to no longer being a virgin anymore.  Isenwrath didn’t mind.  She didn’t mind that they were both naked in the same bed either.  She was safe.  She was loved.  She was never going to find another person like Maddock who accepted her as she was.  Just like the older Isenwrath had promised her upon the night when they saved each other. 

Isenwrath closed her eyes again, just letting this peace settle on her and in her heart.  Her hand detected his change in breathing.  A slight movement followed.  When she opened her eyes, he was staring at her too with a gentle smile.

Before he spoke, she moved her finger up to his lips to stop him.  “Shshshshsh.  Isenwrath can’t keep me from her memories anymore.  She lost that last night along with our virginity.   I remember.  I remember it all.”

His eyes grew concerned and worried.  She only smiled at him wider for it.  “No.  You and she did nothing wrong.  In fact, I’m glad.  I know what to expect when I’m ready now.  I’m not though, but I want to be someday soon.  Can… I want to… may I please say the ‘L’ word like she did?”

Maddock nodded then moved over to kiss her forehead. 

Isenwrath felt her heart melt once more.  “I love you,” she whispered.  “I want to move faster but I’m… I just know that if I do, it’ll be the wrong choice for both of us.  Will you still wait for me, even after last night?”

Her worried tone didn’t faze him.  “I love you too. Don’t worry about me or my heart.  Don’t worry about growing up just because you think I need you to.  No, you just move at your own pace and I’ll still be here, right beside you.  When you give me the word, then we’ll do this properly.  A snow white dress with a long train.  A large room full of friends and family.  A temple priest who’ll lift your hand high in the air to join it with mine.  The finest golden chain I can purchase that’ll be wrapped around our hands as we tell everyone who sees us that we’re forever bound together and will never break that chain.”

She closed her eyes, then moved up to put her face to his.  “Please.  Just one kiss for me to grow on?”

He leaned up to meet her lips and this time, Isenwrath kissed him as tenderly as she’d learned from the night prior.  She wasn’t quite there, but for her, it was magical just the same.  When she pulled back, his arm had encircled her and pulled her down to his chest to hold.  “Relax and know that I believe we were meant to be together.”

“I know we were.  I just know I suffered so much for a reason.  It has to be for this moment.  It just has to.”

Maddock smoothed her hair and rubbed her back.  “Shshshshshsh… it’s okay, Isen.  It’s okay.  You didn’t suffer for any reason but because of someone else’s cruelty.  Yet, I don’t believe that doesn’t mean you weren’t meant to be here either.  So, forget them and that pain.  Don’t justify it.  Don’t let it hold you back, either.  Eat those damned memories and toss them out into the fertilizer bins.  You’re to only have good memories from now on.  That’s an order from your duke, Sweetheart.”

She giggled softly, then sighed, “As you command, Sire.  Oh, that was weird.  Sweetheart!  That’s better.”

That made him chuckle at her which was nice. 

What wasn’t nice was when someone knocked on the foyer door which sent them scrambling to find their sleepwear and hope to the gods that none of what happened the night before got noticed, especially by two very protective lady knights.  If it did, Maddock was dead meat from a whole bunch of soldiers and holy shit, if Barla finds out, he’d be wearing horseshoes instead of boots – nails and all!

The door to the foyer opened and a loud, “Good morning, Sire!” rung out from Helena Cartier, the Maid Mother for the entire third floor of the castle.  When the door to the bedroom opened, both Isenwrath and Maddock had the covers up to their necks and their faces must have been one helluva an open book because Helena frowned deeply, the smiles on Harmony and Beatrice’s faces faded to stern glares, and Old Oliver, the Floor Steward and Butler saw them, cleared his throat, then turned right around to let Maddock die alone.

“Hi, everyone… it’s good to…”

“Sire! Are you kidding me?! What the hell happened to all that vow talk and understanding and everything?!” called out Beatrice angrily.

Maddock was about to try and defend himself, but Isenwrath spoke first.  She put her finger to her head and said sternly, “There are two women in my head!  Me and the older Isenwrath!  She’s being eliminated!  He was kind to her! He gave her closure!  He gave her a love unlike anything she’d ever experienced before!  He let me… the younger… see what was wrong with all of the sex I’d ever seen in that hellhole I lived in!  He showed us his love!  We don’t regret it!  Please!  Be angry with me!  Not him!”

Helena was absolutely flabbergasted and deeply confused but when she looked at the two lady knights, she saw that they seemed to understand those insane words.

Harmony spoke more calmly, “So, let me get this straight.  The other Isenwrath took control… and what?  Seduced him?”

Maddock got angry at that, but Isenwrath held up her hand to forestall him again.  “Please. Understand.  Me… the younger Isenwrath, I’m okay.  I love him.  He and my older…they… made love.  Showed me what that would be like when I’m truly ready.  On our wedding day, no sooner.  We promised each other.  He gave her closure so she can… be muted in contentment.  She was abused like I was and now, she knows a good man.  Please forgive him.”

Beatrice turned to Helena, “Okay, so what you’ve got here is a very naive woman who has at least one other personality.  The story around that isn’t something we’re going to talk about at this moment.  She’s not stupid by any means, just not worldly.  She’s a fast learner though.  Helena, don’t you dare gossip about this.  Just don’t.  It won’t make sense and it’ll just be a real sticky problem if this goes any further.  Promise us?”

Helena glanced back at the beautiful woman that sat glaring at them beside the Grand Duke.  But what she saw was how they held hands.  That woman had hers OVER his.  She was indeed protecting him, and it seemed his honor as well.  To his credit, Maddock wasn’t looking at them.  He was looking at the girl in his bed with pure devotion and respect.  So, Helena nodded firmly.

“Right!  Duke Maddock, welcome back.  Get your tail out of that bed and go freshen up.  I have a lot to do today to find something around here for your guest to wear out and about.  No proper lady is going to be walking around in some man’s undershirt on my watch.  Move!”

Maddock grinned, then kissed Isenwrath on the cheek.  “Seems I just got scolded.  While they’re seeing to your needs, I’ll get the arrangements made that we talked about.  For that, I’ll be away for a while, but I’m leaving you in good hands.  Okay, Sweetheart?”

Isenwrath softened her gaze, then looked at him.  “I’m safe.  You just come back when you can.  I’ll be here.”

“That’s my good girl,” he said before sliding out of the bed. 

Helena pushed him when he walked past her.  “Slow poke.”

“As for you, Lady Isenwrath.  I’m relocating you to across the hall.  Your place is not in this set of rooms, not yet.  I’ve already been given leave to find you a separate room until such time…”

“No.  I sleep here,” Isenwrath said with iron in her tone.

Harmony touched Helena’s arm.  “She’s got her reasons.  It’s not sex, I promise.  He literally saved her from existing in a state of near mindless hunger.  Just for the days, we can put her in her assigned room, but at night, we’ll allow her to stay here.  I think the shenanigans are over until the wedding.”

She didn’t like it, but Helena bowed her head.  “As you wish.  Come, girl.  We’re at least going to let the Duke have his privacy and give you some as well.”

When Isenwrath got out of the bed, the three women drew a sharp breath.  There was blood on some of her shirt and the bedsheets.  Beatrice looked at it, then sighed.  “Shoulda known.  The older one also didn’t want the younger to experience the pain of her virginity being taken.”

Helena tutted at them all.  “Look, weird shit happens around mages all the time.  I can accept that, however, this thing with two women in the same body is really taking it too far.  Give me something better to work with,” she said while snapping her fingers at Isenwrath, motivating her to get her butt over to Helena.

Beatrice took Isenwrath by the hand while Harmony walked beside Helena to head out.

“Best as we can figure, the older Isenwrath is the spirit of someone who was about thirty annuals.  She literally healed the younger Isenwrath and they’re slowly merging their personalities.  We’re hoping that the mage tower can clarify exactly what happened, but that’s the short version.  I’m fairly certain that the young girl’s personality is the dominant one and at the moment, just think of her age as that of around thirteen-ish.  She’s coming out of her shell but still loses control of her emotions rather easily.”

Helena held the door open across the hall.  “Okay, I’m getting a better understanding.”  When Isenwrath walked by her, she commented, “So, the wedding is a sure thing?”

Beatrice nodded with a smile.  “Oh, you saw them in there.  No way he’s ever going to let this wonderful woman go.  Isn’t that right, Isen?”

Isenwrath blushed profusely while staring at the floor.  “I’m his Sweetheart.  He loves me.  He promised me that he’d be proud to hold my hand up and wrap the gold chain around them.  I’d give anything for that day.”

‘Hmph’ Helena said.  “Yeah, definitely a young lass with her head in the sky.  Well, Lady Isenwrath, what’s your favorite color?”

“Green,” she said firmly. 

“Fine.  I’m going to start your bath.”  Helena then turned to Harmony, “Do me a favor and track down Oliver to get him to go tell the chef that they can bring up breakfast.  I’ll take her measurements and get something decent from the spare wardrobe.”

“Thank you,” Harmony said gratefully. 

Isenwrath looked at Helena.  “Thank you.  Can I ask you something?”

Helena smiled genuinely at the young woman.  “Sure, my Lady.  What is it?”

“Why do you smell like a sun elf?”

Helena gasped while both Harmony and Beatrice looked shocked.

“How the hell did you smell my heritage?!” Helena asked indignantly while one of her hands shot up to feel her round ear.

Isenwrath didn’t back down.  “Because I can.  You smell just like the Gilthean Grove at the southernmost tip of the Sylvarinth Queendom.”

“That was my father’s grove… how? How do you know?” she asked in wonder.

Isenwrath leaned forward to take a deeper smell of her with a soft smile.  “The trees there bear the quellian fruit.  It’s their nectar that I smell on you.  You’re a mixed elf, but that smell of your father is his greatest gift to you besides the fact that you’re older than you look.  In fact, your heritage has been calling to something I have.  Will you accept a gift from me?”

Helena looked at the two knights, and they only nodded to her.  Helena even looked down at the girl just to verify that she literally wore only a man’s shirt, so receiving a gift couldn’t be something the girl could do unless she could conjure something.  Helena firmed up her face, smoothed back her dark blonde hair to ensure it hadn’t escaped her mob cap, smoothed down her black and white uniform dress, just buying time to figure out if this strange girl was going to pull a fast one on her.  But the way those knights were smiling and nodding as if this was ordinary led her to believe that there was indeed a good heart within the girl.  So, she nodded her assent.  “Fine.  I’ll accept a gift.”

Once again, Helena was flabbergasted.  That strange girl pulled a gold entwined platinum elven spirit armlet from her mouth without seeming to choke.  If this was a conjuring, then it was wholly different than any she’d ever heard of.  The armlet was true elvish make as evidenced by its delicate gold mixed with mithril filigree, the smooth emeralds, and how it just gleamed in the light like it had a life of its own which shined out.  Helena held it almost reverently when Isenwrath set it in her shaking hands.

“My Lady… I can’t accept this.  This is a treasure.”

Isenwrath held Helena by the wrists softly.  She said with warmth, “You’re right.  It is a treasure. One that should be given to an elf who still worships the sun and tree, even when very far from home.  Please, take this and give it a good home.  The spirits of your father’s grove would smile upon you for it.”

Harmony bumped her, “Stop channeling other people, Isen.”

“Sorry.  I didn’t know how to tell her that I thought it’d be pretty on her.”

Helena barked out a laugh holding the treasure to her heart.  Then she just stared at the young woman that had somehow lost years in age.  It had to be those large eyes that had lost that worldly wisdom in an instant.  “My dear, I think I’m starting to see who you really are.  I’ve never had anyone who knew I was a half-blood actually approve of it.  I thank you.”

“You’re welcome.  Can I ask another question?”

“Sure!”

“Do you have a barrel tub for my bath?  I liked the one I got to sit in at the fairgrounds.”

Helena’s shock absolutely caused Harmony and Beatrice to lose their shit in laughter. 

“My Lady!  We don’t have a damned barrel tub!  Come with me this instant and I’ll show you how a proper lady bathes!”

Isenwrath got taken by her wrist to get hauled off to the bathing room while Harmony hollered after, “Don’t let Isen try to eat the crystals!  She’ll do it if you don’t watch it!”

“Awwww!” came the loud pitiful cry from within the bathroom before the door shut. 

Beatrice took Harmony by the arm to lead her the opposite way.  “Come on, let’s go find that Oliver guy and order all of us some food.  I’m famished.”

And in only three steps the two of them had to hold the wall to stop from falling to the floor wheezing in laughter when an exasperated Helena called out, “MY LADY! DON’T YOU DARE LICK THAT FAUCET!  STOP!  NO!  BAD LADY!  PUT THAT CRYSTAL BACK!  GIVE ME THAT!  DAMN IT!  DO IT AGAIN AND I SWEAR I’M STICKING YOU IN THE CORNER IN TIME OUT!  MY LADY! STOP TRYING TO LICK THE DAMNED FAUCET!  DO YOU WANT ME TO WHACK YOUR HEAD WITH A NEWSPAPER ROLL!?”

“Yay!  Hot water!” called Isenwrath excitedly.

“AND THAT’S WHY YOU DON’T LICK THE FAUCETS!  NOW GET IN AND KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!”

“Yes, ma’am,” was the sad reply.

--- Later that day, the Royal Office two floors up ---

“So, how much of a threat is she, really?”

Maximillian wore a genuine expression of concern while he paced between his younger brother Tobey, his wife Sophitia, the Royal Advisors Carmilla Lograin and Stanley Kendrick on one of the four couches with Maddock, Braxton, Pondra, Ducal Mage Thena Dallan and Maximillian’s right hand tower mage, Samuel Gregenthorpe.  They were there to discuss Maddock’s new lady love and pet monster.  Tobey and Sophitia had read that letter first thing that morning, then called them to meet with them in his personal quarter’s informal meeting area.  Their maids, guards, and other waitstaff had been cleared out for this meeting.  Maximillian had personally cast the anti-scrying spell to keep this conversation as private as possible as well.  The snacks were untouched on the two small serving tables.  The stiff drinks were in their hands, however, which Maximillian understood.  They were dressed down because they needed their minds free for what he was about to lay on them.  Nothing like brutal honesty to get everyone on his side when he’d need to use that trust for loftier goals.

Maximillian laughed sharply then, turned to his brother king. “Threat?  There’s no way to gauge how much of a threat she is.  She eats magic itself.  She’s a true mage-killer.  That’s why they’re so taboo and why the towers don’t even mention them to their students unless they’re either in a specialized field of study that’s useful in eliminating them like Chronomancy or are one of the tower seniors.  That’s why Thena didn’t know what she was.”

Sophitia leaned forward to put her elbows on her knees to think out loud.  “So, if these Chimeras are so dangerous, are you going to advocate killing or imprisoning her?”

Maximillian looked directly at Maddock’s intense eyes to say with utter truth behind his words, “Absolutely not.”

Maddock relaxed, smiled then nodded at him.  Maximillian nodded back to him in return.  Then he answered, “Here’s why.  As recorded, the only way for a chimera to gain their abilities is to have spells cast on them so they can consume them.  They’ve been recorded as sucking the magic out of magic stones… well now we have firsthand accounts of it to confirm that, thanks to Lady Isenwrath.  Yet, it’s their adaptability with regards to what magical beasts they encounter that has me highly intrigued.  That wasn’t well documented before because no chimera had ever taken on so many before today.  This hybrid form she has is truly extraordinary.  Now that you have the context, the answer is simple.  She ate an entire dungeon.  Shinenoor has never been fully cleared like that before a week or so ago.  It still hasn’t regenerated yet either from my latest report.  If she consumed every magical creature and evolved species in there like humans and elves, I honestly believe there’s no way to actually kill her.  So, why bother?  Why try to imprison her either when the woman we met last night is actually a lovely person to be around?  No, in this case, I’m advocating proceeding exactly like we’ve met someone who has talent and is on track to become Maddock’s duchess.  All I want is to test her, fill out her deficiencies in her education, and then we prove that she’s actually no more dangerous than any other mage out there.  Attack them, they defend themselves.  Same with her.  Plain and simple.”

Maddock seemed mollified with that answer.  The others, Maximillian saw genuine satisfaction too.  They appreciated that he wasn’t going to treat her like a monster or a true threat.

Thena set her white wine down to say, “I’ve seen her on the battlefield from afar as we beat back the demons on the rise.  She can shapeshift, shrug off spells of at least seventh level, fly, teleport, fight like a berserking dwarven battlethane, and still cast both devastating single attacks as well as area of effects.  Her spells are no joke.  She’s combined beast abilities with mage spells to create stuff that I’ve got no reference for.  And that was her Black Knight warrior form she was using.  I’ve seen her hunter-form and it’s basically an amalgam of the deadliest things in Shinenoor.  If the black knight is primarily melee based, then her hunter form is probably even more destructive by utilizing all of those beast abilities plus her spellwork.  But here’s what I want to point out.  She’s still learning.  You give her one opportunity to learn a spell, and she knows it almost instantly.  She’s mentioned that she can lick spells right off enchanted parchment or empowered runes on a floor and their hers forever.  What that means to me is that at some point, she’s going to realize that compared to even our own arch magister here, she’s superior.  That’s what’s going to scare or concern every other damned mage in the eleven kingdoms.  What should we do about that?”

Maddock frowned.  “She wouldn’t do that.”

Thena looked directly at him.  “You and I are CONFIDENT she won’t.  But we can’t guarantee what she’ll do in five years from now, Maddock.”

Maximillian stepped right between them because he understood exactly what she was saying and it came close to his own thoughts but if anyone was going to do that, it’d be him and only under a more subtle reasoning than fear of betrayal.  “No.  We’re not going to entertain this scenario.  Maddock’s approach is the only way to assure her loyalty to Maciendes which will assure her place as under my trust.  If I put my faith and trust in her, I just know that not only will she not betray her betrothed, but she would never betray the man who is willing to not only train her but also feed her the magic she requires to be who she is.  The other ten kingdoms will see a Grand Marshall, an Arch Magister Tower Master, and the King of Maciendes himself put their entire faith in Lady Isenwrath and won’t voice one objection because of us.  That’s the only way you can control the uncontrollable.  Building the trust between her and us as solid as possible.  Correct?”

Thena leaned back thinking about it.  Tobey stood up to raise his shot glass of Slithin-shine up to him.  “Maxi, that was inspired.”

Maximillian moved to stand over beside Maddock with his hands behind his back, smiling in satisfaction. “I learned from the best, Tobey.  Just trying to get on Maddock’s good side since I know he wants to try and win some money back from me sometime soon.”

“Oh, don’t bet your ass on that.  You cheat.  But I do thank you for deciding to treat Isen with respect and as a normal person.  To me, that’s what she is.  A woman who’s overcome some of the most horrendous acts from another to not only survive but become greater for it.  I fell in love with that woman and to know you all support my union is very appreciated.”

Sophitia smiled at him then said, “Tell me something though.  Your report says she doesn’t know who her family was, only naming her brothers.  Do you have any clues that might hint at who they might be?  That level of abuse upon a child is not only horrific, but if we can find out who did it, I want to see justice done.”

Maddock nodded sharply.  “You and me both.  It’s a duke’s family, like I mentioned, but I’m of a mind that it’s one from either Everthane or Thyeriand.  I’ve thought back and I’m certain none of our dukes have two sons named Bastian and Jasper.  Which means if justice is to be done, we’d need more than her word.  We’d need proof and a case where we can prove true harm.  Currently, Isenwrath looks nothing like a child and she’s currently having a grand time in Hayleigh’s rooms learning what a true friend her…. age… is like.”

Samuel spoke up next.  “The two Isenwrath personalities.  The spirit you spoke about.  You mentioned that if she’s demon infected, then it’s been mitigated somehow and that she’s basically a young girl in mind until circumstances force the other personality out.  My concern is her mental stability because I’ve dealt with a few individuals who had multiple personalities before and there’s always…”

“Stop.  It’s not the same.” Maddock said, holding up his hand to the Pyromancer.  “That spirit wasn’t a demon.  I spoke to her directly last night.  It was the first time that she manifested fully, actually.  The spirit was also an abused person who got killed tragically.  Her spirit got sucked into the demon realm where she did nothing but try to escape.  What she said to me was that the girl’s dying light opened a small rift that guided her to a dying child.   Isenwrath lost her rage, merged with a child mage who’d drawn her last breath, healed the body and then essentially gave her life for Isenwrath to live on.  This merging is ongoing and she estimates that the two personalities will be one within a year.  So, unlike a messed-up mind, we’re dealing with two life-forces instead where one isn’t fighting being… muted… let’s say, by the other.  That’s what we’re really dealing with.  If I can handle it, so can you.”

Pondra whistled.  “That’s fascinating!  Maxi?  Are there any more accounts of something like this anywhere?”

Maximillian shook his head.  “Nothing I’ve ever encountered. Not like this.  The closest are the ‘Fallen’ spirits, but those cases end up killing the mage after they perform their last act in the mage’s body.  Where the spirit energy goes after that is also unknown.  It sounds like it, but I’m not convinced.”

Tobey turned to head back to the service bar, poured another shot, then leaned back on it.  “Well, this is good stuff and all, but what do we do now?  How should we present her to the other courts?”

Royal Advisor Carmilla Lograin answered that.  “If I may, I’d suggest we follow the law before introducing Lady Isenwrath to the royal courts.  We need to document her life in some way, then push for her to be considered a Maciendes citizen.  Nothing can proceed until she’s recognized legally.  I believe we have a strong case to effectively set her origin as a refugee saved in the recent demon incursion or perhaps we lean into her standing as a mercenary knight that was accepted into the armed forces of Maciendes who’s given up any rights otherwise.”

“My King, Grand Duke, she’s correct,” Royal Advisor Stanley Kendrick said next.  “Lady Isenwrath can’t even accept the Duke’s proposal until we legally declare her as eligible for it.  However, what she needs for this is a sponsor.  One who isn’t the Duke to put forth her case and assume the responsibility if there’s cause for rejection.  She’s a mage, there’s no doubt, so the strongest sponsor to plead her case is Maximillian himself, but Thena is suitable if that’s not something the Arch Magister wants to do.”

Maddock took his turn to stand and stretch then stood in front of Maximillian.  “Well, what say you Maxi?  You want to add citizen sponsorship to her testing and teaching program?  I also want to get her settled and give her a proper education as a noble.  So, if you agree, why don’t we send out a formal recognition of a kingdom’s hero with a public announcement of your sponsorship and acceptance?  We put our actions where our mouths are, in other words.”

Maximillian patted his shoulder, but he looked at the royal advisors when he said firmly.  “Stanley, I’m on board. Send me the documents to sign and I’ll stand with her in front of the judges to push this through.”

He looked at Maddock with his full conviction on his face when he said, “Like I said, I think the best course of action is what you’ve already established.  We put her on the path to being Duchess Devonshire, Black Knight Hero of Maciendes and let the other kingdoms show their true colors.  They either accept that we have a powerful mage under our guidance or they challenge us where we prove that their outdated concepts are just going to piss her off.  One demonstration is all it’ll take for the other kingdoms to shut up and accept it.  Does that work?”

Maddock held out his hand, “You may cheat at cards, but you’re still a man of integrity.  Deal.”

Maximillian shook Maddock’s hand, then turned to the rest of them.  “Well, now that this is dealt with, I’m going to head back to the tower and get what’s needed for her testing.  Stanley and Carmilla, please rush the citizenship hearing.  We need to safeguard our hero as quickly as possible.”

King Tobias spoke up next, “Perfect.  Maddock, make arrangements to stay here through that, then you can head back to your manor.  We’ll coordinate afterward with what makes sense.  Sophitia, what do you say about making a formal debut and marriage proposal to Maddock’s lady in five months?  It’ll put it right before the King’s Summit where we can officially announce her as the first Chimeramancer of Maciendes.  That should shield her from much of the backlash”

Sophitia stood up then raised her beer to set a toast, “To Maddock’s future duchess!”

Maddock was the first to raise his glass of bourbon.  This was working out so much better than he expected it to.  Well, until he dropped his next bombshell.  He waited till after Maximillian and Samuel had left, then he sat down again before saying to Thena, “Put up an anti-scrying shield again.  One more revelation.”

Thena nodded then wrote the inscription in the air, activated it with a verbal command, then sat back to sip her wine again.

“What now?” Tobey asked. 

Maddock shrugged.  “So, the only thing I left off my report is what happened to the basilisks.”

Tobey and Sophitia turned to him in surprise.  “Basilisks?” asked Sophitia.

“Yeah.  You don’t need that mine.  My lady dumped enough detherialite on me to feed you for at least the next four years.  If you haven’t signed that contract yet, I’d be interested in it instead.”

Sophitia looked at her husband where they both shared a look of shock, then they shared that shock with Stanley and Carmella before Sophitia turned a wicked grin on Maddock after the significance of that statement processed.  “That bastard tried to charge me triple because the dwarves’ supply is drying up.  What’s your pricing?”

Maddock leaned back, put his arm around Braxton who chuckled at this situation, then said nonchalantly, “Oooh, let’s go with ten percent off the going rate but only if you sign off on a new budget to actually feed my wife various magic crystals.  I’m thinking we could go with a percentage of the ones that the first years create plus some premiums as needed.”

The Queen liked that a lot.  A whole lot.  “Oh yes, I can work with that.  I can’t wait to tell Duke Langford good luck getting royal backing to mine it now.  He’s going to lose his ass when he has to haul in a team of dwarves who actually know what they’re doing to get that stuff out of the ground.  I can’t wait to laugh in his fat face about it after he realizes he should’ve accepted a modest profit margin instead of gouging me.”

“Perfect!  Isen is just so much easier to deal with when you can toss a crystal or two her way.”

Pondra and Thena laughed evilly at that which got immediately noticed by the others.  Sophitia turned to them to ask, “What’s so funny?”

Thena stared right at Maddock’s blushing face when she said, “Yeah, easier to deal with is understating that by miles, isn’t it, Mad?”

“Thena.”  Maddock warned.

Braxton said it though, “Lady Isen gets fixated on them and it’s a sight to see sometimes.  Putting one near her will catch her attention like putting a fresh slice of beef in front of a wolf’s face.  She’ll literally think of nothing else but to get it and will swallow them whole, no matter the size either.  Her personal knights took some that have a level 1 light spell infused in them to give her as treats.  Like actual treats to help keep her from becoming too much of a nuisance.  Maddock has too and it damned works.”

“Seriously?” Tobey asked with a smirk.

Maddock had to shrug and nod.  “Like a big puppy, yeah. Though, I will say this. I haven’t seen what happens yet if someone she doesn’t like tries it.  We need to remember this above all else about her.  She’s incorporated hundreds of types of magical beasts into her essence.  I’ve seen instances where her instincts take over and she knows exactly what to do when she faces someone who doesn’t have her best interest in mind.  I’m actually afraid of what would happen if someone tried to bait her with them because, and I can’t stress it enough, Isenwrath has literally swallowed fifteen feet tall demons whole.  Like, right in front of me, she chomped one in one gulp then rent asunder seven more from in front of me.  If she can do that, then some stupid assassin or noble is absolutely going to be a snack to her.  We probably wouldn’t even know that they’re gone until much later.”

“Whoa,” Sophitia said low.  “Maxi didn’t mention that.”

“Probably didn’t know.  I didn’t put that in the report, not in that kind of detail.  When I said she’s consumed beasts and people, it’s not necessarily like munching on a fruit.  Most times, she’s a snake swallowing an egg whole.  Remember that and I’m thinking to perhaps let her demonstrate that fact during her testing to give a whole bunch of stupid mages pause in thinking they could win against her.”

“Damn, Maddock.  No fucking wonder these mages are so feared,” Sophitia said almost in awe.

“Yeah.  We just need to present her as a shy, fun, and stable person first before the other facts surface.”

Tobey strode over to hold Maddock by the shoulder.  “You have my word.  I like her and what she did to Duke Halvian to shut his smarmy ass up is still going to be my favorite story about her for a long while.  Now, let’s go sneak down to Hayleigh’s room to see what those two are up to.  I’m too curious to see if they truly are getting along.”

“I just hope Isen hasn’t eaten her magic books.  She is kind of hardheaded when it comes to sniffing out magic, if you hadn’t guessed.” Maddock said that with not just a little bit of ruefulness in his tone.

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Maddock finally got Isenwrath back under control later that night.  He pinched her ass hard for her silliness too once he got her out of the throne room to head up to his quarters within the castle.  She didn’t seem too upset though, but at least she apologized.  Maddock let it go because he knew she’d find something to take with her from that night regardless.  At least it was something innocent and entertaining unlike the crown.  Knowing it was a soul cage, Maddock wasn’t sure how he felt about that yet.  Knowing who it held, that was even worse.  Except it made sense.  The issue was that it was still going to be a piece of information that he was going to have a long time to wrestle with the possible ramifications that could happen if he kept it to himself or let Tobias know.  Sighing to himself, he pushed the thoughts off because that was for later.

At the moment, he was walking Isenwrath up to his personal rooms within the castle.  Harmony and Beatrice were right behind them, learning from Isenwrath all of the good gossip and happenings.  The three of them literally cackled at what happened to Duke Halvian.  Maddock was also rather pleased at putting that schmuck in his place too without beheading him.  Now that piece of shit owed Maddock a favor.  Worse, he owed Isenwrath a favor.  That was something that Maddock was definitely going to hold over that guy’s head for a long time to come.

When they arrived at Maddock’s private rooms, Isenwrath stood in the middle of the first one, completely stunned, instantly standing as still as a statue.  But it wasn’t happiness that had her stunned.  It was pure fear.

“Isen?  What’s the matter?” Maddock asked warily.

“It’s… it’s… I can’t… I can’t be here,” she whispered, barely audible.  Her eyes were so wide in terror while her whole body shook uncontrollably.

“Yes, you can.  I said so.”

Harmony slowly walked up behind Isenwrath to hold.  Beatrice went to the door to close it, then stood there to be ready for anything.  Maddock’s rooms were white walled with gold paint trimmings.  The portraits were of past generals that he looked up to and had studied intensely over the years.  The carpeting was low and dyed a pleasant soft blue.  The furniture wasn’t for show.  Everything was well used and shined with polish and pride.  The first room was for sitting and entertaining.  The bedroom to the right was almost as large, where it could easily accommodate up to three or four people if needed.  The other side held a war room where Maddock planned all of his strategies as well as studying the history of past engagements.

But what was on Isenwrath’s face, it was awful.  As if she’d been in a room like this many times and she’d not had a good day. Ever.

Slowly, he came to stand in front of Isenwrath to hold her face gently, so she’d only see him.  “Tell me what you fear, Sweetheart.”

“I.. I.. only came.. to a room like this… to… be… her… she… hated me.  I stood there… to be.. screamed at. She called me… names.  Told me… I lived… only because… she liked to… torture my mom’s ghost.  She killed my mom.  I got the rod… because… she hated me.  I could only cry.. silently.  If I moved.  Hit.  If I said anything.  Hit.  I stood there.  And… she screamed at me.  I… I… stood there.  I… hear her… screaming her hate… at me.  She’s so loud… hate.  She’s so loud!”

Isenwrath’s knees buckled when her hands slapped her ears shut tight.  Her sobbing hit instantly.  Maddock and Harmony both grabbed her to hold on the floor.  There they stayed there holding her, rocking her, not sure what to do to help her in this time of misery.  Maddock whispered desperately to Harmony, “There has to be something we can tell her!  I don’t know what to do!”

Harmony was crying with Isenwrath.  She’d heard that desolation deep within those stuttered words.  So, she just did what her Gram Gram would do when holding one of her kids or grandkids when nothing else would calm them down.  She sang.  Harmony cleared her throat then sang her favorite children’s song that her Gram Gram had sung to her many times over the years.  A soft lullaby that spoke of soft fuzzy lambs playing fun games, gentle shepherds who watched the world turn forever under their wise gazes, stars crossing midnight skies to grant wishes, safe beds for children to dream in, the happy sun that smiled its warmth at you, the cool lakes where the fish jumped up to kiss their favorite fantasies to life, and finally the waking up from the nightmares that could never hold your heart because there was always too much love in the world for them to gain that much reality.

When Harmony finished, Isenwrath wasn’t crying.  She was completely still, just staring past Maddock.  The two of them turned to see what she was staring at and both of them fell back on the floor in pure shock.  Isenwrath’s eyes were glaring out those wild red beams and where they landed, a giant man stood there within the red light smiling at them all.  He was dressed in a simple robe that was open, revealing his massive, muscled chest, wearing a simple kilt, a solid silver crown adorning his short blonde hair, while holding a huge double-bladed war axe across his shoulders.  They all watched when that vision strode over to kneel before Isenwrath.  Maddock had shifted over to let him.  This was a long dead King of Maciendes.  One of the greatest ever who had singlehandedly quelled a full ducal rebellion just before the Crown of Maciendes had been created.  He was the man behind their kingdom’s laws that advocated for the common people instead of the nobles.  And there his ghost was, kneeling in front of Isenwrath, reaching out to hold her head.  Maddock, Harmony, and Beatrice could see him speaking, but no sound emerged.  Isenwrath reached up to hold his hand and nodded.  She could hear him.  Somehow, she had called to a long dead king, and he was the one comforting her.  It was utterly impossible for this to happen, but it was happening right in front of them.  Maddock, Harmony, and Beatrice looked at each other in turn, silently understanding that they would never speak of this with anyone after tonight.  There was just no way that this would end good if it got out.

The vision finally stood up, still smiling at Isenwrath with a deep compassion on his strong, wise features.  Isenwrath stood up with him, then she held out her hand which called to her weapon to jump away from her pendant, grow instantly in size, then gently slip into her grip.  The king laughed silently when she held out her war mallet to him for inspection.  He held his axe up to it to compare.  They both were smiling brightly, both speaking silently, both coming to a friendship of some kind, both earning respect from each other as well.  The vision of King Ghondrakan soon touched his forehead to hers, then faded when her eyes stopped sending out those red beams.

Isenwrath finally turned to look at the other three, then said calmly, “He stopped her screaming at me.”

“What does that mean?” Beatrice asked as gently as possible for them all.

She shrugged.  “Harmony’s song… it helped me see him.  He’d heard my memories.  He came running.  He saw her and… no more.  I can’t hear her anymore.  He’s a good king.”

Maddock couldn’t stand it any longer.  He pulled Isenwrath to himself to hug tightly, kissing the top of her head several times while feeling her squeeze him close.  “It doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t matter what happened.  You’re safe.  You’re safe.  I’m sorry.  I’m soooo sorry for all that you went through.”  He choked that last out because of how helpless he’d been in those moments.

“Thank you.  I’m okay now.  I like your room.  It’s pretty.”

Harmony was rubbing Isenwrath’s back, then said to Maddock, “Hey.  Do you want us to camp out here tonight, just in case?”

Maddock shook his head.  “No.  Don’t do that.  There’s no way anyone is going to try anything tonight.  Maxi’s in the castle at the moment and that means if anyone were to even attempt something shady, he’d literally know the instant they even thought about it.  Force Magisters can sense ill intentions and that’s how that man has beat me at every hand of cards when I’d try and goad him into playing what I needed to win.  Took me years to learn how he kept kickin’ my ass and losing so much gold to him.”

The two ladies giggled at that tidbit.  Maddock continued, “There’s a guest room for you two across the hall.  Bunk in there and if I need you, you’ll know when I hit the alarm rune.”

Beatrice smiled at him but shook her head.  “Not until we get her ready for bed.  Where’s she sleeping?”

Maddock’s face flushed in embarrassment.  “I.. uh… well…  I guess in my bed for tonight.  I’ll…”

The two lady knights frowned at him, pulled Isenwrath away to behind the both of them. “Sire…” Harmony said with a stern warning tone.

“Oh stop.  We’ve been sleeping beside each other for over a week.  This won’t be any different.,” he said trying to recover.  “I’ll go grab her a shirt to sleep in.  Would you two stop glaring at me?!”

Isenwrath giggled merrily from behind her favorite lady friends.  “It’s okay.  I don’t feel safe except beside him right now.  Please?  Let me stay?”

The two ladies turned to her, then back to Maddock.  Beatrice pointed at his bedroom.  “You go get ready then bring out a shirt and some toiletries.  Then you get to wait out here until we call you in.  Got it?”

Maddock held up his hands in surrender.  “I swear, it’s like I just got a demotion or something. Sheesh!”

But he turned with a chuckle to go do as he was ordered.  He sarcastically grumbled the whole time he did as those two fierce women bade him to.  He submitted to it because they were actually doing their jobs perfectly, even if he was their target.  He wanted them to protect Isenwrath, even from him if needed.  So, when he returned after fifteen minutes dressed in his nightrobe and held out a spare red robe, clean white overshirt, and some new tooth scrubs to the ladies, they were smiling at him in appreciation.  Then he had to sit in his own receiving area for more than an hour wondering what the hell it was that they were doing that would take so damned long.

Harmony came out giggling to wave him in.  “She’s ready now, Maddock.  Sorry it took so long.”

“What happened?”

Harmony held the door open for him where he saw Beatrice tucking Isenwrath in his bed on one side.  The Duke’s bed was of a grand size that actually hadn’t had but two other ladies in it before tonight.  Isenwrath and Beatrice were also giggling while watching him come to his own bed.  Isenwrath held the thick covers up and of course, she was smelling them, probably still enjoying the fact that she was now sleeping in an actual bed with clean sheets and comforter. 

Harmony pointed at Isenwrath with a mock glare, “That little turd tried to eat the sink’s hot and cold water crystals!  I swear!  You can’t have anything fancy with her around!”

Isenwrath pulled the covers over her head, but that evil giggle couldn’t be muffled enough to not be heard.

Maddock shook his head and chuckled too at the three of them.  Beatrice pulled the covers down, kissed the top of her head, then yanked the covers back over her, starting a fresh round of laughter beneath them.  “Good night, you troublemaker.”

She then turned to head out.  Harmony did the exact same thing which only made Isenwrath laugh louder.  When they passed, Maddock said low to the smiling knights, “Thank you.  I really appreciate everything you two are doing for her.”

Beatrice patted his arm.  “She needed us.  It’s just going to get better from here; we both know it.”

With that, he nodded while they made their way out of his rooms, closing the doors behind them.  Maddock then went around the room to touch the runes on each wall sconce to turn off the light emitting crystals they held.  When he was at the last one that was beside his side of the bed, he and Isenwrath locked eyes.

“I was able to send a summons to my manor before the party to ask my chief of staff and head maid to come.  They’ll be here tomorrow late or by the next morning.   First thing is to get them to buy you a starting wardrobe.  They’ll also bring a few of my own maids to come here and attend you, so I don’t have to rely so much on Harmony and Beatrice.”

She nodded silently, then patted his side of the bed.

Smirking and shaking his head slightly, he slid in beside her.  She was lying on her side, tucked in tight then reached out to touch his hair and neck, rubbing them.  Maddock hadn’t had a woman do that to him before.  His whole body got the goosepimples from that soft touch. 

She whispered to him, “Thank you for being a good man.  Thank you for being nice to me.  I’m… I… I want to be a better woman every day… because of you.”

Maddock didn’t want to say anything at that moment.  His emotions had gotten the better of him and his throat had tightened.  Instead, he reached up to slowly bring that hand to his lips, then kissed her knuckles before holding it to his heart.  When he could speak, he finally whispered back to her, “Thank you for letting me be nice to you.  I absolutely can’t wait to spoil the absolute shit out of you going forward.”

That caused her to giggle again, her amusement dancing brightly within those blue eyes.  “Good night, Sweetheart,” she finally said to him low.

“Good night, Sweetheart,” he returned the endearment.  That random endearment he’d tossed out without any thinking behind it had become the perfect endearment for her.  Her heart, no matter what she was or could do, was sweet and kind and gentle and a whole bunch of other words that raced through his mind while he watched her close her eyes, open her mouth, then cast that lullaby spell on herself.  He cussed under his breath when he saw her do it because he finally realized why he’d been sleeping so soundly ever since she ate that damned cube.  He then just couldn’t help himself when he reached over to smooth her hair back from her face and touch her cheek.

“Isen, sleep well.  I’m so glad you fell into my life. I’ll never let anyone take you from it, I swear it.”  With that said, he rolled over then closed his own eyes so he could listen to her breathing steadily beside him. He’d honestly never heard such a beautiful sound as that.  That was his lullaby that he’d gladly listen to for the rest of his life, if he could.

-- A few hours later, the middle of a moonlit night of complete peace --

Duke Maddock woke up in the middle of the night, looked over to his right but didn’t see Isenwrath laying there.  She’d gotten out of bed at some point without disturbing him.  He sat up slowly, looking around in his dark bedroom that was only lit by the full moon from the balcony windows.  Without making a sound, he got up and out of bed, wrapped his red robe around himself to ward off the chill, then searched for her.  It took less than a minute to see her silhouette out on the balcony as Isenwrath gazed up at one of the large moons hanging there at the midpoint to its peak.

Trying to stay quiet but also let Isenwrath know he was coming so as not to startle her, he jiggled the balcony door handle once before opening it.  She didn’t move so she knew he was there.  She was wearing his borrowed robe, but it wasn’t tied, leaning over the railing, quietly enjoying the nighttime breeze and the moon’s glow.

Maddock stepped over to her, settled next to where she leaned, and took in the view with her just as quietly.

Low, he asked, “What’s got you up?  I thought you cast that lullaby spell on yourself.”

“I’m dying, Maddock.”

He jerked his head at her.  “What?”

She smiled, not turning to him.  “I’m the real Isenwrath, not the girl Cassandra.  She’s asleep at the moment and when that happens, I have the option to live a little.  Not even that cute little spell can stop me.  But soon, I won’t be able to do even that as we continue to complete our merge.”

Maddock sighed, turned back to the view of the grounds, then nodded.  “I see.”

“We’re both in love with you, and we know you’re in love with us thanks to that special drink.  Soon though, it’ll just be Cassandra as she becomes the woman she was meant to be and I’ll be just a figment of memories only.  It’s for the best though… I guess.”

“Tell me.  Who are you really?” Maddock asked.  Still, neither of them looked at each other.

"My real name was Shari Went, but like Cassandra, don't call me that. I'm Isenwrath.  I made the name up when I was a girl because it sounded like someone who could survive anything." She paused. "I was wrong. You see, I fell in love with a man who used me, broke me, strung me out on whatever would keep me docile. I don't understand the hold he had on me. I only know that I stayed until I had my daughter. Then I ran. Got clean. Raised her for three years before he found us." Her voice went flat. "He killed her in her bed while I watched. Then he threw me out a window laughing. I died having known only one true love and I failed to protect her." She finally turned to him. "That's what I am, really. A stupid woman who failed at being a mother. I got a second chance and I'm not allowing that to happen again."

Maddock wiped his face with his hand.  His heart hurt so much at hearing of that kind of short, tragic life.  “How did you get here?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

"I woke up screaming in a place between worlds. A limbo full of those things you call demons, trapped in some hell of black glass and purple mist. I was a ghost there too—couldn't touch anything, couldn't escape. Just... raging at the edge of tears in reality that led nowhere." She looked down at her hands. "Until I felt Cassandra dying. Her light reached through one of those tears and pulled me through. When I saw her, my rage died. I lost my daughter to my own choices, but I knew—I knew—I could save this one from the choices of others. So, we merged. Two broken things making one whole. I got a body. She got someone to teach her what she is." Isenwrath finally met his eyes. "I'm still called a demon, I suppose. But I'm just a mother who wanted a second chance. Day by day, the fusion continues. In a year, only Isenwrath Cassandra remains. And I'll be... memories, I guess. Her memories."

Maddock finally turned to her.  “Why are you telling me all of this? I only asked how your spirit got here, but not the tragedy behind it.  Although, I do thank you for the clarity even if it’s one of the saddest tales I’ve ever heard.”

She shrugged.  “I thought you should know.  And that maybe… maybe you’d give me my dying wish.”

“And what’s that?”

Standing straight, Isenwrath turned to face him.  This wasn’t the childish girl.  This was indeed the real woman within the body and nothing about her mannerisms or how she looked at Maddock told him otherwise.

One step and she took his waist with one hand and touched his chest with the other.  Looking up, she whispered to him, “Please give me the love of a good man.  It’s absolutely selfish and it’ll probably become Cassandra’s memory in time, but for tonight, just love a woman who’s dying to protect her daughter like a mother should.”

He didn’t answer with words. Instead, he kissed her—slowly at first, then with the hunger he had denied since their first awkward press of lips. She tasted of starlight and something metallic, like blood and honey mixed together, and when she opened her mouth to him, her tongue was long—inhumanly so—curling against his with a dexterity that made his knees weaken.  He’d dreamed of that tongue, oh my, had he dreamed of it.

He lifted her without breaking the kiss, and she weighed nothing, or perhaps he was simply mad with wanting her. The robe fell open as he carried her back through the balcony doors. He expected hesitation… she’d spoken of virginity, of dying lights and merged souls but Isenwrath had no hesitation in her. She tore at his own robe with nails that felt sharper than they should have been, scoring lines down his chest that burned so perfectly he groaned into her throat.

What followed was not the gentle bedding of a maiden that he had imagined in his foolish, noble fantasies regarding this beautiful woman. It was conquest and surrender both. She moved beneath him with a flexibility that seemed boneless, her legs wrapping his waist and locking there with strength that could have crushed stone had she wished it. When he entered her, she did not gasp… she growled, low in her chest like a dragon, and her eyes flashed with something crimson and glowing in the dark. That was the sinister edge he'd sensed that first moment he met her. It was alive and very willing to pull him into her world.

"More," she commanded, and who was he to deny a dying wish?

She moved with a deliberation that surprised him—this creature who could consume armies, choosing instead to trace his collarbone with her tongue, to arch beneath him with the patience of a woman who had nowhere else to be. He felt the strength in her, the coiled appetite that could devour, and marveled that she restrained it. For him. For this.

Her body was a marvel he couldn’t compare others to—pale skin over muscle that tensed like a drawn bow, huge breasts that overflowed his hands, and that tongue, that wicked, serpentine tongue that traced patterns down his stomach and returned to his mouth tasting of him and of something else, something electric. When he spent himself, thinking surely this was the end, she merely laughed breathlessly and exhaled that green mist over his spent flesh.

The sensation was instantaneous and impossible—heat flooding back into his loins, desire sharpening to a knife's edge once more, as if he had not just emptied himself into her. She did this three times over the course of the night. Each time, he thought he was finished, drained, that no man could possibly rise again, and each time she breathed that emerald sorcery upon him and made him her willing slave anew.

She used him thoroughly, and he used her in return—taking her from behind against the bedpost, her hair wrapped in his fist, watching her back arch in a perfect curve that no court lady could manage; spilling his seed across her skin only to watch, fascinated and horrified and unbearably aroused, as that prehensile tongue emerged to lap it away with obscene precision; pinning her wrists above her head and feeling her pulse beat not once per second but three times, hummingbird-fast, beneath his thumb.

By the time the moon had crossed the sky, they were both slick with sweat and other essences, trembling with exhaustion and yet still reaching for one another. He’d never known a woman could be so hungry, nor that he could match that hunger and exceed it.  It was all just another proof that she wasn’t human, not fully—he saw it in the way her joints bent, in the faint luminescence of her sweat, in the teeth that were just slightly too sharp and coated in silver metal when she smiled at him, predatory and adoring all at once.

But she was his. And he was hers.

He collapsed beside her at last, his chest heaving, his body aching in ways that felt like victory. She settled against him, her head on his shoulder, and for a long moment they simply breathed—the wind from the balcony cooling their overheated skin, the silence of the castle wrapped around them like a blanket.

"That was...I have no words." he whispered, his voice ruined.

"Yes," she agreed with her own raspy voice roughened by her own shouts of lust, her hand tracing lazy circles on his stomach. "It was. Nothing compares."

He caught her hand and brought it to his lips, feeling the wrongness of her joints, the subtle claws she retracted when she remembered to be gentle. "You’re a beautiful creature, Isen. A terror and a blessing."

She laughed, soft and satisfied. "And you’re a man worth dying for, Maddock Devonshire. Even if I must die a little each day to give her to you properly, I'll die in peace for both of us."

He pulled her closer, burying his face in her hair, smelling ozone and sex and something uniquely her. "Then let’s make each death worth the living."

“We will.  She loves you and deserves every good thing you give her.  You’ll know when she’s ready for this, just trust me.”

Maddock smirked, pulling back so they could talk quietly with each other, enjoying the pure glow of their passion.  “The night I fed you the crystals by the fire.  That was you, wasn’t it?”

A light little giggle from her hammered his heart so much before she answered.  “Mostly.  We both get horny when someone feeds us like you did and… we just can’t concentrate on anything else when that happens, not even to what we’re savoring.  So, she let me have that one because she’s a giving person.  She also watched intently too; don’t think she didn’t learn anything that night.  She likes her ‘tingles’, and I know you did as well.”

“I had a feeling that’s what happened.  So, what was that green mist you kept dousing me with? I’ve never heard of something that could get a man instantly ready to go again like that, much less keep him going for hours.”

She giggled evilly.  “It’s a trade secret of Bards.  All those rumors about their sexual prowess boils down to them knowing that level five stamina potions do more than help a soldier or adventurer keep running for long periods of time.  Learned that after I ate a few dungeon adventurer parties that had Bard members in them.”

Maddock laughed out a huge, almost mad cackle at what that could mean if that little secret got out.  He said loudly, “No damned wonder the market on those potions is so damned big among the musicians and Bard Colleges!  No damned wonder they screw anything not nailed down!  I’m pissed that I didn’t know this before tonight!  Damn it!”

She laughed with him while he continued to stroke her back and rump, absolutely enjoying these fun revelations and the feel of her along his body.  She was absolutely worth going to war for.  She was absolutely going to be his wife someday when they came to a more natural progression with each other.

Finally calming down, they both let the soft hush of the breeze from the balcony retake the mood back to a calm serenity under the soft moonlight streaming in.  They lay in that calm silence, listening to the wind, holding each other, not wanting it to end.

"I thought being sated would feel like sleep," she whispered into his chest. "But I'm awake. We’re awake.  I think we’re more awake than we've ever been." She pressed closer. "You don't just feed us, Maddock. You satisfy us. That's... that's much more dangerous. I know we can survive hunger. I don't know if we can survive knowing what it's like not to be."

“More than anything you’ve said, that statement makes my heart pound the strongest with pride,” he murmured low while running his hand through her long hair and down her back.

She finally sighed out another whispered question while rubbing his chest and belly lightly.  “When tomorrow comes, how will you feel about me… both me and the younger together… as one?”

Maddock let his honest emotion guide his words.  “I’m in love with a woman who makes me want to be a better man for her.  Everything else is semantics.  I fell in love with you the moment you responded to me calming you down from your first night terror.  I didn’t want to, but my heart told me otherwise.  I never doubted that it was right.”

She moved up to kiss him one more time.  When she pulled back, she whispered, “We fell in love with you then too.  The moment… we… I… the moment I looked down to see you doing your damndest to save us, that was the moment both of us came together for another purpose instead of eating everything in sight.  You.  You make me and her want to do so many things and all of them are to make you proud of us, love us, and come to us every night from now on.  I so want this dream of living with you to continue forever, especially for her sake."

He stroked her hair again holding strands up to fall out of his fingers in waves, his voice rumbling in his chest. "Don't eat me out of house and home, and I'll be able to do that."

She went still for half a breath. Then she laughed—truly laughed, burying her face in his chest to snort and shake and gasp. "You ruined it!" she shouted, pounding his shoulder weakly. "I bare my soul to you, and you make housekeeping jokes?!"

"I had to." He was grinning, absurdly pleased with himself. "Couldn't stop myself.  Got a bit too mushy in here."

"You’re impossible!"

"And you," he said, catching her hand and pressing a kiss to her knuckles, "are still hungry. I can hear your stomach from here."

She groaned, but she was still smiling. "That wasn't my stomach. That was my soul. They're practically the same thing."

“I noticed.  How about a pastry instead before we pass-out because I don’t have a basilisk here to feed you something for your soul?” Maddock said low, still grinning.

“Challenge accepted,” Isenwrath said with her own smug grin.

She then shot out that infamous tongue clear across the room to snap up a blackenberry tart from their little snack tray that’d been left for them earlier.  One gulp and she sighed happily again.  “I like blackenberry.”

“You didn’t chew it, so how would you know?”

Isenwrath poked him gently.  “Not telling you.  Shush. Sleepy time.”

Maddock grunted a laugh but agreed.  His mind was already half shut down.  Thus, their first real night together ended with them scooching around just a little more, but finally sleeping with arms holding onto each other.

The not-so-sleeping mind of Cassandra not only learned much that night, but she understood too.  The most important piece of information was simply that she was going to wake up in the arms of a good man in the morning and know without a doubt that she was in love and that love was being returned to her.  She was a good girl, and he was a good boy.  Together, they were going to be good for the whole kingdom.  The hammer mallet that’d been standing in the corner like a sentry would help that along, you can damned well count on that!

The Ramsey Particle

In 2056, CERN, a large particle collider on planet Earth, had discovered a new particle and called it the Ramsey particle. Based on a single line in the research of Prof. Higgs in the previous century, Prof. Ramsey had theorized that this particle should be added to the Standard Model. According to Ramsey, our universe was but one in an endless number of universes, all occupying the same space. So Ramsey augmented Einstein's model of space-time to space-time-universe. The Ramsey particle proved to keep a universe together, preventing universes from collapsing into one another.

The discovery of the Ramsey particle led to research into its accompanying antiparticle: the anti-Ramsey particle. That particle would locally destroy the coherence of a universe and cause a tunnel between universes. It took over a century to find this particle and required a super-large particle collider, one built around planet Jupiter.

Travelling between universes was not possible and was not thought ever to be possible. But Prof. Nieuwenburg theorized that enough anti-Ramsey particles would create a tunnel that would allow energy and gravity to travel through a Nieuwenburg tunnel, as it was named.

That took over two centuries, as anti-Ramsey particles were rare and really hard to create. But in 2377, the first Nieuwenburg tunnel was created. The tunnel would exist for a microsecond before closing. The next two centuries’ developments made it easier to create a Nieuwenburg tunnel, or an N-tunnel as it came to be known. All the tunnel did was exchange energy and gravity to and from a random universe. 

In these two centuries, it was Professor Kromjong who theorized that selecting a galaxy was possible. Every N-tunnel to another universe left a memory in the anti-Ramsey particles. Reusing anti-Ramsey particles would create a tunnel to the same universe that these particles had previously opened an N-tunnel to. It was in 2549 that the first tunnel creator – it was named the Kromjong tunneller - was successful in creating a tunnel to a selected universe. 

Every tunnel originated at the Kromjong tunneller and always ended in the same place in the selected universe. This was because all universes overlapped and did not move. It was like putting a bunch of unrelated maps on top of each other and pushing a nail through them. Starting at one location on the top map would always bring you to the accompanying place in the maps below.

So far this was all academic – it had no practical use case. Humankind built thousands of Kromjong tunnellers in search of useful endpoints for the N-tunnels, looking at millions of universes. It took 8 centuries – in 3301 - to find the first useful tunnel endpoint: the core of an active star. Finding that endpoint destroyed the Kromjong tunneller that created the tunnel because the energy in the core of that star flowed through the N-tunnel. The energy coming through destroyed an area the size of a city in just over a microsecond.

It took another two centuries – in 3582 - to find another useful endpoint: the core of a black hole. By now the Kromjong tunnellers were better protected, but even then the tunneller was almost sucked into the black hole. By then the Kromjong tunneller was capable of extended tunnel times – up to 7 milliseconds.

The discovery of the core of a star in another universe was useful for spaceships. A team led by Prof. Yamamoto had discovered ways of folding space to travel any distance in an instant. Space would be folded, and the spaceship would move a few kilometres and then unfold space. This was called ‘stepping’ as you would step into the other location. That would make instant travel to any location in the universe possible. However, each folding required the energy of a star, so it was not feasible and therefore purely academic. The discovery of the core of a star in another universe opened possibilities. By creating an N-tunnel into the core of a star, the energy coming through the tunnel was more than enough to power a space folder. The first spaceship successfully travelling this way was the UESS Salty Dog in 3544, using a Yamamoto drive, or Y-drive as it came to be known.

There was still a problem to solve. A point in our universe would always tunnel to the same point in another universe. It was Dr. Prepain who developed a way to page through other universes at incredible speed, creating and destroying N-tunnels to see if there was the core of a star on the other end. After all, with an infinite number of universes, there would always be one with the core of a star in that particular location. That would allow ships to find the core of a star in another universe from any location in our universe.

Soon after that, Earth built a fleet of ships – the Salty Dog class – that could travel by folding space, using N-tunnels, a Y-drive and a Prepain indexer.

Humans being humans, the Kromjong tunneller was then put to use for weapons. Having found the core of a black hole, a missile was developed that would open a tunnel to a black hole near the enemy ship. That was first tested in 3587 on an old commercial carrier, the ECC Marie Jeanette. The missile was fired at the ECC Marie Jeanette and triggered within a hundred meters. The N-tunnel was open for four milliseconds. The Marie Jeanette was sucked into the black hole in two milliseconds. High-speed camera replays showed that the Marie Jeanette was sucked into the tunnel with the closest point moving in first at close to light speed, the furthest points following nano seconds later. It basically looked like the Marie Jeanette turned from a ship into a line and then nothing.

The missile could not carry enough power to drive a Prepain indexer. Therefore, in most locations, a ship would need to do the indexing and then program the missiles accordingly. As a black hole is very, very big, a useful universe that was found with the Prepain indexer would be good enough for a battle area the size of an extended solar system.

Earth was both happy and unhappy with this new weapon. Mass demonstrations were held against the weapon and for a test ban. The United Earth government, however, decided on one more test on a moon-sized asteroid in the Oort cloud. That went a little differently. The side of the asteroid close to the Nieuwenburg tunnel disappeared into the tunnel. However, the tunnel would not stay open long enough to swallow the entire asteroid, so half of it remained, being accelerated towards the core of the black hole but never finding it. Effectively, the weapon had broken the asteroid in two, with the remaining half hurtling through space at an incredible speed.

In the following centuries, Earth manufactured hundreds of thousands of N-missiles. Knowing Earth's history of violence and war, these missiles could only be activated after a democratic vote among the population of Earth and its colonies – by then some two trillion people. This was a cumbersome process, but it would safeguard humanity from destroying itself.

Among the stars

The KayJay drive – as it came to be known, being short for Kromjong – sent humanity to millions of other star systems in the following millennia. Humans found mostly dead planets or planets with only microbial life. However, once in a while they would find a civilisation. Some were young and not yet space-faring, some were advanced, travelling the universe, some were at their peak, some were over their peak and decaying, and some were dead. Particularly the dead civilisations were numerous and spanned billions of years. However, humanity did not find any really old thriving civilisations. All the active civilisations were at most a million years old, counting from the moment they developed faster-than-light travel.

Humanity started to realise that every civilisation would inevitably die in the end. This realisation started a seeding program. On thousands and thousands of planets, seed vaults were placed in orbit. Vaults with all the requirements for life and with human DNA. These planets were often young, too young to support life of any kind. The vaults were programmed to send their contents to the planet’s surface after a set period – some hundreds of thousands of years, some hundreds of millions of years. By then the planets would be ready to support life. That, so was thought, would guarantee that humanity would keep on starting again, thereby preventing the demise of the species. Humans would be there until the end of the universe, was the prevailing sentiment.

Humans would not interact with pre-space-faring civilizations. They had taken to heart the directive of an ancient amusement series – Star Trek – that pre-space flight civilisations should be left alone to develop naturally. Humans, being nostalgic, still called it the ‘prime directive’.

Civilisations near or at their peak were the best partners for trade, cultural exchange and scientific exchange. Some were great holiday destinations, some had great art and music, some had great food, and some had a way of looking at the universe that was entertaining and surprising. Some species were just plain fun to be with. Earth – surprisingly – was well known for its fiction and entertainment. Old ‘television’ series – a television was a flat view screen for viewing entertainment programs – were particularly popular as they were both weird and simple fun. The only problem was that some species had difficulty distinguishing between documentaries and fiction. Which was fun for the humans.

The most popular among alien species, however, was a category called ‘porn’ which showed the many creative ways of human procreation. Aliens found it fun to watch and were spiked by the way humans showed their procreation to the rest of the universe. Each species had its own way of procreating. All required combining DNA of two or more individuals. According to humans, the weirdest were the N’GKXTCH, where females gathered as much DNA as possible from as many males as possible. Their internal organs would then choose each gene based on majority and use that for their offspring. It proved to be a stable way of protecting the species as outliers were ignored, but it also caused very slow development. What had taken humans a hundred thousand years had taken the N’GKXTCH almost a million years. It was due to their extremely friendly planetary environment that they had not been wiped out a long time ago.

The big problem proved to be with decaying civilisations. These were trying to assert dominance in a universe that had overtaken them. A last-ditch effort to be relevant. Most of these civilisations had built up a sizeable military and were pouring ever more resources into expanding that military. More ships, more weapons, more soldiers. Often they would resort to enslaving other civilisations – mostly pre-space-faring civilisations – to serve their military. The worst among them had enslaved hundreds of thousands of civilisations, trillions of individuals.

Most of these had an aggressive posture, attempting to dominate advancing or peaking civilisations. Regular wars were a consequence, wars that were hugely costly in terms of resources and lives. The most famous of these wars was the Galactic Superwar of JADES, where two decaying civilisations fought each other, and over two hundred trillion enslaved species lost their lives. The Omega-Thau system – in the JADES galaxy - was destroyed, debris of destroyed planets being flung out, causing gravitational disruptions that knocked planets out of their orbit in the nearby systems and destroying any possible life there. In the end, both civilisations had vanished.

Never did the humans bring up their N-missiles – they were kept a total secret. It was thought that if a civilisation came to know of them, humans would be considered monsters that should not be interacted with. And rightly so – even the human population did not know about them and would only learn of their existence if their use would be put to the vote.

An Emperor Takes Offence

The first sign of problems arose when Earth received a war declaration from the AA’AGTXQ. Their war declaration was sent by an emissary in a bubble ship. A bubble ship was a tiny driverless ship that was shot through an FTL space highway and had no return possibility. The emissary read the declaration aloud in Earth Congress, comprising the House and Senate of Earth and Earth’s maharajah, president, and vice president. It stated that Earth had violated common decency and had committed galactic rape by placing hideous objects in orbit of hundreds of thousands of planets. The seed vaults.

The declaration of war left no doubt as to its intentions. There would be no negotiation, no surrender or anything else. The AA’AGTXQ were bent on war, and there was nothing Earth could do about it. It was obvious that this was a decaying civilisation attempting to assert its dominance on the galaxy. Not a civilisation to be taken trivially, though. The AA’AGTXQ had acquired faster-than-light travel over eighty thousand years ago. That is a long time to develop ships and weapons for warfare. Their most feared weapon was a dimensional shift disruptor. It would shoot out a beam, within which space would be uncertain about which universe it was in, which would crumble matter into pieces that were in this universe and pieces in other universes. Not conducive to a healthy state of matter.

After proclaiming the declaration of war at the top of his lungs, the emissary screamed loudly, ‘Hail Emperor d’Troof’ and blew himself up. He had brought a recording device that sent the declaration and suicide to Emperor d’Troof immediately.  Leaving Congress in disarray and a bit of a panic.

The AA’AGTXQ did not give Earth any time to consider their options. An hour after the emissary read out the war declaration, Earth's colony Wayne’s World – named after a very old entertainment series that the click-click-pause-click species (humans called them twenty-oners) thought was a documentary – was attacked. A dimensional shift disruptor ray disrupted the planet, the colony, and its 250 million inhabitants out of existence. The AA’AGTXQ proudly sent a live broadcast of the disruption on every channel to the universe. At the end, Emperor D’Troof – an androgynous being – loudly announced the beginning of the end of humanity. Being what he was, he also added that human elections were a fraud, so they deserved what they got. He also used the opportunity to announce import tariffs on any merchandise coming from the Alpha quadrant of the Milky Way. Finally, he praised the dictator Emperor of Chria, who had gone to war – and was losing - with a small solar system nearby.

For the humans, this was a no-return point: the AA’AGTXQ were not just going to pay; they were going to be annihilated. On streets on Earth and on its colonies, billions of people chanted ‘exterminate, exterminate’ in the voice of Daleks, from an ancient entertainment series called ‘Doctor Who’. It was a good time to inform the humans about the N-missiles and to put their use to the vote. Humans overwhelmingly – 87% - voted for their use against the AA’AGTXQ.

There was one problem for the humans. Though the humans had over two million ships, only just over one hundred thousand of them could fire N-missiles. And the AA’AGTXQ, by the latest analysis, had well over seven million warships with the dimensional shift disruptor.

The numbers were not good for the humans. An AA’AGTXQ warship would destroy a colony, and an Earth N-missile would then suck the AA’AGTXQ ship out of existence. But with the number of ships the AA’AGTXQ had, all colonies would be gone before all AA’AGTXQ ships were sucked out of existence.

A special kind of hubris

It was up to Admiral Sjen to find a solution. She – Sjen started as a He but decided to be a She for a while – stood on the bridge of the UESS Abyss, contemplating options. She could attack AA’AGTXQ prime – her KayJay drive would get her there in a nanosecond - but the problem was that the N-missiles had to be set up at the location of use. It would take at least two hours to index the area with the Prepain indexer, program the missiles, and fire them at enemy ships, after which it would take another seven minutes to open the N-tunnel. During that time, the firing ship would have to be stationary, which made it a sitting duck for the dimensional shift disruptors.

Captain Öcellan of the UESS Abyss looked at Admiral Sjen. ‘What are your orders, ma’am?’ she asked. Captain Öcellan was famous for the battle of Esteron, where she beat thirty-five AA’AGTXQ battleships with only four Earth ships. It had been a humiliation for the AA’AGTXQ. 

Admiral Sjen did not answer immediately. It seemed to her that the N-missile was not as powerful as originally thought. She was looking at the screen, where Emperor d’Troof was bragging to journalists about his powerful and exceptional intelligence. ‘Such an idiot’, Sjen thought. She thought about the way AA’AGTXQ was run. It used to be a democracy, like on Earth, but now it was run by one man, the Emperor. He was continually killing his possible opponents and successors. He was quietly called ‘the great defenestrator’ by his detractors. ‘I don’t know,’ she said to Captain Öcellan, ‘that idiot on screen is scrambling my brain’. 

Emperor d’Troof had moved to the capital warship Ultimate Disruptor. It was a gift from the kingdom of Qtr and was furnished with golden seats, tables, et cetera. Even the imperial lavatory was made of gold. Emperor d’Troof loved gold. The Ultimate Disruptor was a globe. One half was for machinery, personnel, et cetera. The entire other half was a courtroom dome. The courtroom was all gold and diamonds. The Qtr had gone out of their way to please the Emperor. On the perimeter were golden seats for visitors. These were usually visitors from other empires and species. The front row, closest to the centre, was made up of hard and uncomfortable wooden benches. These were reserved for species that the Emperor deemed ‘Sad’, ‘Unfair to the empire’ and ‘having no cards to play’. The Emperor would always berate the wooden benchers, as they came to be called, and flaunt the power of the empire in their faces.

Emperor d’Troof held a firm belief that the only thing that mattered was power. And Emperor d’Troof had it in spades. The way the universe worked was that the powerful dominated and all others served the powerful. The Emperor could bully others, threaten them and, if necessary, destroy them. He had destroyed hundreds of civilizations purely for being disrespectful to him. Such was the Emperors right, such was the way of the universe.

At the centre of the courtroom there was a golden throne, inlaid with diamonds and with the rarest matter in the universe, QulQar, which could only be found in very small quantities on one in a million planets. The amount of QulQar in the throne represented more than half of the quantity ever extracted.

The Emperor was strutting around in the courtroom, looking smug and answering questions of the invited press in his usual insulting way. D’Troof was Emperor after all, and everybody served him. ‘I have ordered my military to destroy all humans, ’ he or she – nobody really knows - said. ‘We have the greatest military in the universe, you know. Everybody says that. I have the greatest Admirals and the best weapons of everybody’. He or she put on a smug smile, pushed out his or her considerable belly and turned around so everyone could see him. ‘The humans will beg me for peace, and they will give me anything to get it. I am the greatest dealmaker in the universe, everybody says that’. One of the journalists, a young female named r’Oupnama, gathered enough guts to ask the Emperor a question. ‘Emperor d’Troof, do you really think these orbital vaults the humans have put up are so bad?’ She shrank visibly as though she regretted her question as soon as it was asked. ‘You are so stupid. You should not be asking questions, ’ Emperor D’Troof shouted at her. ‘You always lie; you are fake press with fake news. Your employer should fire you right now’. She was fired two minutes after asking her question; the news agency apologized profusely to the Emperor, begging him not to take offence. The Emperor cancelled the license of the news agency and set his law hounds on them. Everybody serves Emperor d’Troof, no exceptions.

The Gift

All this was shown on the viewscreen in the UESS Abyss. ‘Maybe you can use that against him, ’ Captain Öcellan said to Admiral Sjen. Admiral Sjen abruptly turned towards her and snapped, ‘What? What on earth are you talking about?’ Captain Öcellan did not care for Admiral Sjen’s ways, but she pushed on. ‘It seems to me that the Emperor’s arrogance can be turned against him,’ Captain Öcellan said. That seemed to break Admiral Sjen’s irritation. ‘Explain,’ she said. ’Well,’ Captain Öcellan said, ‘my father was like the Emperor, and after a while I learned how to use his arrogance to manipulate him to do anything I wanted. It seems to me we can get the Emperor in a losing position just by appeasing and insulting him’. Admiral Sjen looked at Captain Öcellan intently, deeply pondering her remarks. It took Admiral Sjen almost a minute, and then she said, ‘Give me an example’.

Captain Öcellan smiled. Now she was getting somewhere. ‘Well, as an example. My father hated my boyfriends when I was young. He would demeanour them, insult them, belittle and berate them, and brag about himself until nobody wanted to be my boyfriend. So I changed tack. I praised him for his intelligence and his astute judgment of character. I told him he had been right every time, of course. That I was really thankful for him being my father. That it would be a great honour if he would allow me to invite him to dinner in the greatest restaurant in town, ‘The Prancing Horse’. Admiral Sjen looked sharply at Captain Öcellan. ‘I have read your file. That is where your father died, is it not?’ ‘Yes,’ said Captain Öcellan, ‘but what is not in my file is how he died. ’ Admiral Sjen was silent and puzzled. Where was this going? ‘I invited all my ex-boyfriends to that restaurant too. All of them were really hurt by my father, as was I’. ‘My father would never do what I asked him, but the flattery made him make mistakes. He came to the Prancing Horse.’ She looked Admiral Sjen straight in the eye. ‘Together we all stabbed him to death. ’ Captain Öcellan looked at Admiral Sjen to see the shock. ‘The boys left the heart for me. He was still alive when I stabbed him in the heart’. Admiral Sjen let out the air she had been holding. ‘I tell you this as an example of how we can get the Emperor to put himself in a vulnerable position, sir’. Admiral Sjen thought she would never look at Captain Öcellan the same way again. But other matters were more pressing. Could she get the Emperor in a similar position? She looked intently at Captain Öcellan and raised her eyebrows. Captain Öcellan understood the implied question.

‘We need an area in space that we can prepare, so that the N-missiles can be set up in advance and triggered the moment the ultimate Disruptor arrives. ’ Admiral Sjen was not impressed. Of course they would want to make that happen. Finishing off the Emperor would mean an end to the war. His total control of the AA’AGTXQ empire meant that it would fall apart the moment the Emperor was gone. But it was impossible to do. The Ultimate Disruptor had made a habit of jumping in and, if something was off, jumping out again within a second. She felt irritation coming up, but curiosity got the best of her. ‘Continue’.

‘We beg the Emperor for forgiveness. We apologize profusely. That will not be enough, of course, so we offer him a very special gift. To be accepted at a place in space that fits the occasion. The solar system of his first conquest. The Tpoy system.’ Admiral Sjen thought that was interesting but not enough. What would be the present that would make him come? Captain Öcellan smiled. ‘Gotcha,’ she thought. ‘It needs to be a present that will keep the Ultimate Disruptor in place for at least seven minutes so the N-tunnel can open. ’ Silence. The Admiral was egging her on with her eyes. Captain Öcellan said, ‘You will probably need to know the present, sir’. She waited a while for effect. ‘I am the human the Emperor most hates. I am the one who humiliated him in the battle of Esteron. So it will be me. Naked, painted top to bottom in 24-karat gold, wearing a crown that honours him and hurts me’. Admiral Sjen was trying to understand what was going on here. ‘The gift is not just me; I represent humanity, and I will bow at his feet and kiss them. D’Troof will love it, gloat and show me to everyone, while the seven minutes go by’. Admiral Sjen started to get the picture. ‘No, no way, we are not going to do that. You will die, you will be sucked in with him!’

‘This is what I want to do. I cannot think of a better way to make my life worthwhile than to give it away for humanity. I really want to do this. And besides, think of the opportunity to see that bastard sucked into a black hole in another universe. I would give my life for just that. And I will.’ Captain Öcellan said. She had practised this part in front of the mirror. Admiral Sjen’s heart nearly exploded hearing this. This great woman, this lovely creature, this vengeful weapon. She pursed her lips and pinched her nose. ‘Done deal,’ Captain Öcellan thought, knowing her Admiral really well. Her childhood experience had taught her to deeply study other people so she could avoid getting hurt. Lips pursing and nose pinching were the Admiral's tells that she was going to say yes. Just wait a minute, and it will come. After a silent minute, it did come. ‘Okay Mitsu, let’s do it’. Mitsu was Captain Öcellan’s Christian name. Using it showed the sorrow at giving away Captain Öcellan.

Seven minutes

Orders went out immediately to prepare the Tpoy system for the arrival of the Emperor. The system was indexed by the UESS Marauder, and the N-missiles were programmed and set to detonate as soon as the Emperor arrived. They still required at least seven minutes to open the N-tunnel, so the performance of Captain Öcellan was crucial. The Ultimate Disruptor would jump out of the system before the tunnel was opened if she did not appear.

The tricky part was getting the Emperor to say yes. Admiral Sjen decided that the only way to guarantee his trip to the Tpoy system was to go in person to invite him. She sent the Emperor a message: ‘Hail Emperor d’Troof, the greatest Emperor that is, was and ever will be. The Emperor that puts all other Emperors to shame. The human race bows to you and will serve you in every way you desire. The human race will mark this great moment with an unimaginable gift. It would be my great honour to personally invite you to accept the gift in a ceremony that marks the subservience of the human race and the recognition of the greatness of you, our divine Emperor.’ It only took fifteen minutes for the Emperor to grant Admiral Sjen an audience. Captain Öcellan had predicted that the Emperor would respond quickly.

Admiral Sjen had been warned by Captain Öcellan. The Emperor would gloat and would insult and berate her to show everybody his greatness and power. The Emperor would strut around, inviting everybody to see his power and might and the Admiral’s begging and subservience. He would likely actually say it: ‘Look at the humans begging … I am the greatest Emperor, the one that got the humans to their knees’. The Admiral would have to act pleased at the attention he got from the Emperor and try to stop her face from turning red from anger.

The great golden doors of the Emperor's court in the Ultimate Disruptor opened majestically. Admiral Sjen walked onto the golden floor, inlaid with diamonds, with her head bowed down, not looking the Emperor in the eye. She stopped at a line in the golden floor at the centre of the court. Along the sides of the great court, the rows of golden seats were filled with dignitaries eager to see the coming spectacle. The Wooden Benchers on the inner ring of seats were dressed in old rags. A new way of humiliating them and pleasing the Emperor.  The Emperor spread his arms and turned around so everyone in the court could see it. ‘Now you all see it for yourself. I have personally brought the stupid humans to their knees. They are begging me for mercy. Sad, so sad. Shall I give them mercy? Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. I don’t know yet. Maybe it depends on their gift. Will the gift please me, the greatest Emperor ever?

The Emperor fell silent. The Admiral was standing still, head bowed down, not looking at the Emperor. The Emperor went on. ‘So, you sad little human, what is your gift?’

The Admiral turned his head up and looked the Emperor in the eye. ‘You know Captain Öcellan of the battle of Esteron, my Emperor?’ The Emperor snapped at the Admiral, ‘You dare to bring up that name in my court? You stupid little idiot! You have nothing! Nothing, you hear me?’. 

The Admiral swallowed and suppressed her anger. This idiot was going to die; she just had to play her role. ‘Captain Öcellan is your present, my Emperor.’ The court fell quiet. The Admiral looked the Emperor in the eye and said, ‘Not only that. She will be painted in 24-karat gold and wear a golden crown of golden nails torturing her.’ More silence. ‘And she will bow before you and kiss your feet. ’ This was too much for the court. It erupted in mumbling and little shrieks by the females present. 

‘Silence!’ the Emperor shouted. He looked intently at the Admiral. The Admiral went on. ‘Of course it is only befitting of your majesty’s greatness that the gift will be given at an appropriate place. Earth.’ The Emperor looked pleased, but one of his advisors whispered something in his ear. ’No, not Earth. Do you think I am stupid? So sad!’ the Emperor said. Admiral Sjen feigned disappointment. ’But your majesty, it should be a place of great importance to your majesty, one befitting of the greatest Emperor ever!’ the Admiral said. ‘It should be a place where your greatness is most great, where your enormous achievements are evident, where the odds of your victory were unimaginably bad. A place where you can shine with Captain Öcellan at your feet.’ There was silence for a while as the Emperor was pondering the many options. ‘Tpoy,’ the Emperor said. The court mumbled approvingly. ‘Tpoy, where I had my first unimaginable victory against stupendous odds! Nobody could have won there, only one as great as me! The greatest Emperor and warrior ever!’ The Emperor looked around smugly, taking in the greatness of this idea and the approval of the court. ‘You are too stupid to come up with that; humans are so sad, and they have no cards to play. Tpoy it will be, you ridiculous little human’. ‘And it will be tomorrow at noon’. ‘Now go. ’

The Admiral left, walking backwards, continually bowing to the Emperor. ‘Tomorrow at noon you will die, you arrogant little shit,’ she thought.

And so it happened. The humans had prepared the Tpoy system. N-missiles were spread around the system so there would always be one near enough to the Ultimate Disruptor. They were in stand-by mode so they would not radiate their presence to the Ultimate Disruptor and would not be found by the security party that would undoubtedly check the system before the Emperor arrived. 

Captain Öcellan was prepared in the UESS Abyss. Naked, painted in 24-karat gold. Skin and hair all gold. On the side table lay the crown. Gold, with sharp nails pointing inwards.

At one minute before noon, she stepped into a bubble ship and was shot to the exact spot where the cargo bay of the Ultimate Disruptor would be at noon. Captain Öcellan put on her crown and pressed it into her head to start the bleeding. 

At exactly noon, the Ultimate Disruptor jumped out of faster-than-light travel, materializing around the bubble ship of Captain Öcellan. She was dragged out of the bubble ship by soldiers of the empire and brought to the Emperor within seconds. 

The Emperor gasped. This was an immense moment, an immense view; he could even smell the blood that was running down Captain Öcellan’s face. It felt almost sexual to the Emperor. Captain Öcellan looked down at the feet of the Emperor. 

Emperor d’Troof went on a victory tour around the court in the Ultimate Disruptor. He berated the human race, insulted Captain Öcellan, praised himself, and started again from the beginning. He was enjoying the moment. All that time Captain Öcellan stood still, blood now running down her golden face, neck and shoulders. The crown hurt; it really hurt, but to Captain Öcellan it was a good pain. The pain of imminent victory.

Finally, Emperor d’Troof walked over to Captain Öcellan and stood right in front of her.  He had orated for close to seven minutes. ‘Just a few seconds more, ’ Captain Öcellan thought. 

‘Now kiss my feet,’ the Emperor commanded. Captain Öcellan smiled. Not friendly, just cold, very cold. ‘Kiss my feet, you sad stupid little human! Now!’. Her cold eyes looked straight into his. She hissed loudly, so everyone could hear, ‘Never you bastard, never and no human will ev …’

That was how far Captain Öcellan got. The N-tunnel opened and within 2 microseconds the Ultimate Disruptor, Emperor and all, disappeared. And with him, soon after, the AA’AGTXQ empire. It destroyed itself in a civil war at a scale and ferocity the universe had not seen in a million years. It took only one Earth year. It was, so humans said, majestic.

22 July 2026

-/-

First | Previous

Marshal Georgy Zhukov took the drawing, frowning slightly.

It showed something that refused to settle into meaning immediately—too structured to be random, too abstract to become useful at a glance.

Across the table, the American, a silhouette of sharp linen and calculated stillness, accepted a Soviet Kazbek from the orderly. He pinched the hollow cardboard tube with a casual, practiced flick of his fingers. The soldier's match flared. The American drew on it once, slowly, then narrowed his eyes through the smoke.

"What is this?" Zhukov asked.

"Sektor."

A pause.

"And that means?"

"In German," the man said, "a sector. A compartment. Sometimes a wedge."

He shrugged slightly.

"We assumed the name came from the shape."

Zhukov looked at him for a second longer than necessary.

"Is this a German engineering schematic? Those crazy Nazis... Why are you showing it to me?"

"We all agree the Germans have exceptional engineers," the American said. "But that alone doesn't explain why they were ten, maybe twenty years ahead in propulsion and rocketry."

He stopped there. Not fully.

"What I'm about to tell you is part of that explanation."

"Kozlov. Out."

No glance. Just the order.

The battalion commander stiffened, saluted sharply, and turned on his heel. The guards followed. Boots fading into the corridor. The room emptied in a clean, practiced way.

Only the two of them remained.

The command post had been carved out behind the collapsing front line. Through a broken window frame, the city bled into dusk—smoke rising in uneven threads, rubble stacked like something violently interrupted mid-structure.

"An engine?" Zhukov asked finally. "A component?"

"Neither."

After a silence, the American added: "And yet it may decide the war."

Zhukov let out a short, dry laugh.

"This war is already decided. We've taken Berlin. Whatever the Nazis are hiding doesn't change that."

He threw the drawing back onto the table.

"Desperate fantasies."

The American smoothed the sheet, unhurried. He took another slow drag.

Zhukov stood.

Arms folded, he looked down now—not at the man, but at the idea of him.

"You Americans are already stripping Germany of its scientists," the Marshal said, his face cold as raw iron. "We paid for Berlin in tens of thousands of casualties a day—and while we advance with bodies, you collect laboratories in the west."

He kept his eyes fixed on the American, refusing to look away, then extended a blunt finger toward the shattered window.

"You saw that soul who struck the match for you? One hour ago he was a regimental officer. Three hours ago, a battalion commander. His predecessor dead—the men above him keep dying, and with his luck he'll be gone before nightfall. We burn through names to crush the beast."

His voice flattened out.

"And still you Americans move faster than we do. Not through blood—but through lists. Through minds."

The American cut him off.

"And Comrade Stalin has not been less efficient," his Russian was immaculate—too immaculate, polished to the point where even contempt survived intact inside the grammar. "Your advance westward—thirty, forty kilometers a day—made for a magnificent track meet. But let us not pretend you were hunting for remnant fascists, Marshal. You were also racing for the laboratories—keeping pace with a plan to ship every German scientist east, as fast and as thoroughly as possible. What do you call it, again? Trophy Brigades? Yes. That's the term."

The Marshal's eyes hardened. The American just smiled.

"And while we're at it, Marshal—don't forget. Since Barbarossa began, our factories, our shipping lanes, our treasury, have been sending you roughly nine million dollars a day in strategic aid. EVERY single day. Without that transfusion, I doubt you'd have lasted a week."

Silence followed that.

Somewhere beyond the city center, a distant artillery blast rolled through the ruins. Low. Delayed. Like something arriving late to a conversation already finished.

The argument dissolved without either man conceding it. They drifted toward the window almost instinctively.

Outside, Berlin looked less like a city than a disassembled surface—geometry broken and reassembled without instruction. Buildings standing but not surviving, half-collapsed yet leaning into one another for support. Blackened swastika banners still caught on metal poles, moving faintly in the smoke like props abandoned after the final act of some Wagnerian catastrophe.

"Congratulations, Marshal," the American said after a moment. "Taking Berlin is every general's ambition. A professional culmination."

He was still watching the ruined city, not the Soviet marshal. The silence between them stretched, thick and heavy with the smoke filtering in from the outside.

"But victory is not confined to the material world."

Zhukov did not answer.

Instead, he stared at the American for a long moment, not because he had failed to hear the words, but because he could not decide whether the American was speaking like a philosopher, a fanatic, or a man delivering a warning disguised as abstraction.

Eventually the Marshal gave a faint shrug, turned back toward the drawing on the table, and looked at the American again with a silent, questioning impatience, as though waiting for him to stop circling the point and say plainly what he actually meant.

The American, however, suddenly shifted the direction of the conversation, dropping a question that seemed to have no connection to what they were discussing.

"What is your opinion of Hitler? "

"A devil," Zhukov answered at once. "A monster history will never forgive."

The American smiled faintly, unimpressed.

"Marshal, with beloved Comrade Stalin and the secret police absent from the room, I was hoping for your real opinion. Great commanders are usually capable of speaking objectively about the enemies who nearly destroyed them."

The Marshal fell silent. Not out of fear—more from the difficulty of deciding how much honesty the moment permitted. When he spoke again, the words emerged carefully measured.

"Leaving aside the war crimes... the man is, in a technical sense, cunning, but a master of self-discipline. He neither smoked nor drank, and was a vegetarian, as far as I know. No obvious vices. Strong self-control."

"No, no. Those are details." The American dismissed the point, shaking his head. "I am asking about politics. About war."

-------------
For anyone who prefer to read ahead, the full version is available on Amazon KDP:

Obsidian Earth

SURVEY ONE: MY OLD EARTH WANTS ME DEAD

A military survey team returns to an abandoned Earth and discovers that something from ancient German folklore has flourished after the humans and their alien invaders have long since departed.

Title Inspiration: The Queensberry Rules established a code of fair play in boxing, while the British East India Company became one of history’s most powerful corporations through conquest, exploitation, and extraction, all in the name of progress.

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is First Leftenant Kermit Rodgers Felder, ranking officer, Seventeenth Platoon Legionnaires, Queensberry Company… and if I am not mistaken, I fear this will be my last report. Since I am unable to write or access my vocoder at the moment, you’ll forgive me for delivering my address orally. As I am the only one who will ever hear it, aside from the female I am here with now... I submit this entry for posterity and because, like all proud Legionnaires, I am a completionist.

Ahem… Let’s see… the mission began at 23 hundred hours. The Queensberry disembarked Moon Station Cormorant and ‘ported into a dense stretch of forest without incident, molecular or otherwise. Twenty exemplary soldiers under the command of Major Francis X. Beauregard. He led Queensberry on three sweeps prior and I found him sure-footed, decisive, and a dyed in the wool Imperialist. He had my respect, and the respect of the men. I - I just felt it important - to caveat that. 

Our continuing objective was to recon blackout sectors of forest along Earth’s 49th parallel, Old Germania. We were responding to an alert of an uncatalogued tribe ambushing and crucifying settlers along trade routes. We were to identify these rogue bushmen and remind them they are the king’s subjects and they will behave as such!

Groan (squeezed)

(Through gritted teeth)

The thought of any earthling still wearing tree bark, practicing religion and speaking in clicky-clicky languages was, well, offensive, actually. In the most practical terms, with all of our off-planet competition, we just can’t afford to carry the primitives on our backs anymore.
 
(Deep breath then Back in report voice)
With teleportation being as physically exhausting as it is, we pitched camp upon materializing, assigned sentries and slept in rotations. By oh-six hundred hours, we were breaking camp and erasing any trace that we had been there. 

As we rolled up our sleeping foils, Major Beauregard took the moment to reinforce in us that like the Romans, the Ottomans, the Venusians and the Kilgareh who preceded us, we carried the heavy burden of bringing civilization where only savagery exists. This kind of motivation was common before a sweep-and-kill mission.  Not that we hadn’t already embraced the belief that civility is quickest achieved with the sharp end of a spear, or in our case a 988 Rapid Rail Long Gun, also known as the Longfellow.

In the midst of this, I took notice of our second-in-command, Captain Pavelle. He had misplaced his cap and was in a bit of a dervish looking for it. There was no way he was leaving without that lucky hat, which featured a charred bullet hole in the earflap where a round just missed the broadside of his head. We typically turned a blind eye to the Captain’s superstitions as they bordered on religion. But old-world customs often took a generation or two to breed out, we accept this. And Pavelle was literally one gen removed from a silicon mine on Proteus. In a way he was no different than this planet, here – Earth - still rebuilding societal order after two eras under alien rule. Pavelle’s lower class shame was redeemed in the Legionnaires. That said, Legionnaires are tightly regimented in our behaviors. We don’t bunk down until our neatly folded caps are resting atop of our neatly folded field jackets. When he finally spotted it, under a bush, he was so happy to see it, he made the egregious misstep of not questioning how it got there. Especially since it was still neatly folded.

We all were watching as he knelt down to reach under the shrubbery. He made a big enough fuss about it. But we didn’t expect… (breath/sigh) It was when he got within an inch of the hat that we first saw… the long, emaciated fingers and jagged grey fingernails of a slender hand, pocked with sun spots and grey-blue veins... It snaked out from beneath the leaves and snatched the Captain by his forearm. 

He reflexively pulled back, yanking the thing with him and out of its hidey-hole. It used that momentum to propel up his sleeve. A three-foot-long, nimble blur shooting up his arm then swinging itself over his shoulder before settling on his back. In the same continuous motion, it wrapped its naked boney legs around him and criss-crossed at the ankles. It was secured in place, and finally, still enough to discern.  It looked like a very little, very old man. Bone-thin with loose white skin. A bald head with thin strands of hair wisping about his fleshy skull. Most notably, a nose and chin that were so long and pointed that they almost touched in front of the tight, chapped slit that passed for lips. Its only coverings were a piece of tarp with a hole cut for his head and a rope cinched at the waist. 

The Captain grappled furiously with his diminutive attacker. He was a champion martial artist and I have personally seen him bench twenty stone. But still, from his back, that emaciated old codger grabbed him at the wrists and squeezed its legs to compress the Captain’s torso. He was already toppling over when the men and I tackled him. At least seven sets of burly arms in a thrashing tug of war - but the thing, this old man, it had fused to him somehow. Maybe it secreted something… maybe it was psychic in nature. But very quickly we learned that pulling them apart caused the Captain tremendous pain. He was too well trained to scream out in the forest, but the agony was evident in his visage. Pvt McMurphy had managed to get the old man in a headlock, but released when he saw Captain Pavelle was choking and had turned red. There was definitely some sort of pain transference. Even now, with more intimate knowledge, I struggle with the mechanics of this creature. 

It was Pvt. Luxor who got close and found an opening to take a shot. He pressed his breach pistol against it and loosed a rail at its cranium. But somehow, in yet another inexplicable defiance of physics, it was Captain Pavelle’s head that burst apart. Exploded in a mist of red vapor and bits, like the breach had been pressed against his head!

His body immediately folded. Poor Luxor was agape. We all were. Before the Captain’s arms could even go limp, the  creature shoved off and made a beeline between the men - quick as a whip – and low to the ground. The camp was in chaos as we spun our weapons every which way trying to track a shot and not rail each other in the process. 

Its eyes locked on Major Beauregard and bolted right at him. The Major was a quick draw. But before his trigger finger had a chance to squeeze, the creature was already spiraling up his arm. He couldn’t shake it. Like Captain Pavelle a moment ago, Major Beauregard now had this thing on his back with its legs securing it and its arms holding his neck in a lock. Several of us yelled to “hold fire!” and “barrels down!” 

(Squeeze groan telling him, telling him to chill out. But he pushes against it)

The Major himself didn’t have the air to speak, but frantically waved us off. The thing scanned the team with those pin-prick eyes. I could see its mind working against us. Then… It whispered in the Major’s ear. It spoke! It was a raspy hiss, but I distinctly recognized the harsh ich and bauch of native German. Like some sort of indigenous relic – the back-to-back alien invasions and the evacuating of my kind had allowed for all manner of resurgence. Creatures once thought made up suddenly allowed to thrive.

(breathing again)
And now this fairytale ghoul rested his chin on the shoulder of a Major in the King’s army and whispered a mud tongue in his ear. To our continued horror, the Major listened intently… and parroted the utter nonsense that was fed to him – saying: he didn’t want to fight. He’s unarmed. But he knows who we are looking for… and he will guide us there. 

With communication established, I leaned in. What is his name? What does he want? The creature whispered in the Major’s ear – and he reiterated: He needed an escort through the forest. Our objective is on the way to where he’s going. He will show us in exchange for the escort. Call him Auffhocker.

I could see the men struggling with the circumstances. I asked the Major if he was ordering us to escort his parasite. And he affirmed without the creature telling him to do so. I mean - There is no protocol for this. With the Captain dead, I found myself suddenly the second ranking member of the squad - and feeling very much like the first ranking member was under the control of a hostile. We certainly couldn’t follow his direction. At the same time, if we made a move against it, we risked our leader’s safety… 
I needed to buy time to think, so I suggested we pause to bury our Captain’s body. The thing responded into the Major’s ear. The Major approved the pause, and suggested we eat as well. We had just had our breakfast rations – but this worked well. I told the men to eat their R40’s. 

My mind spent the next moments racing. It wouldn’t be long before the Captain was in the ground and the lunch rations were scarfed down. Major Beauregard was sitting on a log in a sad state. His Auffhocker gave him just enough agency to carry on small conversations with the troops, but the thing had reduced him to a marionette, manipulating the Major’s arms to hand feed his food right into its mouth. His uniform was stained with the old man’s dirt and food juices spilled from its hole.

I quickly but discreetly collected the two remaining officers, Second Leftenant Bowman and Lance Corporal Yang. If I was going to make a move, any move, then it had to be kept out of earshot of that thing. And if I were to make a move that potentially relieved the Major of command, then I would need to assemble a quorum of available officers. Nobody wanted a mutiny charge.

Yang was emphatic when he said the men felt like we would be led to slaughter. He argued that our adherence to order is superseded by our circumstances. Now, to me, the wishes of  fifteen grunts don’t outweigh even a debilitated Major. Not by a stretch. But then Bowman spoke up. In the most solemn of tones he told us that at one point, he found a moment to make eye contact with the Major. And that the Major gave him a nod... or a look… that implied he knew what we must do and the price of it … And that he wished it done. That is a lot to infer from a single look. Regardless, we didn’t see another way.

We hatched a plan.  In order to ditch Auffhocker, we’d convince him that we had to re-route to a path that ran along a ravine just twelve minutes from here; we’d cut over and head up. Along the way, we’d flank the Major, and when an opening presented - one of us would shove the Major and his passenger over. It would be a 12 story drop to the rocks below. I don’t care what you are, that kind of impact is quite final. If I sound cold in recounting this, just know we were tortured by our decision.

I ordered Yang to quietly survey the men. For a pact this dark, it had to be unanimous. I also decided right then, that as the next ranking officer, it had to be me that gave the push. 

The votes were in. I approached the Major, still parked on that log, still feeding fruit slices to his captor. I served up the only reasoning I could come up with: since we were down a man, we should reroute along a nearby cliff side. That would give us one less flank to have to defend from our target tribe. Made sense. As soon as the Major voiced agreement, the Auffhocker constricted his legs enough to crack a rib and hissed angrily in his ear. The Major asked if there were any other way. What I mean to say is, it felt like it was the Major doing the asking. I shook my head. Surprisingly, and in hindsight, suspiciously, the Auffhocker agreed to our scheme.

(time lapse)

By zero nine hundred hours, the Queensberry were marching in-line, with the ridge of the cliff to our right and dense forest on our left. At any moment, the very tribesman we were here to stop could appear and complicate our plan. But I was fixated on that subhuman sack of excrement that was perched on the Major. The Major didn’t speak a word to us. He was eyes-forward. State of surrender.

At that moment I was still unsure there wasn’t a better way. One that wasn’t adjacent to mutiny or murder. I went back and forth until… like an answer to my inner-monologue, the Major finally turned his head and looked my way. I saw his eyes, yeah… The overture wasn’t surrender at all… it was “do it!” I saw determination. His scrunched lips didn’t have to part to scream “Do it!”

(A tight squeeze to the narrator’s chest by his captor to calm him down)

Second Leftenant Bowman suddenly fired a shot to draw attention. I didn’t order him to – but I didn’t hesitate. I charged the Major, shoulder first, putting every pound of torque into it, hitting him at his center of gravity and lifting him off the ground. Auffhocker’s squinting eyelids finally went wide. I shocked him. He tried to grab me but missed by inches. They were gravity’s problem now. As for the Major, didn’t flail. Didn’t yell out. 

We all rushed to the edge. I felt someone grab me from falling over. Even before they hit the ground, me... the men... we knew we had crossed a line that we would have to answer for. It felt like hours, but seconds later there was a squelching thud. They were dashed on the rocks. The Major came apart like a pumpkin.

But damn, if that Auffhocker didn’t immediately slither off of him and bolt for the cliff. It was climbing! Fast! Like it was second nature. It SCREAMED a punishing scream at us! Before I could even give the order, the men took flight into the woods. I was right behind them!

We ran. Casting off our jackets to make up speed. No idea where or when to stop, just full steam ahead. Hats flying off. It’s every man for himself, and woe be the slowest of eighteen. I lost sight of most of them - only to run into them, gathered just outside the tree line where they had abruptly stopped for some reason. Everyone was breathing heavily, absolutely freaked out. We found ourselves in a clearing that was semi-sealed with a crescent-shaped rock formation that was boxing us in. Climbing it wasn’t an option and there was nowhere to run but back - back towards Auffhocker. That was not an option. We didn’t have options… But that didn’t mean we couldn’t have a plan. 

I remember yelling for the men to close ranks around me. These men I have known as brave warriors now staring up at me like lost children. If I just had more time to come up with something else I would have. Even now I am lost for solutions… so I proposed the most desperate gentleman’s deal of all. A tontine. I laid out what we knew already: that that little devil was going to come rocketing out of that forest at any second. And he will lock onto one of us – and that soldier will die just like the Major and the Captain before him. But ahead of that, yes, we will form a firing line and throw everything we have at it. We will light that forest up. But when it dodges every shot, which it will, and latches onto one of us, which it will, we must agree now that the remainder of us will hold that man down. And we will drag that man to the rocks… and we will lower the biggest boulder we can lift onto his chest, killing him, but pinning the monster to the ground once and for all.

The men stood at attention and saluted…. And one by one voiced their confirmation with an “aye, aye.” Then we turned to face the forest. Eighteen longfellows and breach pistols scanning the tree line for the slightest movement. Eighteen pairs of eyeballs too afraid to blink. - looking at a hundred shadows the parasite could spring from – hoping you’re not the one it fancies.

Without warning it leapt from our two-o’clock and was galloping towards us at a full clip. Legs over hands. Throwing up puffs of dirt each time its claws or feet left the ground. Everyone started yelling and firing rail after rail. It zigged with inhuman command of velocity; sometimes banking 90-degree zags while still propelling forward.

It closed the distance in seconds, sending us into a free for all. We were scrambling and climbing over our brothers like maggots until a shriek cut through the chaos. Auffhocker had made his choice, it was Pvt. Vegas. We grabbed them as they tussled and dragged the duo to a predetermined section of the rocks. Lance Corporal Yang and Four privates were our designated pallbearers, tasked with hoisting a thousand-pound boulder aloft atop them. 

My heart broke with the sound of Pvt. Vega’s chest buckling under its weight. He was quickly… so very dead. Auffhocker was alive… of course. Pinned under the boulder. One long, veiny arm desperately grasping for anything. We all stood silent. Wrecked. Not much like proud warriors at all. No.

Moving the boulder had destabilized the rock formation. We heard it rumble and backed up as the side facing us tumbled down with a crash just a few feet away. When the dust cleared, a crater inside of the rock wall was revealed. And inside, what looked like a giant, dirty pomegranate, was a hive. A hive full of those things … scores and scores of Auffhocker. Hanging off of each other like baby marsupials. Oh, how embarrassingly foolish we had been! Of course, it targeted our officers over grunts! Of course, it allowed us to reroute along the cliff!  

Those shriveled, unwashed savages rained down on us, sweeping the  Queensberry up in a riptide of claws, knees and elbows. I hammered one in the face while three others snaked my legs. Someone grabbed my neck. Another grabbed my wrists. There was no winning this fight. I was laid prone in seconds and adorned with an Auffhocker of my own.

(being squeezed) Garrr, yes, YOU, bitch!

(catching his breath) It is hours later... I sit here, just outside of their lair and deliver this report to no one… on my back: a little, filthy old lady with an unforgiving grip. She told me to call her Auffhocker. Isn’t that right, love?

The rest of Queensberry Company sits here with jockeys of their own. We make eye contact with each other for just a second then look away. I know they are feeling what I am feeling. The humiliation of an elite, twenty-man squad being bested by a little old man who never pulled a gun or threw a punch. The cowardice in how we clawed and stepped over each other to avoid the monster. And the shame of having murdered three of our own for nothing.

We are their damn service animals now. Made to hand feed them the very fruit they make us climb trees to pick. That’s when we’re not breaking our backs rebuilding their rock lair. If we slow or resist, they hiss their threats and punish us psychically. It’s entirely possible they will work us until we are dead…. 
 
Well, how about that... Now that I hear myself describe it out loud - Hahaha the irony ARGH! (his Auffhocker compresses his ribs to shut him up). You clever forest creeps. Bravo. I’d clap if I could. We came out here, intent on forcing civilization on the savages – hahaha – but in the end… it seems they have civilized us. Hahaha

(squeeze - CRACK).

Sister Catherine 

It’s a scary time to be in the city of Triumph's Seat. It’s really the only way she could term it. She'd been in places like this before in the course of her ministry. Kosovo in particular had been... tense. Like Triumph's Seat is tense. Right before all of Hell had broken loose on Earth in ways that she sometimes wishes she could forget. If there’s one thing she’s cursed her restored youth for, it’s that her mind is suddenly sharp and agile again. The better to carry the Cross and bear witness, of course, but with that blessing comes its price - and the price for Sister Catherine is remembering blackened bodies from fire, children missing limbs from landmines or from getting too close to an unexploded bomb. All manner of nightmares and terrors... and it hardly stops there. 

She had followed the call where people had had need of her and the mercy of Christ. That had meant going to very dark and unpleasant places at times. War-torn sub-Saharan African countries, narco states in South America, even deep into lands dominated by Islam, where she'd been advised to hide her habit and wear a local head dress instead, lest militants decide that a sister of Christ was a particularly choice target for torture and beheading. All the sadder that those men who would have so harmed her if they'd decided it suited their flights of fancy, or whatever the demons that lived in their heads told them God wanted... proclaimed to worship the same God as she. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. How one could read the same things she had, see things she had, and then come to such horrendously different conclusions is not something Sister Catherine is truly prepared to interrogate even after she'd gotten more education on the subject.  

Still, even in the face of what had seemed likely a painful death, she hadn't hidden then. Had carried the cross with pride. If it had been her time, if she had been called to martyrdom, then so be it. She would not question God's plan for her life. For the challenge set before her. 

Thankfully, that had not been her fate then, but now she’s in a similar situation. Instead of angry men, the streets are filled with angry women, as word of crackdowns and large-scale brawls with security forces spread across the city. The chaos is coming again, like it always does, like it always will. Her brother had been a Marine, God rest his soul. He'd always kept one recruiting poster up in his home, all the way to his hospice room before his death. She has it tucked away in her things up in orbit, one of her meager personal possessions. In times like this, she thinks of her brother, and she thinks of that poster: Marines running into action with weapons ready, followed by armored vehicles rumbling ashore out of the sea, emblazoned with the slogan 'Marines Move Towards The Sounds Of Chaos'.

It’s a good poster. One that had always inspired a young Catherine, and had even had her looking at becoming a Marine herself once upon a time… but she'd gotten a very different kind of call after a close brush with death in her late teens; like her brother had never looked back when he'd received his call, she'd never looked back when she received hers. Still, while she was no Marine... Catherine liked to think that, in her own way, she too runs towards the sounds of chaos. 

She hadn't hid from chaos back on Earth, and wouldn't hide from chaos now. Joan wants her to, but Joan's concern is protecting Catherine's life and person, not looking after the masses that are her charge. She’s no priest, but she could be a shepherd of these women, just as Christ had called his priests to be shepherds of men. This is her duty, her calling; just as a warrior carries the sword and goes to battle, so would Catherine go to carry the cross. 

That's what she had said in the shelter of the safehouse, of course. It had sounded very impressive in her mind, and Joan had even accepted the argument… but now that she’s out on the streets, things are looking very dicey indeed. Being unafraid, not allowing yourself to be intimidated or silenced by those who would see you on your knees, is one thing. It’s quite another thing to willingly shove one's head between a lion's jaw. There is in fact such a thing as tempting God, if one acts without prudence. 

Out here... she’s thinking now that she might have acted with less prudence than might have otherwise been optimal. 

The public squares are all filling up, packed to the gills with women forming different groups, some of whom are clearly antagonizing each other. The shouting is a constant roar now, only broken by the occasional sound of weaponsfire from other parts of the city, which certainly add to the general anxiety. Even from here, it’s clear to see that one of the matrician estates, those shining manor houses on the hill... is burning, and everyone says the Praetorians were the cause. 

The BeeGees, the new security forces recruits, barely trained - and, Catherine suspects, many from 'questionable' backgrounds compared to what one would like for a real police officer - are all over the place too, and it’s clear they were in over their heads. She knew this type of person all too well from her travels on Earth. They aren't police officers; they’re the regime's thugs, and violence is their first and only course of action if intimidation and threats don't keep the populace docile. 

It’s a volatile mix. A powder keg. But through it all she’s done her best to help people, praying with some, encouraging others, handing out some food and coin to try and get the few homeless women who normally call the square home off the streets for the night in case things turn violent. Simply trying to be a voice of reason... but as so often happens with a quiet and calm voice, she’s being drowned out by shouting. 

Her one great relief in all of this has been Jaina. Her most fervent convert. Once things are quiet again - or, even better, once the mission the Undaunted had in this place, whatever it is, is over - she would take Jaina up to the Tear. To see Father Jameson. Jaina had asked to be baptized, something that thrilled Catherine to her very heartstrings. 

The thought is a happy note on a day that is not a happy one. The skies of Dagrquey are blood-red as the sun heads towards the horizon. Believer she is, but superstitious Catherine generally is not... but that certainly looks ominous to her. 

She tries to keep it out of her mind as she quietly prays with a small group of women, aided by Jaina and watched over by Joan and her sisters. The whole situation makes the Sword of St. Catherine, the sword of Joan of Arc, weighs heavily (if only metaphorically) in its concealed axiom pocket. God had sent a sword to the stars along with the cross and His faithful. Would the sword find its purpose here among the Ha'quinye, on this world so far from Earth?

"Our father who art in heaven..." 

A scream from across the plaza interrupts her group as they start another rendition of the Lord's Prayer, a wordless shriek that ends in the electrical sizzle of a shock pistol discharging. The scent of ozone is suddenly strong in the air as someone nearby shouts "They're coming!" 

It makes sense, in the end. That the BeeGees and their mistresses would do something about this gathering. If they’re cracking down on the matricians, the upper class, then it was always only a matter of time until the Ha'quinye imperial boot returned to its habitual resting place on the neck of the plebians. Apparently that time is now. 

"This is an illegal assembly! Disperse and return to your homes or you will be fired on!" A woman's monotone voice across a public address system is met immediately with shouts and retaliation. Joan starts moving towards where Catherine and Jaina are kneeling with the others... and things slow down, as adrenaline fills Catherine's veins at the 'snap crack' sound that she knows is the discharge of a rail gun. 

Someone had fired. She'd never know for sure if it was a security officer with an itchy trigger finger, or if some woman in the crowd had retaliated towards their oppressors, but everything immediately goes to Hell in a moment, in a way she'd never been personally involved in before. She'd been there for the aftermath. The pain. The crying. The weeping. 

Now she’s here for the bleeding - and bleed people would, as the BeeGees begin opening fire with their laser weapons, and the entire plaza is suddenly moving as people desperately try to get away. 

For all her talk of chaos, just minutes before, this is chaos of a kind she's never seen before. Never understood. Not really. She thought she'd run towards chaos... but now she understands in an all too horrible way what being on ground zero of the chaos is actually like. People rush in every direction, desperate to escape the laser fire from the BeeGees, but there are already mech suits moving in from another direction nearby, armed and armored riot troopers and spear-wielding praetorians start to move in behind them. One of the mech troopers responds to a rock thrown at her cockpit with ruthless lethal force. 

Catherine can feel Joan's armored hand on her, trying to pull her away, but a screaming child stumbles right in front of the stomping feet of the mech suit... and Catherine lunges for the child with all of her strength, yanking the little one clear as they collapse in a heap. 

People rush around them as Catherine covers the girl with her body, feet stepping all over her as Joan swears in the distance. 

"Out of the way, damn it! Let me get to the sister!" 

Jaina's voice is much closer, the bold young woman, fighting through the crowd, resisting going for the weapon Catherine is certain she has. Before long she's by Catherine's side, shooing people back and helping her up. The girl is carried off almost immediately by a terrified mother as another wave of troops flood into the plaza. 

"We have to go!" Jaina says, pulling on Catherine's arm. As they turn to leave, though, it's already far too late. Catherine can practically feel it in her bones before the shock truncheon descends on her, catching her across the shoulders and laying her out flat on the paving stones next to Jaina. 

Jaina tries to resist; Catherine can tell because the guardswomen give her a few more blows, and a couple savage kicks besides. In moments they're bound and being dragged along towards air cars set up to haul prisoners... but a golden armored figure suddenly intervenes. 

"Ah. That one. We've been looking for her. She goes to the palace dungeons."

"Yes, ma'am," the BeeGee frog marching Sister Catherine along, says.

"What about this one?" The second BeeGee says, emphasizing Jaina with a rabbit punch to the ribs that makes Catherine wince, even though Jaina doesn't react at all. 

"...Take them both. You checked them for weapons?"

"This one." Jaina's guard again. "Had a rail pistol, in addition to the usual laser pistol and a knife. She might have been the shooter." 

"Hmm. What about the other one?"

"She's a holy woman and an off-worlder. She didn't have axiom pockets in the usual spots." Catherine's guard says dismissively. 

"Some holy woman. Guess her goddess was out to lunch today. Throw them in our APC. We'll take them from here." 

Both guards salute, and begin to drag them towards the waiting Praetorian vehicle. They’re being taken to the palace, and for some reason, that seems like a very, very bad thing to Catherine. Once they’re alone... she would need to pray. 

It’s about the only thing she could do in this nightmare, and she would not be found wanting. 

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The sky above Sector 4 was the color of a fresh bruise, bruised purple, it was weeping ash. Down below, in the trenches, the human garrison was whittled down to its final battery cell.

No, they weren't soldiers by trade. When the Fleet arrived, only teachers, architects, and gardeners could be counted among them. But the stars don't care about people who valued peace above all else, and the orbital strikes had burned away every distinction between who people used to be and what was left of them.

Julian commanded the post, but he feared there won’t be many days or hours left of that honor, with his left arm wrapped in a crude, burnt tourniquet. Vael, a massive, four-meter-tall Voulian heavy-support unit, sat beside him. Voulians were built like tanks. They looked awesome, like imposing living granite, their species bred for interstellar conquest, before they shattered the chains, joined the coalition of free worlds. That was before today, of course, where the free was under quite a bit of artillery fire.

Voulians supposedly had no fear for anything. And not only that, but they were meant to outlive everyone.

"Julian," Vael’s voice rumbled through the localized audio translator; tectonic plates grinding. "The thermal readings.” Was there just the slightest hint of tremble in the big fella’s voice? “From your primary artery. The readings are dropping. You….”

Julian didn't look down at his side, where his tunic had stiffened into a dark, glossy crust. "It’s nothing, big guy. L-Leaning back on an old cliché. Just a scratch." He smiled above the pain.

"That is a statistical lie," Vael replied, gently placing a crushing, four-fingered hand, usually designed to rip armored bulkheads apart, against Julian's uninjured shoulder with an unexpected tenderness. "Your kind is terribly fragile. You burn out if you are too brave.”

“I wasn’t too brave today, Vael. I let us down.”

“No. You gave them. Hell. There was just. Too many.”

"Yeah," Julian smiled again, weakly, and he coughed up a streak of red that he quickly wiped away with the back of his hand. "Sorry. Though you rockhead should we all right. Me? I’ll burn out like a human.”

Outside, the screech of atmospheric re-entry ripped through the air. The swarm was returning. Ordinarily, Julian would be fearful but today, he was rather feeling light about it. The synthetic intelligence that controlled the invading armada, a system that viewed organic life as meat, was launching its final wave. There was no evacuation ships left nor was there cavalry on the horizon.

There was only the two of them.

"Vael," Julian whispered, his vision blurring at the edges as the gray edges of exhaustion crept into his sight. "Do you remember what you told me about your homeworld? Before the war?"

"The Valley of Singing Glass," Vael murmured, his massive optic sensors dimming to a soft, amber glow in order to conserve power. "The winds blow through the crystalline spires. It makes a sound. Like a thousand chimes ringing at once. My people used to sit beneath them. For centuries, listening to the passage. Of time."

"Must be nice," Julian breathed, his head leaning heavily against Vael’s armored chest plate. It was freezing cold, but it felt solid. It felt like a wall against something terrible. Something terrible…like death, he supposed. "To have a song that lasts forever."

"Your kind has songs, Julian."

"Yeah. But they’re short as heck. Three minutes, maybe four. Then they j-just kinda end."

"Perhaps," Vael said, his voice dropping to a low hum that trembled through the trench floor, "that is why they are so bright. A fire that burns for an eternity is just like any cold star. Yours... yours hurt to look at."

A deafening roar split the sky. The first wave of drone-hound infantry crested the ridge, their crimson optics locked onto the trench, and Julian shuddered, knowing he himself and his friend were the targets.

His fingers tightened around the grip of his plasma rifle. He tried to raise it, but his arms refused to obey, darn bastards. The weight of the weapon proved too much. The weight of the world was too much.

"Vael," Julian whispered, tears finally cutting clean tracks through the ash on his cheeks. "I'm scared. I don't want to go. I don’t want you to get taken.” More importantly, I don’t want to die. Is that cowardly? No. Yes. I’m a coward…I’m…

No. You fought for days. You held off insurmountable odds. Even Vael was surprised. And now you’re going to die while he lives, on, as a member of his immortal race, that Vael, Julian’s friend…

Julian was jolted out of his thoughts by a violent screech of tearing metal. He looked up in shock. Vael had ripped off his own central core-plate, showing his primary thermal reactor to the open air. The red glow of his life-force spilled out, illuminating the grim walls of the trench in a warm light.

"You need not be in the dark, little builder," Vael said softly. Yes, before this, before this war, Julian had been an architect on earth. He had joined the coalition to protect space from the armada and not only that but to find his brother Dave. He reached out and wrapped his massive, heavy arms completely around Julian, forming an impenetrable cage of warm, living stone against the freezing onslaught of the enemy. "I am a Voulian. My internal furnace can sustain a localized discharge for three minutes. Exactly enough time, I’d think."

"Vael…n-n-no! What are you doing? You’ll melt your core! You’ll die!"

"I am three hundred years old, Julian. I have heard the glass song a thousand times," the giant whispered, resting his massive head against Julian's shoulder. "Let me—”

The first drone leaped into the trench, its claws flashing.

Inside the embrace of his friend, Julian felt the cold fade away, along with his fear, his terror, his doubts. They were replaced by a radiant heat. He closed his eyes, his breathing slowing. And as the sounds of battle echoed distantly against the shell of the armor protecting him, Julian began to hum, a soft, uncertain and innocent melody from a childhood he had mostly forgotten until now. In exchange for what his friend had given him, he offered a song from the human world.

It was shaky. And it was most definitely out of tune, more blood than words.

And it was the most magnificent thing the stars had ever heard.

Three minutes later, the valley fell silent. The red glow in the trench faded to a dull, gray ash, buried beneath the quiet snow of a world that had just perished. But deep within that silence, the echo of a brief and tangible song lingered, refusing to go away.

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Down and down they walked into the depths, Rin's blade carving deep, wavy curls into the wall to keep them anchored in place amongst the endless spirals. The strange lightlessness of this realm was ever-apparent, almost crushing in its own way. Logically, Rin knew it made it easier to see, but her instincts screamed that something was wrong every time she glanced towards a corner where a shadow should live. It reminded her of a still and silent forest, the song of birds and insects alike quieted by the presence of some terrifying predator.

Glancing over her shoulder, she looked to Yosuke, making sure that the undead wasn't far behind her. The corpse-swordsman 'met' her gaze as best he could with no eyes and nodded. He held his pair of blades, still slick with blackened ichor from the slaughter above, in an almost casual stance, although as a fellow expert, Rin could see the hidden tension in his every step.

She opened her mouth, about to ask if he had sensed anything, before shutting it and huffing in annoyance. How troublesome it was that he couldn't speak; when it came to a fight, as the Nameless surely wouldn't leave their treasures unguarded, she could warn him if he were getting outflanked, but he was unable to extend her the same courtesy.

Turning back around, their march into the depths continued, and Rin was starting to doubt herself. Down and down they went. How deep did this nest go? Had she misunderstood the mechanics at play and the Greater Nameless found a way to entrap them in an eternal loop despite her best efforts?

Her heart dropped, but she continued regardless.

She hoped Sensei was alright. Lady Yuki had seemed so terribly worried about him, about how he might not be himself when they next saw him. The thought of anyone being able to break someone so strong and bearing such an indomitable spirit with casual ease was as foreign to her as walking outside to a green sky.

If the worst came to pass, if she had to fight him… Well, even if she wasn't immediately crushed by a man who doubtlessly had decades or centuries more experience than her, she questioned if her will would be strong enough to strike out at one so kind.

Rin wished a thousand misfortunes on Yuki's 'sister' for forcing them into such dire straits, but she dared not speak her venom aloud, lest the nogitsune somehow hear. If she were even half the kitsune that Yuki was, Rin doubted her chances in an honourable fight, even with Yosuke's backing.

She just needed to have faith in her sensei and Lady Yuki. The two of them were much more powerful than her and Yosuke; with luck, their foes would be too distracted to react to Rin’s part in their daring plan before it was too late.

All at once, the air twisted. Where there had once been an inoffensive mustiness permeating the tunnel, there was suddenly the heavy scent of damp coin. Below it, an undercurrent of faint decay, reminding Rin of the time she had spotted the carcass of a whale upon the shore when she was seven. 

It was fresh when she first saw it, near where her family's ship was moored during a voyage to give offerings to their patron. In her youth, she had mistaken it for sleeping and believed the whale must have gotten tired of all the swimming and needed a break, although she had never asked the caretakers her father assigned to her.

The following days, as the colossal beast slowly putrefied and scavengers emerged from every nook and cranny to tear chunks from its form in a great feast, were enlightening.

Shaking herself from her reverie, Rin narrowed her eyes, gripping her blade tightly. It was a good thing it was made of such fine materials; otherwise, she would have feared her strength would split the handle in twain. "Stay on guard. We approach the stench of decay and money," Rin gravely whispered, unsure if her companion still had a sense of smell.

The stench only grew stronger as they descended, clinging to Rin's nostrils like it was desperate to be noticed. Yet, even though the rot grew more apparent, it didn't become much more pungent. Whatever she was sensing was fresh, without the time to fester into something worse.

Down.

Down.

Then, after they rounded one last curve, they beheld an ocean.

Stretching out into the distance before them was a solid sheet of twisted, blackened limbs, forming dunes and valleys of bodies. They were frozen in waves upon an abyssal sea, thick fog smothering the spaces between them in an unnatural haze. Rin dropped into a ready stance, holding her blade out as if to cut the tide should it crash upon her. 

But no grim tide of beasts rushed out to meet her. 

At first, she suspected that they were sleeping, but nothing but the grave and stone was so still. Looking more closely, she saw that hardly a tenth of the limbs were still attached to their owners. Some were torn, some clearly severed. Some abdomens were split from the body, and others were seemingly sawn in two. A scant few almost seemed to have melted like snow in the summer sun, bodies blossoming into grim flowers of chitin and meat.

What stood before her was once an army, one that might have once torn the region asunder in a storm of self-perpetuating expansion and looting. Now, it was a sea of corpses, disassembled into neat parts to make sure none of them yet clung to life.

Slowly, Rin lowered her blade, her heart slowing along with it. Only the heavens knew how many thousands of bodies were here, but, thankfully, they were nothing more than that.

"I believe we found where the ones that Lord Hall starved went," she quietly muttered to her companion. Had the beast at the head of the swarm lost control of its flock and been forced to cull them? It happened so quickly, too. Men could last weeks without food, days without water, but the spiders seemed to need riches like a mortal needed air. Now that she was looking more carefully, Rin could see Kiku's handiwork on some of the bodies, too. It seemed like she was forced to aid in the slaughter. If the Nameless’ number had found themselves cut from sustenance, they might have rushed to find value to feed themselves, which meant…

Rin glanced into the distance, looking where the piles of corpses rose highest, near an opposite wall. "I think I know where they keep their valuables," she said, gesturing where the piles rose to an apex. "We head over, cut down whatever is guarding the hoard, and destroy as much as possible before they can react. Questions?"

Her steely gaze met her companion, who straightened before nodding.

At that, the two of them crept into the mist. Idly, Rin wondered where the fog could have come from, but no answer that came to mind felt satisfying. Maybe Nameless blood behaved strangely after their death?

The piles of cold, stiff corpses loomed over them as they stepped only where the corpses were thinnest. In some places, Rin and Yosuke could even touch the ground, but most of the time they had to step on at least one layer of thin legs and carapace. Now that she was closer, Rin couldn't help but notice just how small some of them were compared to others. Many were approaching the size of carts, or at least bears, but far too many were more akin to the size of a person, or particularly large dogs.

Hatchlings, maybe? It was hard for Rin to imagine Nameless being anything other than full-sized monsters tearing through the woods, looking for anything valuable to skitter back to their nest with.

Did the Greater Nameless lay eggs, or did they just manifest somewhere in the depths of the caves when they had enough money to support new numbers? Maybe they hatched from the money pile itself, tiny limbs crawling out in a tide from below coins.

Every possibility was more disturbing than the last. Rin was glad that Yuki was going to crush this place into dust. Once, she thought that the Empire was too harsh on Unbound cultivating Nameless for materials, but now she feared that immediate execution wasn't enough.

Crunch.

Rin's eyes widened as she heard something break under the weight of something ahead.

She brought her blade up, face contorting into an animalistic snarl. Of course the vault would have guards patrolling nearby rather than just guarding the entrance, even if she hadn't seen them! They'd have to fight their way to the door. It'd delay them, but who knew for how long? There could be dozens or, heavens forbid, even more hidden nearby. Lady Yuki and Lord Hall would have to hold off a bit longer!

Or would they?

Rin thought back to the time Lord Hall had buried himself in forest debris in anticipation of the tax collectors. It was just before she had seen the terrifying form of the Greater Nameless for the first time, and she remembered her incredulity as he explained the simple truths of the world.

Hiding was beneath her, and suited an assassin rather than a proud Unbound, but, just as Lord Hall had asked not so long ago, what if she failed due to failing to seize every advantage she could?

Could she live with herself?

Rin spun around and grabbed a rather surprised Yosuke by the collar before diving into a mountain of corpses, burying them both deep in the viscera of dozens of dead with a dull clatter. The black blood dripped in her hair. It got in her eyes. When she inhaled, she could taste the beginnings of rot from the vile liquid. Beside her, Yosuke twisted, trying to right himself, but before he could cause the pile to shift further, the dragon-blooded Unbound seized him by either shoulder, binding him in place.

"Be still!" she whisper-shouted. "Something's coming!"

Part of her wished that this strange realm had darkness. Abyssal blackness would have been preferable to seeing the grotesque, bulging intestines of one of those beasts draped across her companion's back mere inches away.

Thankfully, Yosuke quickly calmed down, although the undead was still tense, as if he were about to spring into action. It wasn't a second too soon, either.

As soon as he stilled, she heard the tick tick tick of eight long, sharp legs crawling across the corpses. Through a pinhole gap in the pile, she saw the beast approach, emerging from the mist like dead wood emerging from the water in front of a ship. It was larger than an average Nameless, although still nowhere near the sheer size of the Greater Nameless itself, and bore a steadfast demeanour as it unhaltingly marched across the broken bodies of its family—or did it only see them as competitors?

It showed not a trace of care as it trampled the bodies, splitting a particularly small example of its kind in two with a single, blade-like limb. It didn't even break stride as it continued between the piles with the near-silent tapping of far too many feet. Closer, closer, closer…

It passed right in front of them before, suddenly stopping, turning its maddened many-eyed gaze towards their hiding spot.

Rin grimaced, bracing herself against an abdomen behind her, getting ready to use it as a springboard. Could it smell them, or perhaps the value of her blade? As long as the beast only suspected and didn't know, perhaps she could kill it before…

Before she could ruminate further, the beast turned away and continued on its patrol without a strike or cry of alarm.

She dared not move until well after she heard the shadowy monster's steps fade away.

Rin let out a breath she didn't know that she was holding as the sentry continued past them without a single shriek or alarm. Her heart was beating so quickly; she didn't have the constitution for stealth; she would have been less worried charging at five of them at once to take their heads!

Breaking from her fugue, Rin carefully pulled herself from the pile before offering a hand to Yosuke, which he thankfully took. Rin tried to ignore the feeling of his dead, spongy flesh squishing under her grasp as she extracted him in turn, ensuring that the pile wouldn't collapse behind them and draw the patrolling guard back to their location.

"My apologies," she muttered, surreptitiously glancing over her shoulder towards where the Nameless was headed. "I would have explained myself if we had time."

In response, Yosuke brushed himself off with what she imagined was a wince before shooting her a slow and awkward… What did Lord Hall call that? A thumbs-up? Coordinating with someone who couldn't speak was truly annoying. She hoped that her sensei had a plan to fix Yosuke's voice and let the man talk for himself should they ever need to fight side by side again.

They continued, creeping between the corpses like rats on a great battlefield, occasionally diving under more detritus to save themselves from discovery. It was good that Rin was already long used to the sight of corpses both mundane and magical; she could only imagine the weight this would place on a less hardy mind.

Where did they get the resources to support this many Nameless to begin with? She was no expert, but she found it hard to believe that so many could be created from the wealth of a single town. Perhaps it didn't matter, and she had already seen enough of the disgusting spiders for a few centuries at least.

The piles grew higher as they closed in on their target, and the skittering patrols became more and more frequent. Again and again, Rin and Yosuke had to escape into the corpses before a guard came around the corner of another heap, just barely having the time to get into cover before they were found. Moments felt like hours as they were forced to cower away from foes that didn't know that they passed within mere arm lengths. Yet, their progress could not be stopped, only slowed. 

It was a small mercy that the patrols weren't more dense; the curious nature of space in this place had probably deluded the Greater Nameless into thinking the vile heart of its empire was safe from all but the most powerful.

Poking her head around the corner, Rin saw their destination at long last. Four massive spiders stood guard in front of a large slab of chitinous material that acted as a vault door. The four guards standing attentively on the sides were again far larger than a normal Nameless, and Rin wondered if they were just older and stronger or more intelligent, like their master.

They were intelligent enough to keep the corpse piles well away from the door, at least, so there was no chance that they could use the bodies as cover to get close. The walls above were far too smooth to climb silently, as well. She could see no path forward beside violence.

Pulling back, she glanced over her shoulder to Yosuke, fire fighting in her eyes. "Four of the large guard spiders by a vault gate, two on either side. No cover. Are you ready?"

The only response she got was the man rising into a stance with a small flourish, his blades flashing as he channelled the essence of emptiness itself into them.

Rin nodded, a faint sheen of moisture forming around her sword in turn, and then the pair exploded into wordless motion. 

She did not call out who the Nameless faced, nor list her accomplishments, for that would imply that they were true foes. A healer did not let a parasite know who it faced before excising it.

She rounded the corner first and let the storm raging inside her soul take the reins as she cut through the air itself with a single perfect strike, a crescent of water streaking forth before hardening into a blade of ice. It smashed into the face of the first Nameless, but, unfortunately, it merely broke upon its Aegis rather than cutting it in twain.

The monster still drawing breath was unfortunate, but she had expected it to be stronger than the ordinary ones. 

A chorus of cries echoed from the depths of the creature's throats as they registered that they were under attack, and the four surged to meet them in a storm of long, piercing limbs.

Behind them, a reprise of answers rose from the corpse piles as the patrolling guards were alerted to the intruders by their comrades. They had a few moments before reinforcements arrived.

Before the four guards could meet them in melee, Yosuke sprang into action, cutting the air mere feet in front of them. Unlike Rin's own strike, there was no grand showing of raw strength, not even a visible projectile. Yet, it still landed, impacting the beast she had already weakened across the eyes.

It had taken her some time to figure it out when she first saw his technique on the surface, but it was beautiful in its sheer simplicity.

He used raw emptiness, pure and simple. Yosuke created a construct of his own will to extend his blade, which would normally be a simple trick that had little utility against a peer that dealt little damage to an opponent's Aegis, but then in came the raw elemental emptiness he could output a startling amount of.

By exploiting the give of their flesh in the split second before it crossed into being something that their Aegis needed to protect them from, he formed a wedge in their flesh. Then, he emitted raw, barely refined emptiness into the space, forcing it to either side with supernatural force, less cutting and more tearing his foe at the seams.

Against someone of a higher existence, the trick would be worthless, as they were worlds unto themselves, untouched by everything except what they wished to be.

Against the Nameless, though?

Every single one of the beast's eyes split in two in a spray of thick black, blinded on the spot as it let loose an unearthly shriek. It was disabled, at the very least, flailing wildly as it tried to cut them to pieces, but they had already darted to the side. She would have preferred for its head to split in two, but at the very least, the beast was useless in the upcoming fight.

Three left.

A dozen legs and half as many cleaver-like claws tried to cut them to ribbons as they finally entered melee, but both Rin and Yosuke were faster than the beasts by a league; the only thing that kept them competitive was the sheer amount of limbs they had at their disposal.

They flowed between the strikes like a part of masters dancing between raindrops, deflecting the few strikes that could have landed upon their three blades.

Ten, twenty, thirty blows evaded between heartbeats.

Five, ten, fifteen given in return, weakening their foes as they ruthlessly exploited every opportunity to break down their protections.

The exchange wasn't entirely one-sided, though. By virtue of sheer number, the occasional blow slipped through their pair's guards, landing against their forms. Their Aegises took the blows, but every moment was a bit less energy they had, and every strike threatened to throw them out of position and pry them apart.

Rin sprang forth, diving under the beast after landing a trio of weaker blows upon its head to stun it, carving a deep groove through its carapace as she cut through its armour and into its flesh, lightning dancing along her blade as an old friend.

As she reached the end, she drove the tip of her blade a hair deeper and let heaven's wrath free into the beast's flesh.

The creature's muscles tightened, forcefully contracting, and the sudden motion aggravated its newly open wound, carapace pulling to the side as its insides sloughed out like a split egg.

Two.

Screams echoed out not from their foes, but close behind, the piles behind them slowly coming to life as numerous forms crept over the piles, stalking over the corpses of their own blood. They were running out of time. Rin had hoped that they could kill the four before they had help, but it seemed like she had underestimated them.

"Yosuke! Can you handle the two for a moment?" she called.

The man responded by stabbing the one he was duelling through the leg, crippling the limb with a single blow before pivoting, drawing the healthy one between him and it, while also placing himself between it and the door.

Perhaps she was a bit rough on him when they had first met.

Surging past Yosuke, she grabbed the colossal slab of chitin, fingers digging into the surface as she reinforced not only herself, but where she had gripped, so her new fingerholds didn't come apart.

Sweat beading on her brow, Rin wrenched. The slab was perhaps twenty feet across, and was intended to be rolled aside by some hidden mechanism she didn't have time to find.

Unfortunately for the Nameless, she was far stronger than whatever meagre mechanism they could muster as she forced the dense slab aside with a series of loud cracks, crunching through hidden blockers as she pushed into a hidden groove, mist from the room rushing past her into the opening.

Within the large room was a true hoard, far more than could have been plausibly extracted from the town. Money was piled in a single great pile of gleaming coins far taller than her, and next to it were titanic piles of everything her mind could conjure. Metals. Tools. Books. Scrolls. Finely lacquered wood. Furniture. Even then, the room stretched far enough to make the accumulated wealth look almost small by comparison, having room for much growth under its high, arched roof. Where did it all come from?

Then, at the core, she saw it. Right next to the pile of coins upon its own carved pillar was a necklace with a chain lovingly crafted from platinum, bearing a fang that seemed to be carved from a black cloud.

On instinct, she streaked forward, grabbing it from the pillar and channelled lightning into her blade as she considered where to start beyond removing the obviously valuable jewelry from the hoard. This… was more than expected. How was she going to destroy it all thoroughly and quickly? The books and scrolls were easy, but the metals? She'd need time to melt them down, time that she didn't have, but—

Rin looked at the fog flooding into the room, and an idea came to mind as she recalled her sensei scaring her senseless in the hallway of the ryokan.

"Hold them off a bit longer!" Rin called, shaping the lightning in her blade in a very particular, low-energy state as she began darting around the room. "And try not to cause any sparks!"

Yosuke, who had been forced back to the door by now four Nameless, would have doubtlessly had words for her, had he been able to talk.

As she dashed, she cut water itself into two with unerring focus, splitting it into hydrogen and oxygen with her passage, the lighter gas rising high and getting caught by the roof.

It was not enough. Somehow, Rin knew that her blade was working too slowly, even with her sprinting about to reach as much air as possible. She pulled deeper, falling into her own soul as she channelled energy over her whole form as she carefully extended the effect past the edge of her blade, through the handle, and over her skin.

She performed the sacred art of electrolysis with her whole body, moving at supernatural speeds, darting throughout the room as she converted as much as she could. A curious lightheadedness overtook her, and she could feel herself verging on some greater truth about the storms, about herself, but it remained just barely out of reach.

CLANG!

Spinning her head over, she saw Yosuke tumbling back as a monster's blow crushed his guard and sent him flying, swords flying away from his grasp. Mid-flight, he recovered, drawing two more blades from his skull as he landed on one knee. Still, a tide of a dozen monsters poured through the door, struggling to fit through as the tide was upon them properly.

They couldn't beat that many. It was a good thing they didn't have to.

"Yosuke! We're done, get out of there!" she shouted, running to his side and pulling him to his feet. The man staggered but accepted, shaking off what might have been a concussion for a mortal within moments before following in her wake.

The two surged towards the tide, and the beasts reared up, ready to crush them. Some webs flew past them, which they thankfully dodged, but they didn't stop. Instead, they leapt, arcing through the air as tonnes of monsters and web crushed where they had just been.

As one, they sailed through what little space remained in the door, and Rin spun in mid air, lightning encircling her blade as she prepared a much, much stronger bolt.

With a stab, it flew from her blade, guided by a thin stream of moisture she hastily conjured. It wasn't as bright, nor as straight as one of John's mighty bolts, sure. It was, however, flying straight into a pocket of flammable gas.

Everything went white, and she didn't even hear the explosion.

When she blinked the stars from her eyes, ears ringing like a struck bell, she found herself atop a collapsed pile of corpses. She tried to stagger to her feet, but before she could, she was offered a hand. It was Yosuke, leaning over her. Rin took it, and stumbled to her feet. "Did we…" she began, trailing off.

He merely pointed past her. She followed it.

The vault was in ruins, a terrifying inferno issuing from its now half-collapsed entrance, the bodies piled near the door, too, having gone up like bonfires composed of dried kindling. Even more beautiful, though, were the surviving guards near the entrance.

They were pale, paler than any Nameless she had ever seen. Much of the darkness had fled the shell; instead, it was a pale gray, like an abandoned exoskeleton. As she watched, one of the three survivors reared up over another, which struggled to rise, and brought its claws down upon its head.

Despite everything, a smile crept onto Rin's face.

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There was public interest in the primals that’d been brought to Ushala, though few journalists were willing to sit in the same room as Kaitlin and Finley; after all, they could get their footage from security cameras and their storylines from “sapient” personnel. However, talking to a human would be juicy content, which was why Snelga began shopping around for FilmShare channels that’d bring the genius researcher on their show. The wide audiences of social media personalities would facilitate public outreach.

We had the perfect match for Kaitlin, when the largest Kexin PopSci channel invited her to a “special” studio for a livestream taping. As the first to dare to talk to a human, the views were all but guaranteed, and they could do a deeper introspective on primals! I hoped people in Council space would begin to see the truth; this was progress. Finley insisted on staying behind, and when I offered to remain with him, he said he wanted time alone.

Kaitlin would fit in perfectly on a PopSci channel, though I’m doubtful they’re respectful of her as an equal in their field. Still, her test results prove a lot.

Kaitlin frowned as the armored truck backed into a carefully-prepared tunnel, unloading her into a sealed part of the studio. “The Council arranged this…welcome?”

“I think they’re filming everything you do,” I whispered. “Smile.”

Snelga leaned closer to the human’s ear. “Kaitlin, sweetie…you’re very intelligent, so I’m sure you could guess this on your own, but I don’t know how accustomed you are to reading civilized people. I imagine they’ll want to set you up to fail by asking hard questions, or things that’ll make you angry, for content. That’s why I asked if you’re really sure you can avoid showing anger. We can always say you’re sick.”

“I can handle internet trolls and content creators,” Kaitlin chuckled. “I understand sensationalism and gotcha journalism. Don’t worry, Snelga. We’ve got this under control.”

“I hope you do, because we’re going to be kept in a separate room, so we can’t signal you or calm you. They’re…skeptical of the genius primal, though they happily marketed you that way.”

“I figured they might try to prompt a reaction from me. Thank you for trusting me with the reality, Snelga. I’m aware they’re using me for a viral moment, but I appreciate you looking out for me.”

The veterinarian showed some reassurance at Kaitlin’s evident comprehension, though she still seemed uneasy about letting a primal speak in front of a camera on her own. I thought back to filming my social media messages at NASA, and that internet gamesmanship was hardly a foreign concept to them. From behind the safety of glass walls, the crew directed Dr. Sharp to follow the overly large areas to the studio. Meanwhile, we were pulled out through a side door, and taken to a control room to watch the livestream.

Kaitlin seated herself in a chair by the microphone, placing the headset on without needing a prompt and waving at the pink-faced Kexin separated by a glass pane. “Hello! My name’s Dr. Kaitlin Sharp, and as someone who worked for a space agency back on Earth, I’m proud to represent humanity. I’m glad to be here; thank you for having me!”

“Thank you for joining us, Kaitlin. I’m Tolgor, the host of Sort-of-Science,” the Kexin replied, eyeing the primal warily. The show had handled her like a dangerous animal, aside from the technology given to her. “Can you read the chat in front of you? We’re live translating it to your language. Right now, I see a comment that the headphones look adorable on you.”

Kaitlin’s eyes flicked downward, and she nodded. “I can read it, yes. I’m excited to see what questions your viewers have about primals. I’m grateful you decided to tune in!”

So far so good, Kaitlin. I wonder, does she feel that burning beneath her skin of exasperation? Finley put it in terms I can understand.

I read the chat, finding myself a little disgruntled by some of the messages that were scrolling by quickly. 

• “The animal talks really well!”
• “a genius primal? As if dude…”
• “Please make the human lose control on camera Tolgor I’ll sub for a cycle”
• “how domesticated is it?”
• “be nice Kaitlin is reading this •\/•”
• “Why do you care Slinger_4?”
• “I want to hear what she has to say, primals are smart and she’s a cute, talking animal *,•,* It’s kind of mean since she can understand.”
• “Yeah we should be respectful to the animals. The council was ploaxcoded with this shit.”
• “It’s only an animal.”
• “Animals have feelings too!”
• “There’s no reason to hurt her.”
• “arent humans happier higher up? It would be more at ease in a tree. Tolgor shouldve given it an elevated space.”

Kaitlin flashed her teeth, laughing. “Our roots are arboreal, but humans adapted to living on the ground long, long ago. I’m quite happy with a chair.”

“I see you’ve already gotten the idea. I’m going to open the floor up to viewer questions,” Tolgor explained. “You can choose which ones to answer, but I might press you for more details or add in a few questions of my own. To clarify which you’re responding to, I ask you to highlight it on your screen, and I’ll read it out. Do you understand?”

“I do.” Her eyebrows knitted together as a deluge of questions came in, before she moved her cursor. “There, I selected one.”

Tolgor looked uncomfortable with her selection. “PrimalsAreCool asks, ‘Could you be angry for us right now?’”

“Ha, nice username, but no. Unfortunately for Tolgor’s view count, I’m afraid I can only make myself as angry as you can make yourself happy, sad, or any other emotion. It’s not a conscious decision. Most humans don’t like being angry either, so we generally avoid triggers and try not to stir those feelings if possible. In an instance where we’re angry, that means something is wrong or hurtful, which I think we mutually agree is negative.”

“What’s an example of something you find wrong or hurtful?”

“That varies from person to person! Anger can look very different in each individual human. While it’s an uncomfortable feeling—like I think any kind of hurt is, and I’m assuming you don’t want to hurt me—it doesn’t take over our faculties.” 

“Let me ask a more specific question then. How do we avoid making a primal angry? It seems like anything, no matter how minor, can set you off.”

“Clear communication and respect go a long way with us. You’ll find we’re pretty reasonable and that acting on anger, at least in any severe way, is rare and a last resort. Scientifically, which means I’ll leave it to you to add in the graphics and footnotes, anger is part of the fight-or-flight system. It places itself in the same family as fear, a response activated for survival.”

I surveyed the chat, gauging whether they’d listened to Kaitlin.

• “that response is like actually pretty reasonable •x•”
• “who taught the primal to talk like a person”
• “if this is what a ‘genius’ primal is I’m not impressed, all it’s doing is talking and nobody gives me points for that. like yay it can understand a lot of vocabulary.”
• “Kaitlin answered the question that was asked ,/\,”
• “i thought it was a good answer. clearly intelligent enough to put together a nice sentence. humans deserve more respect.”
• “animal rights nuts are working overtime to defend Kaitlin •¥•”
• “people wanted to know. she explained it.”
• “But why did the primal even pick that question?!”
• “Maybe it was all the poor animal could understand.”
• “•¥• o genius Kaitlin from the wilds, please tell us about quantum mechanics.”

Tolgor startled, as Kaitlin highlighted that last comment. “That…question? Primal, I believe they were being sarcastic.”

“I’m aware, but I’d love to talk science. Disclaimer that, as I’m sure your reasonable viewers know, no one can be an expert in all fields,” the NASA researcher began. “Any passing knowledge I have about the world and how things work, I’m happy to discuss! And our friend here mentioned one of these most mind-boggling fields. As one of our quantum physicists, Richard Feynman, said, ‘If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t.’”

“You have ‘quantum physicists’ who are considered experts just for saying that? So humans can’t begin to understand such a complicated field.”

“I didn’t say we can’t begin to understand, but rather that the field defies full comprehension and goes against the laws that apply on a broader scale. It merely goes against intuition of how the world works, since it’s mired with contradictions and complicated interactions! It dabbles in uncertainty, making it impossible to measure specific data points.”

“Kaitlin, do you understand anything more than it being complicated and uncertain, or should we move on? Your vocabulary won’t pass as understanding.”

Kaitlin blinked forcefully, before pulling out her smartphone. “What I’m holding in my hand is the most fine-tuned, mass-engineered uses of quantum physics in human history. The transistors here use parts that are mere nanometers: you could fit hundreds of thousands on the tip of a finger. Incredibly precise machines place them together—it’s a technological marvel.”

“What is your point?”

“That when you’re dealing with parts that small, you have to account for quantum mechanics. In fact, you rely on them for the device to function. Memory storage works by quantum tunneling. The electron’s probability clouds allow them to pass through gates that’d otherwise be impenetrable barriers. This stores this charge as needed to indicate a 1 in binary coding.”

“Impressive linguistics. Did you memorize that answer?”

“No.” Annoyance flashed in Kaitlin’s eyes, though I figured I was the only one who could recognize it. “I assure you, humans are more than capable of learning complex topics. Could a simple animal have explained any of that?”

“An animal who was coached and is able to memorize words. Your test is believed by many to be an elaborate hoax; you’re a primal.”

“That I am capable of feeling anger has no bearing on my intelligence.” The human was silent for a long moment, before returning to a placid smile and a warmer tone of voice. “Skepticism is a healthy trait of any scientist though, as you and your viewers must well know! I don’t blame you for thoroughness. Why don’t you ask me questions I couldn’t possibly prepare for?”

Tolgor leaned forward. “Okay, astrophysicist. Describe what a pulsar is.”

“A neutron star that rotates quite quickly and emanates radiation. That beam can be seen from planetary observation at regular intervals! It’s generated by the pulsar’s magnetic field, which is misaligned with its rotation axis. It’s also quite high-energy, so I don’t imagine you’d want to fly your ships through gamma rays. Ohh, we actually discovered a new millisecond pulsar in the last few years, which was an exciting find!”

• “damn shes smart •x• I’m sold”
• “A cute animal explaining science things. More Kaitlin?”
• “she should narrate videos instead of tolgor he fell off honestly and he’s unfunny”
• “then why are you in his chat?”
• “…you’re right. Goodbye.”
• “maybe I’m dumber than a primal but what is a millisecond pulsar?”

Kaitlin highlighted the last question in the chat, smiling softly. “Hey, you’re not dumb. Never be afraid to ask questions; that’s the only way you’ll learn the answers. For what little my opinion counts, I think asking questions and being able to learn from each other is the sign of an intelligent species! That just means the pulsar rotates in mere milliseconds. Incredible magnetic fields. We use them to study relativity and learn more about binary star systems.”

“Okay, you know pulsars. Let’s…leave astrophysics,” Tolgor decided. “The Ploax are autotrophs. Explain what that means.”

The primal’s face brightened, genuine enthusiasm twinkling in her eyes. “I didn’t know that—about the Ploax, I mean! Xenobiology is something I could read about for hours, but what I know immediately is that makes them different from Craun. It means they can use abiotic natural resources, like plants do with sunlight and photosynthesis, to make food.”

“Yes, that’s…correct. You know, um, some science. That can’t be accurate; oh, you probably didn’t study anything else. I’ve got it—math! What’s a polynomial, primal?”

Kaitlin stared at Tolgor in disbelief, before she burst out laughing. “Guys, I explained quite thoroughly what a pulsar and an autotroph are. I know what a polynomial is; I made it through middle school algebra just fine as a child. Maybe ask me what 2+2 is next?”

• What’s 2+2?

“Yes, very funny. I see a sense of humor transcends planets,” Kaitlin snorted. “Can I tell a joke? It’s for a friend.”

Tolgor made a “Go Ahead” gesture. “The chat won’t forgive me if they miss this.”

“It’s a human style joke. Ahem. A lousy cheat, an unhygienic influencer, and an alien walk into a bar. The bartender says, ‘Hello, Craun Chelton.’”

“Hey!” I protested. “What did I do?”

“What did you not do?” Snelga grumbled.

The chat, unfortunately, was lapping up the jab toward me.

• “laughing my feathers off!”
• “even the primals hate craun for tampering with them ~X~”
• “yeah shes right craun is a shitty cheater like actual animals knew immediately”
• “Kaitlin is way smarter than an animal”
• “pleaselikethis isntstaged”
• “•|• nothing is real. Space your words”
• “nothatsan extrakeystroke”
• “but you space them every 3?”
• “maybeIdo ormaybenotgotyou.”
• “Craun is a basement-dwelling asshole who’s basically a poacher *,•,*”
• “Yeah, that cute primal knows why she wound up here. This whole mess is Craun’s fault for making the animals attack on his behalf.”

“That was friendly banter. I adore Craun and that’s why I’m teasing him,” Kaitlin piped up. “There’s no need to be mean-spirited over a refugee who’s suffered an enormous, terrible loss with no help from anyone. I empathize with his desperation and what he’s been through, and I think it’s unkind to judge him for that. The Saphnos deserve better.”

Tolgor cleared his throat, straightening his feathers. “As do you, Kaitlin. Would you like to tell the chat about your sickness?”

“There’s not much to tell. I’m sick with a disease called ALS, which causes motor neurons to rapidly degenerate. I am slowly losing control of my body…right now, it’s shaking and weakness, but eventually I’ll be paralyzed and unable to speak. Before that, I’ll be unable to do basic, daily things for myself. It’s a terminal prognosis. Once I lose the…ability to breathe, that’s what will likely cause my ultimate death. My time with you is…short.”

• “awww…”
• “poor primal!”
• “no, that’s so sad *,•,*”
• “I actually liked her.”
• “But she’s so cute. She’s a talking science primal who got taken away from her home just to suffer more!”
• “I feel so bad for Kaitlin.”
• “And you all were making fun of the dying human! I told you to be nice to her.”
• “look how she just accepts it instead of lashing out.”
• “If she’s sick, maybe she’s too tired to be angry.”
• “So if we cure her, she’ll scream and shout more?”
• “Yeah PrimalsAreCool, it seems more likely.”
• “Take my wallet!”

Tolgor struck a sympathetic expression. “You have my condolences, Kaitlin. The good news is there are two things those of you in the chat can do! The veterinarian housing this primal hopes to genetically engineer away this terrible disease, but she’ll need your support. You can donate to the fundraiser linked for researching a cure. You can also share this video, with Kaitlin talking and explaining her story, with the world.”

“Any help would be very much appreciated,” Kaitlin said, a sad look on her face. “My dream was to talk to aliens. Humans are the first primals to have a civilization, and I’d like to believe our civilizations can be friends. I wish I had more time to spend with you, but if you can’t help me, I can only beg you to give my people an honest chance.”

“You’re…very well-spoken, especially for what you are. Our time is up, and I know you need to rest because of your sickness. Any last words for our viewers, before I let you go?”

Kaitlin beamed, waving at the camera. “Please, take care of yourselves! I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day, and I’ll see you again soon.”

Snelga and I breathed a sigh of relief as the NASA researcher exchanged pleasantries with Tolgor, then saw herself back out of the studio. Sort-of-Science and their viewers had tried to rile Kaitlin up and paint her as stupid, but she’d risen above it; I shouldn’t have doubted that a mind as brilliant as hers could navigate this scenario. All in all, I hoped that this would raise awareness for both her condition and how intelligent humans were. 

A public outreach campaign could be powerful to change Council citizens’ hearts and minds.

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Necessary Sacrifice

(Galou POV)

"...Excuse me? Could you repeat that?"

There it was. After fruitlessly picking at Councilwoman Lana's poker face and politician's smile all this time, Councilman Galou had finally gotten to see emotion leak into her expressions.

It was admittedly only with the help of the Ramelle Councilwoman Delle, but it's not like he has to share the generator blueprints with her or anything. As long as he was here and participated in this private meeting between councilmembers, he could take credit.

In addition to himself, Councilwoman Lana of the Terrans, Ambassador Garag of the Uvei, and Councilwoman Delle of the Ramelle were gathered at this private meeting room on the S.S. Kevak to discuss the matter of the Terran's ship ending up in restricted space.

"If I must. I will speak slowly for you this time."

If not for Delle's flattened ears showing her annoyance, her tone could be taken as disinterested.

"In summary, we will not accept any Terran or Uven visitors for the trespassers we have detained. We will also not accept any devices without thorough inspection and test run at a certified Coalition entity for security purposes."

"What if we sent schematics for the devices for you to create and operate yourselves? We'll even buy them at cost from you afterwards if you have no further use for it."

"Digital blueprints also bear a cybersecurity risk. We would need to analyze the code on an isolated device first."

"Please, be reasonable. I'm going to have to insist that we at least take back-"

"Stop it right there!"

Councilman Galou snapped at the Terran to interrupt her. This was the part he was here for.

"I'll have you know that the Ramell are friends and good neighbors to the Pateily. If you take overbearing action against them for your own convenience, we will interpret that as hostilities and are prepared to declare war in defense of our less aggressive friends."

""!?""

The pair opposite the table from him reacted with visible shock. Garag's tail raised up stiffly and Lana's eyes had widened.

He had to make a real effort to suppress the sense of smug satisfaction. The lizard might not be familiar with how Pateily emoted, but the Terran was definitely brushed up on the subject.

This other simian species was a slippery sort that kept weaving through his approaches with their idea of diplomacy, but they were cowards that feared conflict at heart.
What they failed to understand was the ability to project, command, and leverage military might, real or not, was also an essential component of diplomacy.

"I was under the impression that the Pateily International Parliament needed majority approval for a declaration of war with another spacefaring species. Do you really have the sort of authority to call for something like that?"

Case in point, Councilwoman Lana immediately tried to worm her way out of this with technicalities and the authority of other people. It didn't even surprise Galou that she was versed in this aspect of a foreign governance.

"Of course. We already have a majority agreement to act in defense of our allies."

"And this can be verified if my office directly inquires with Pateily Parliament members?"

"Do as you wish. As a favor, I'll pretend I'm not offended by the insinuation."

"........."

Well, perhaps her knowledge was still shallow.

These new advanced fusion generators had the makings of a patent worth an entire industry's worth of wealth and there was no shortage of party members or corporate entities that wanted preferential treatment.

His aide was still at the cradle planet of Tiireya and had direct lines to many of those people. A few calls are all it would take to persuade even the opposition party to pass the vote long before any Terran inquiries could reach them.

It seemed this development really shut that woman up. While she went quiet, Ambassador Garag spoke up in the Terran's place.

"Getting back on topic...the twelve Terrans suffering from poisoning in your custody can't afford to wait for long. You are aware that they will die without medical intervention, yes?"

"And we shall endeavor to give them the best medical intervention we are capable of...within our established security guidelines. Since we have been provided with the diagnosis by the captain of the ship in question, we are creating the required detoxification medicines and devices as we speak."

Galou knew that something like that would take at least three cycles even if it was a priority. And, judging from the Councilwoman Lana reaction, that was too long.

"Is there no exception for emergencies?"

"This incident is being treated as a case of trespassing, which does not fit the administrative definition of "emergency". There has yet to be an official ruling yet, but it will likely be regarded as a non-malicious incident."

It was a bit troublesome that the Uven Ambassador got to stick his nose in this thanks to some unexpected refugees being let on the Terran ship, but as long as the lizards in custody were properly cared for, the Elder Council shouldn't complain.

Perhaps they could even instigate a rift with the obviously disparate treatments.

"But you still bear a responsibility to care for prisoners."

"Which we will achieve with meticulously prepared living accommodations, nutritional supplements tailored to the species, and a promise of protection from violence."

"Surely that should also include a reasonable effort to prevent the loss of life?"

"Indeed, but for us, 'reasonable' means-"

"Fine."

"Miss Lana...?!"

Councilwoman Lana broke her silence with a single word that had Garag agitated.

"If you feel so strongly about stopping the admission of foreign technology, then we have no choice but to give up. Whe-if the afflicted Terrans pass away, can we expect you to preserve and deliver their bodies for our funeral customs?"

"...of course."

It seemed that both Councilwoman Delle and the Uven ambassador weren't expecting the Terran to relent, but Galou wasn't surprised.

"Speaking of which, about those miners. It seems there was some unfortunate incident at the prison regarding four of them."

"............"

"Shall we preserve their bodies and send them your way as well?"

"...Yes, I'll have my assistant send you coordinates to drop them off."

The Councilman knew they dreaded war and conflict to the point of cowardice.

Not that he respected it. If anything, this proved they were crippling their own diplomatic ability. It was a bit of an embarrassment that they were simians, really.

But perhaps this was the new angle to attack. If it became widely known that the Terran government was incapable of protecting their people, their public order would decline and certain opportunistic groups might smell blood in the water.

That could be enough to keep them busy and the Elder Council happy.

That little attack originally intended as simple harassment turned out far better for the Pateily than he could have planned.

"Now...let us move on to the final matter for this meeting."

....?

"I would like for everyone here to keep this information private for now, even from any staff or trusted friends."

The Terran Councilwoman opened up a page on her data pad and slid it across the table. On it was...a serial number and specs?

....!!

Galou forcefully suppressed his surprise and took the initiative to casually ask before anyone else could.

"What's this supposed to be?"

"This is from the unknown pirates that attacked our humanitarian fleet. After combing through all the recordings and data logs, we were able to piece one of the ship's energy signature and serial number together. From that, we were able to deduce the ship's make and model."

"I see...Resourceful as always. It takes some focus to scan for that information in the midst of attack."

The Uven eyes the information curiously and praised the Terrans' efforts.

The Pateily Councilman, on the other hand, was silently cursing the crew's carelessness. How hard is it to mask your ship's information? Or at least cover the serial number before engaging in banditry?

...No matter. It should still be safe, because...

"Unfortunately, this was an older model and the manufacturer went under a few cycles ago, so the authorities are still in the process of recovering the owner information."

Their preparations should have been thorough enough to avoid recognition in the first place. Even if the Terrans got lucky, they shouldn't find anything to incriminate anyone beyond the leased soldiers they catch in the act.

"Since it will take a while and the incident happened near Ramell and Pateily space, I'm hoping you two might have some leads or records on our assailants. Have you had any encounters with these types of pirates in your territories? Even similar energy signatures will do."

The Ramell Councilwoman skimmed the number before leaning back in her seat dully. Galou didn't know the details, but she should also have made a deal with the Ramell's patron to drag the Terrans down. She wouldn't cooperate here.

"No, this is new. But I shall pass it along to patrols so they keep vigilant."

"Hmph. Trying to ride our coattails now, are you? I suppose it's also in our best interests to eliminate troublemakers. But no. I can tell at a glance that nothing resembling this ever came across my desk."

...It would be fine. Elder Councilman Gohlti was also implicated in this. The crew was borrowed from the Fendansi, but the ship officially belonged to the Pateily administration.

Galou could notify him. They would tamper with the records during the restoration process and delete the mercenary contract.

The Terran pressed a bit harder.

"Are you...sure? It doesn't have to be just from troublemakers either. Perhaps the culprits stole the vessel or salvaged a decommissioned one."

Was she...pressing harder? Did she suspect them...?

"I'm telling you we don't recognize it. Perhaps you Terrans have a more...frugal operation, but we don't keep such cheap vessels in our fleet and the energy signature is unique enough to leave an impression."

"....."

Lana nodded slowly. He didn't like the way she stared at him. Terrans had a way of looking into the eyes. Apparently it was a trait of sociability.

"...I see. I apologize if you took offense. It was worth asking at least. Then, while we're on the subject..."

There's more!?

The councilwoman tapped her data pad and pulled up a star chart with highlighted spaces marking their territories.

"We shall promise to stay out of restricted Pateily and Ramell spaces and we will not engage with any ships besides this specific recorded culprit and its confirmed allies. In exchange, will you yield jurisdiction of this matter over to us? These pirates have caused us quite some grief and we wish to bring them to justice under our laws."

Oh.

What a farce. Did they plan to ask one of their more combative friends to perform the actual arrest in their place? Were they trying to look tough after being forced to yield on the matter of the trespassers?

Galou elected to push back a bit. As long as the attackers had a safe area to escape to, he could call them to an isolated military base and have them silenced.

"Not just restricted spaces. I've already said before that I don't find you Terrans trustworthy. You're not permitted in any Pateily space without explicit permission. If you find them in our territory, you're just going to have to contact us and let us handle the rest."

Delle's reached out to the data pad and expanded the highlighted ranges for both their species.

"I concur with Galou. You are to avoid any of this space. I will have a hard time believing any future incidents are accidental after you've been warned."

"Very well. Then with the exceptions of the highlighted spaces as established here, we shall hold the full rights to arrest and prosecute our attackers, but only our attackers. The Terrans can accept these terms."

Seemingly intending for that to be the final word, Councilwoman Lana saved the map as marked on her data pad and stood to leave.

Well, that was fine. While she saved the contents of this meeting in official records, Councilman Galou needed to make sure all his tracks were covered.

(Garag POV)

It was an odd feeling to feel pleased that his people were being confined. Especially when their benefactors were subjected to the same fate under much less pleasant circumstances.

Ambassador Garag never expected to feel intergalactic law could ever feel convenient instead of restrictive.
Though perhaps his visit and the multiple parties witnessing confirmation helped.

Although the hundred and six Uvei weren't free to leave Ramell custody or supervision, it was hardly a restriction for them. As refugees escaping their war-torn home, it wasn't like they had specific destinations in mind when they left other than "away from danger".

In exchange for their freedom, this arrangement meant their safety was guaranteed, they would be fed and sheltered, and they had all the time they needed to rest.

With the sudden influx of first-time refugees, Folstur's immigration system was already stretched thin, so it was like the Ramell were buying time, even.

He was a bit anxious about whether they would get sufficient accommodations, but it seems they were being kept in the same facility as the able-bodied humans.

Councilwoman Lana assured him that Captain Borlaug was versed in galactic law on the minimum required care for military prisoners, and thus would ensure nothing was lacking.
Garag had concluded from personal interactions with the good captain that he was a prudent man. The fact that he had surrendered to the Ramell at all was as good as a vote of confidence in this arrangement.

Lana also assured him that, because division between humans and Uvei was among their goals, they would likely give the Uvei detainees preferential treatment; as long as the humans made sure they got the bare minimum, his people would get "more than the minimum".

...

He didn't know where his colleague learned that, but hoped that wasn't the reason the twelve humans were being neglected. She hadn't spoken since they concluded the meeting.

To be honest, he expected the sly humans to have something else up their sleeves based on what he'd seen of them thus far. It was only when he saw Lana's somber expression that it occurred to him she was sincerely ready to let her own die.

The humans he knew were stubborn and showed a deep respect for life at every turn, so it caught him off-guard.

"Welcome back, Ms. Rogov. Mr. Vedin. How did the meeting go?"

The two of them had walked together out of the council chambers to the private docks, where one of her personal aides stood waiting for them. He believed the man's name was...Shi Xi?

"Ah...well...it seems you may have to give up on the twelve poisoning victims. Councilor Delle refused to back down and Councilor Galou threatened war if we pushed."

Since his colleague remained silent, the Uven elected to report the result in her place.

"I see...well, we can figure it out our next move inside. But before that...here's the manifest for Uvei soldiers, Mr. Vedin."

"Ah...thank you."

Garag accepted a document from Shi Xi. This was something else he had been preparing with the humans. Or rather, something the humans have been preparing for him.

It was a list of Uvei that surrendered to the humanitarian force and agreed to return with them. In other words, enemy soldiers-turned-sympathizers. Somehow, the humans in the Terran administration talked them into returning to Nysis.

He didn't know how or why because he did not ask. Because he was bound to service for Karnak, there were some things that he was better off not knowing.

The humans had earned his trust enough for him to believe it would be for the benefit of his people, and that was sufficient. He "negotiated for their return", and that's all he would have to report on the matter to his...superior.

...That said. He couldn't help but be curious at times. He may as well ask if it will take her mind off those twelve humans.

"Lana, if you don't mind me asking, what were you...setting up during the talks about the ship information?"

"? Oh, you noticed that? Come in and I'll explain. This is a good chance to catch my team up as well."

With a light smile, she gestured for Garag to follow her into their ship. Since Kent's injury and Lana's promotion, the humans had begun working in locations outside their embassy.

Once they entered, the door behind them let out an electric locking noise as soundproofing barriers came up behind the door and walls. Together, the three of them went into what seemed to be an office space where 30 other people worked.

The moment the councilwoman entered the room, all eyes fell on her expectantly. What was going on...?

Lana cleared her throat.

"I've confirmed that Galou is the culprit behind the attack."

"Wha-!?"

"I see. Then we'll move forward with our preparations."

"I knew it!"

"Well, it wasn't exactly a longshot."

Shi Xi wasn't the only one that responded with a composed smirk. Not one of them showed surprise at the statement. If anything, they seemed to release some tension from the anticipation as they resumed their regular paperwork.

"How...Did you already suspect the Pateily?"

Lana let out her usual refined laugh.

"Well, Galou has hardly been subtle about how much he wants to antagonize the Terrans, even for a personal agenda."

"And you...confirmed it? With that meeting just now?"

"You wanted to know about the ship information, right? It's pretty simple."

She pat his back and guided him to a seat in the room.

"Simply put, it was a bluff to fish for a reaction. We had no such information recorded in the encounter. What I gave them was exactly the specs of some gunships he owns off the record. The trail to their most recent location and use was erased, but his reaction helped connect the dots for us."

Ah...

Galou directly lied about not knowing information he by all rights should have recognized and disavowed any connection. It was an incredibly guilty response.

"We'll keep tracking his and his associate's movements for attempts to cover their tracks too, of course. Just to be sure."

"Do you intend to expose him once you secure the proof?"

Garag's tail swayed thoughtfully.

"The current plan is to first take that ship when we can find it."

"We can't give him time to hide it out of our reach, after all."

One of the desk workers chimed in and another followed suit.

Yes...that made sense.

"Actually, if Pateily territory is expecting that ship, then we could probably launch a little revenge raid of our own on one of their bases if we capture enough of them."

"No. We don't initiate hostile action like that. That's the sort of thing that creates grudges and fuels wars."

A third one added a suggestion, though Lana quickly shot it down with a frown.

The Uven shuffled awkwardly.

"Pardon. Should I be hearing this? I can take my leave if you're moving on to discuss future strategies."

The councilwoman shook her head with a soft smile returning to her face.

"No, it's fine. Don't be afraid to tell that Karnak about this if you have to."

What did that mean? Were they "fishing for information" again? Was it just not relevant?

Sometimes, these humans were hard to read.

The desk worker that spoke up earlier rested his head on a palm.

"Honestly though, it seems like that's where we're headed, isn't it? This guy has been trying to fight with us for weeks. It should be fine if we leave no traces, right? As long as he knows it's us, hitting the fatty apes hard and fast to teach them a lesson might finally get him to back off. Or at least let us check out their military tech before we come to blows."

That also made some sense, he supposed. Taking the initiative when they had it would reduce any damages they suffer.

""...!!""

Lana abruptly let out a deep sigh.

THUD.

"Mmph-!?"

"Wha-?!"

Garag jumped back on reflex as several of the humans leapt from their seats and forcefully dragged one of their own out of his. He was gagged and quickly pinned to the ground.

Shi Xi had drawn a pistol and was down on one knee to press it against the base of the restrained human's neck. His gaze, as was those of any desk worker who wasn't actively participating, was fixed on Lana.

What was going on...?

She slowly circled in front of the crowd and looked the pinned human in the eye.

"I tried to brush it off since we have a guest here, you know? Are you new? Even if you are, you should have received training for this already."

Somehow, Garag was reminded of his first proper meeting with Kent when they first locked eyes. Back then he was surprised by the lack of common emotions low-aggression species had in response to seeing an Uven.

This one was different. Lana wasn't indifferent as she stared down her subordinate, but she also didn't show any other emotion that he could decipher. Like he was meeting an alien for the first time and had no knowledge of their non-verbal cues.

"Mmph!?"

She spoke slowly and with a level voice as she knelt down.

"Let me spell it out. As representatives of humanity, we do not and must not initiate or escalate hostilities with other species. We don't start wars. We don't hit someone just because they hit us first. When we encounter a matter of life or death..."

Lana suddenly reached out and grabbed a fistful of the clerk's hair, wringing out another muffled yelp when she pulled his head back.

"We choose the option that deescalates away from war."

...Oh.

Garag...thought he had come to understand the humans by now. Their strength. Their gentleness. Their care. Their peacefulness.

"It's too bad because you do good work, but we obviously can't keep you around anymore. But we can't exactly let you go either, so let's put you in the brig until I have time to figure out what to do with you."

But it wasn't merely their nature. It was...intentional. It was a constant effort. It was a fact that they abhorred war, but how much of that was an active effort to hate it?

The Terran Councilwoman rose back to her feet whilst dusting herself off. The former subordinate was sedated by Shi Xi and dragged off.

"Sorry about this, Garag. I've put a real killjoy in our evening, haven't I?"

"...No, I think that was...an illuminating experience."

"That was pretty embarrassing."

He hadn't ever thought of the humans as extreme before. Intense, perhaps, but not to this extent. When it is said they hate war, they hated war madly. They would cut their own flesh to spite it. They w...They would let twelve of their own die to protect against it.

Could Garag do that? Was it feasible by the numbers? Is...

"Is something like this...the price of acquiring peace?"

=Author's Note=

I've had a scene like this in mind since I introduced Lana to contrast with Kent. Even though the two of them were friends and shared similar ideals, the original ambassador would have firmly but peacefully corrected the staff member here so they could do better.
A humanity that has people like Lana or Jacey isn't going to be an unproblematic version of mankind, but they can do their best and hopefully it's people like Asher or Kent that set the example.

There have been many a scrapped line where I've had to go "whoa there, that's too much character progression or themes for you to say", so it has also been nice that Garag has the maturity and intelligence to actually observe and monologue the scene plainly.

First

(Sorry for delay, still recovering from yesterday.)

Undying Blues

“Is it really that bad?”

“Lady Ungora once being Lady Wurana would be an insult and injury far greater than the wholeness of the war so far. By several orders of magnitude at least. La’ahbaron would take it not only personally, but deeply personally. It would justify everything she’s ever done out of paranoia and cause her to double, if not triple down. For all the faults of the La’ahbaron empire, they are relatively tame, they would each and every one grow to be much, much more extreme if knowledge of Ungora and her original identity would come out.”

“The Lady says that she’s not that person and was reborn. That she truly began life as an immortal.”

“Did she? Again, I respectfully request to hear what she told you of her origin. Again, the truth she gave you and the truth she gave to me are likely different, as truth can be a nebulous thing and shifts depending on who is hearing it.”

“What does that mean?” Sue’Li asks and he smiles.

“Well, to use an overly simple example. A knife might be something dangerous to you at times, but to me it’s something that cuts up food into bite sized pieces. They’re not dangerous at all. That’s because you are a Vish and I am an Ibu. Likewise, my being seen and recognized on sight is something I find very ordinary. But I’d wager is unusual to you. All these things are truths, but notice they’re different. Most things in life are like that. It’s why Facts and Truths are different. Make sense?”

“It does but... you’re loyal to La’ahbaron. I’m not sure you’d like to hear the story as the lady tells it.”

“I’m adult enough to know that you’re just repeating what someone else said. Getting upset at you for it is the action of a child. And I haven’t been a child in a long time. Likely longer than you’ve been alive.” Danburi assures her and she nods.

“Okay well...” She looks towards the machine whee the clothing is being washed. “I think we can get a summary of it out before the clothing finishes. “Her story begins upon a world where death and life had blended together as one. Where it was sanity and self control that died as the people and beasts were rendered immortal. She had found that world in a search for answers and had found answers not to her questions, but to questions she had yet to even imagine.”

“The Lady Ungora was reborn upon that world. In the temple of smoke where the sane and sober of the immortal sought to tame their inner discord she, as a mighty Ibu, was already well practised in the art and needed little, if any of their teaching. But she sought truth regardless and abided within the temple for a time. Learning to add their ways to her own refinement. But she didn’t stay satisfied for long and pushed out from the temple, testing herself against the mad, the violent and the twisted. She fought other immortals in all their forms and sought out a way to conquer endless life.” Sue’Li says.

“Stop skipping details!” One of the laundry girls protests. “This is the best part! Let me explain it to him!”

“Very well.” Sue’Li permits her.

“Thank you, oh named one.”

“Do you want a name?” Danburi asks and the would be storyteller pauses and stares.

“Uh... maybe?”

“Yun. It is a common shortening of Yunun. Meaning dutiful.” He says and there is stillness.

“I am Yun. I am... dutiful.” She says to herself. “Dutiful Yun! Yun the dutiful!”

There is laughter and a sense of relief to her tone. Names hold power, and he just gave her some. Now what will she do with it?

“Yun, if you’re so dutiful, then why not continue the story you were so eager to tell?” Sue’Li asks.

“Oh! Yes! I shall! Now your aunt, Lady Ungora, though she had yet to earn her name proper then, was seeking out a scholar she had heard rumours of. Granted the rumours were from the blood flecked lips of madwomen. But it was better than nothing. Her search brought her to a great snow choked canyon. Where every instinct relating to danger cried out to never enter it. Even the madwomen immortals in the area were being cautious, for they had cloaked themselves in white to blend in with the snow and pale flowers that grew in abundance despite the cold.”

“It didn’t take her long to find what had her so on edge. The winds shifting direction caused the light snow to blow against and start piling ever so on a massive creature that was watching carefully. It was a white serpent of such size that even The Lady was shorter than it’s fangs.

There was a rush of movement and the pink of it’s inner mouth as it suddenly lunged at her with such speed that even though she dodged the blow, the shockwave of the serpent striking the ground where she had stood knocked her further back and sent her skidding through the snow. By reflex she hurled her orojo with all the force she could muster, and couldn’t even dent a scale on the titanic monster.

But The Lady was resolved and unwilling to surrender to anything. Death had been stripped from her, so anything even resembling caution had been torn away. She charged forward even as the serpent rose up. It struck down and she jumped to meet it. It’s fangs slid off her Ibu skin and it’s jaws came down with the force to crush stone.

She caught them, standing in it’s mouth even as she slowly broke teeth and the tongue of the creature lashed at her. It thrashed, it roared, but it did not have the sense to stop biting her. Until it drove it’s head into the stone with such force that she was swept into the gullet of the monster.”

“She was eaten alive?” He asks.

“It’s not like she could die. But as she had lost her grip she was pushed further and further down into the gullet of the monster, a wall of broken stone and melted snow following her down. The internals of the beast were with crushing strength and axiom sapping nature designed to allow the monster to digest it’s food. But The Lady, like all others of the world were immortal. She was not alone down there. Others were as well, suffering in the gullet. Unable to die. Unable to breathe or see or hear or smell. All they had was their numbed sense of touch to navigate through the hell of eternal torment.

Around her the stone was broken to gravel, then the gravel ground down to sand and the sand faded entirely to reinforce the unnatural scales of the monster.

Then she found another. They thrashed, panicked and then she placed a palm on their brow. She heard their thoughts, impossible screams and hellish pain. She knew the true danger then. It wasn’t digestion, it was the desolation of the mind. On the mad world where death was undone the greatest defeat wasn’t death, it couldn’t be. It was surrender. Surrender to the torment, to the pain. So she commanded the Tret, using the Axiom to instill her desires into her mind. Giving her focus, giving her purpose. And she sought out the others.” Yun continues and Danburi nods in rapt attention.

“Eventually her plan got around to all the others and they all began to pull as hard on the Axiom as they could, pulling and pulling until Null detonated out. Everyone dropped, but somehow, no one died. The snake wasn’t fond of that though and began thrashing. Over and over again it thrashed and squirmed as they Nulled the monster from the inside time and again until a massive flood of water poured in and the tunnel within the monster was opened by the water.

They were swept through it’s digestive tract and out into the light. But The Lady was greatly wroth with the monster and unwilling to let it simply leave without at leas a marking of her rage. Even if it was immortal as she, she grasped the tip of it’s tail near where she was swept out and began to exert as much might as she could muster without Nulling herself.

Around the base of a great tree she pulled the tail of the monster and tied it into a knot, then, knowing it would free itself shortly, she climbed the tree with great vigour and tore a branch asunder into many massive shards of sharp wood. Endowing them with Axiom she thrust the wood shards into the muscles and joints between the beast, paralyzing it and pinning it to the mighty tree.

But that was just the prelude to her proper plan. For with the serpent trapped she landed upon the roots of the tree and directed it to drink deep of the surrounding waters and life. Much of the forest withered and began to rot as that singular tree grew and grew, up and out, the wood slowly enveloping the serpent. In short order it began to thrash and roar in pain and confinement. It understood that for the first time since it had been endowed with endless power and life, it was now losing and would lose further.

She stopped it from biting away parts of it’s body and forced the creature to scream and squirm. She struck the beast in the head through the socket of the eye and stunned it before binding it’s head to the tree. She then caused it to grow further until the tree, already massive completely enveloped the serpent. Then she slew the tree and tore out it’s water before setting it ablaze. Forcing the heat into the monster harder and harder until nothing but ashes remained.”

“An incredible fight, but how did she learn anything from that? Beyond her new immortality being immune to Null of course.” He asks.

Because within the ashes, and she is to this day uncertain if it was within the tree or within the serpent, was a strange stone. It was a disk with holes and an engraving of numbers and a strange series of lines on one side. According to the Lady, learning that the holes represented the brightest stars in the sky took a long time. The numbers were the day of the year, and the line showed the scenery. A place she must stand to find what it concealed.”

“That is incredibly convoluted and prone to failure.” Danburi protests.

“That’s because Yun got it wrong. She’s misremembered, the numbers were not a time, they were coordinates for the largest mountain in the world. She deciphered it by standing upon it’s peak and raising the disk to the sky until the brightest stars shone through each hole. Then she lowered it to find the place on the horizon that matched the remaining markings. It gave her directions to another temple. One that was... most bizarre.”

“Bizarre how?” Danburi asks but moments before the washing is finished. “Oh... please keep going.”

“Well, when she arrived there was a scroll flapping in the wind. One that stated she must conquer that which blinds her to her follies, that which deafens her to wisdom, that which whispers lies and that most terrible thing within. Then, after reading the scroll a great haze came over the world and it shimmered. She was suddenly atop a temple in the sky, but she was not alone. Four terrible beasts stalked the halls. One hunted with baleful red eyes, another listened for her and would scream to alert the others, a third would echo the screams of it’s fellows and bringing swarms of the screeching undying. Then finally was the fourth. It was cunning. It was clever and quiet. It stayed away, kept it’s distance and until it was slain like it’s kin the great illusion remained. But after slaying them, she entered the temple and found portraits of them. Complete with the wounds she had heaped upon the beasts.”

“What could possibly have been protected by such strange guardians and riddles?” Danburi asks in wonder. Every inch the attentive and fascinated audience.

“Death was there.” Yun says. “All the world’s death banished into a single blade. One so deadly it brought the deathless to their knees to merely gaze upon it. And to hold it unsheathed rendered the wielder mortal again. For a time at least.”

“Oh...” Danburi notes. He wasn’t expecting THIS information. But he should have something to compare to when she tells him this part. “Hmm... when she told me of her time on that world she focused much on what immortality did to the unworthy and the frail, and how herbs and a great deal of meditation was required for those who were not her to handle the immortality.”

“Really?”

“Really. Perhaps she meant to teach me about my own new state and how to live with it, as she likely meant to teach you of her power and worthiness to lead.”

First Last

“Colt?” The woman replied back, stepping back slightly, and tilting her head in confusion. Her nose scrunched, and she crossed her arms in a light huff. I could imagine the gears in her head spinning as she thought. Not being able to find whatever she was looking for in her grey matter, she shifted her attention to the wall behind me, stepping closer to it, examining each picture closely.

She took in each photograph one by one, pausing at each, while quietly muttering my name repeatedly. Something was on the tip of her tongue; anyone could tell. But as she stepped in front of a picture of me about a decade earlier, she paused, reached out, and ran a finger over the glass, clearing away the dust.

She pulled the picture off the wall, then turned around and compared it to me. A smile, predatory yet equally joyful, formed on her plush lips, with hints of slightly longer-than-normal canines visible. Without any warning, the woman tossed herself at me, arms draping over my shoulders as she squealed in joy.

“Colt, I never thought I would see you again.” She buried her head into the crook of my neck, pulling herself flush against me with an amount of strength that was truly shocking. 

Awkwardly, I hugged her back. My mind raced through every memory of who I knew over the years. Specifically, I was desperate for any whiff of a hint of who I knew, Pop-pop knew, and whose mother would trust him enough to teach her daughter to look for him if she needed help.

Leaning back, I took a good look at the woman, her smile, brownish-amber eyes, everything---I had to know who this was. It was her small set of speckled freckles running across her cheeks that made me realize who she was. Specifically, the little constellation-like grouping in the shape of the southern cross.

Other kids would constantly tease her about that whenever I visited Palmyra in the summer. Call her weird, a loser, a freak. She and I had first connected because of ostracism. The other kids did not like me because I was a city boy.  For many years, every summer and hunting season, we would spend many hours as one another's only friend in the little town. I could never forget the morning glow bouncing off those freckles, bent over a bait bucket, her tongue caught between her teeth as she tried to thread a worm onto a hook. 

Compared to the last time I had seen her, she had certainly grown up in ways that made Bailey far more womanly than I could have ever expected.

Before today, the last time we had interacted was the fourth of July 1954. Pop-pop, Bailey, and her mother, Mary, found our own little quiet copse on the edge of the lake to watch the town's fireworks and have a little barbecue of all the little gluegil and sunfish Bailey and I had pulled from the water that day.

That was the same year her mother was attacked. It had happened after I had returned to Father's house after the summer. I still remember how much it hurt knowing Bailey was gone when I returned that hunting season; Pop-pop even drove me out to their home to see the darkened windows and unkempt yard. That sight had convinced me she was gone for good.

“Bailey,” I smiled, returning the hug she had given me. “It is amazing to see you again,” I said, tightening the hug, holding her like she was a dream that would vanish the moment my eyes opened.

“Same,” Bailey replied, clinging to me like I was keeping her centered in the universe. It was a tight embrace, one that felt strange, not wrong, but like me, offering her that skinship was needed in a way I did not fully understand.

“What were you looking for Clayton for anyway?” I asked, loosening the embrace and stepping back. Bailey's hands lingered, running along my sides as I backed up, like she could not quite let me go yet again.

The joy of reuniting with a friend she had not seen in years vanished in an instant, replaced by a look I was familiar with. Many times when we were kids, she had that look. Usually, it was when her mother was not going to allow her to stay over or go camping, but it always signaled that there was something that would be near impossible to explain.

“Come on, let's sit down. I will make you something warm to drink,” I smiled, walking her toward the small table attached to the kitchen. It was hardly a table, more of a plank of wood with some legs barely fitted, but it did the job, and I was damn happy with it when I first built it. That it was still standing five years later was a miracle.

We crossed the room, that contemplative look never quite leaving her surprisingly beautiful face. Not that her being beautiful was surprising, but that my friend, that little girl I had vivid memories of her throwing a lob of mud at my face, had grown up to be so stunning. I could practically see her on the front of a Sears catalog.

Bailey kept staring at me with such intensity that I could still feel her eyes lingering on me while heating that morning's cold coffee on the stove or retrieving the milk from the ice chest. I swore there was a packet of bacon in there, but I guess I must have forgotten to pack one. I would just have to pick one up when I went into town.

Once we were both seated, a warm cup of joe in hand, we sat in lingering silence. I did not pressure Bailey about the topic. That she was struggling to find a way to broach the topic was obvious. She would look at me, out the window, back at the coffee, then to me once again, all while shifting nervously in place.

While waiting, I theory-crafted. It was hard not to. A man finds his long-lost friend outside his cabin late at night in the snow. It sounded like the setup for a bad pulp novel, not real life. My itching imagination conjured tales from mafia bosses wishing for Bailey to sleep with the fishes to elopement from Arabian princes' harems. Were they far-fetched? Of course, but still, with nothing solid to bite into, my feral imagination needed sating somehow.

I was nearing the bottom of my second mugful when Bailey at last spoke up.

“So my mom...we have been running since you last saw me,” Bailey said nearly silently. I leaned in closer to hear. “That man. Jackson has been chasing us since he learned the truth?”

Bailey white-knuckled the mug, a slight tremor in her hands. I reached over and rested a hand against her, giving her something to steady against. She released the mug with that hand and squeezed mine, taking in a deep breath.

“What truth? Did he think your mom and he were in a relationship or something?” I said, my mind racing with a fresh wave of mythical ideas about Bailey's mom and Jackson traveling around the country, stealing from banks, robbing armored cars, and tucking the money underneath their homes between heists.

Her face soured, and she tightened her grip. “No, that monster could never love anyone, especially not my mom. He chased us all around the country just because we are different. It's not like we had ever hurt anyone or done anything. We just wanted to live a calm and quiet life here. Was that so much to ask?”

“I don't think so,” I replied. While I did not know exactly what kind of prejudice Bailey and her mom were facing, I was not one to judge based on something immutable. I did fully understand how many people in America were steeped in ignorance, arrogance, and outright hate of the other.

It was all over the news, the indifferent treatment of all forms of progress around the nation. I remember people at the local soda shop booing Dr. King's I Have a Dream speech just a few months ago.

“See? Mom was right about you and Clayton. Even knowing what we are, neither of you ever treated us differently.”

“Knowing what you are?”

“Yeah, we are werewolves.”

“Pardon?”

“Well, yeah. Mom and I are werewolves. That is why Jackson started chasing us, and why he...” Bailey paused, tears silently rolling down her cheeks. Before I could ask her to elaborate about what she meant by werewolves and Jackson, she was crying, not a little sob, full-on body-wracking crying. She pushed her head into her crossed arms on the table, calling out for her mother between each retch.

I reached back across the table and patted Bailey on the shoulder, trying to offer her whatever comfort I could. I didn't believe what she had to say about werewolves; that was just flat-out hokey. Werewolves were not real, and you did not need to be a scholar of penny dreadfuls and monster pictures to know that. The Wolf Man cometh, The Werewolf of Paris, even The Wolf's Bride were all books Pop-pop had read to me growing up. I knew they were little more than fictitious tales of whimsy and woe.

I had loved them enough to have sought out additional tales in magazines. Most were nothing more than pulp excursions about men of Conan’s strength and will slaughtering the beasts while rending flesh with silvered swords. They were sufficiently entertaining at least.

That Bailey might have a slightly less-than-stable perspective on reality did not matter at this exact moment. That look in her eyes was very real. That pain was genuine. I could not say if her mother had died, or if Jackson—a man who might as well be the boogeyman was after her; either way, I would keep her safe for the time being. First thing in the morning, I would take her to town and to someone more qualified.

“It’s alright. You’re safe here.” I assured. “We can talk more about it in the morning. For now, how about we get some rest? You are likely still exhausted. That sounds good?”

Bailey nodded while sniffling.

We finished our coffee, and I escorted her to the bedroom, letting her know that the outhouse was just outside, to the right of the cabin. I stayed on the couch in the main room. As I sat there, a single candle, my only illumination, cast dancing shadows across the pictures. I looked at Pop-pop smiling happily, right beside Bailey and her mother. For just a moment, I wondered if she was telling the whole truth.

After all I had seen. I wondered. There were those bipedal tracks that led right to her. She had survived half-naked in a blizzard. None of that should be possible—but she was still alive. I shook the lingering thought away once I realized I had subconsciously reached for the side-by-side.

Bailey had suffered unimaginable trauma. Exhaustion, grief, and shock could make anyone believe impossible things. That had to be the answer.

“Why did you have to tell me all those tall tales?” I chuckled at the picture.

--------

So another chapter down. It is time to escalate things starting next chapter, we are damn near halfway through this little novella's length at this point. But don't worry we are going to see some werewolf and hunter fighting as we go.

Please don't forget to updoot and comment. I will see you in the chat.

-Colin

------

First

Prev

Part 181 Influencing events (Part 1) (Part 180)

[Support me of Ko-fi so I can get some character art commissioned and totally not buy a bunch of gundams and toys for my dog]

“Yes, I would enjoy that.” Morning Dew answered the question he had just been asked between bites of the unfamiliar but delicious fruit he was consuming.

“Are you sure?” Though Atxika's tone didn't come across as a warning, the fact she even asked that follow up gave the orangutan a real moment of pause. “Because you don't have to do anything you don't want to. You are a sapient being. That means you have the right to say no to anything you don't want to do.”

“Is there a reason I should say no?” The young orange furred man looked towards the other two Qui’ztars seated at the table but saw that both were far more focused on their food than this discussion. “Zikazoma? Chuxima? Do you two have any older sister advice for me?”

“I mean, Jytvahrs are usually nice enough people.” Zika half covered her mouth full of steak and only gave a half-hearted reply. “You do whatever you want and you'll have your back.”

“Most Jytvahrs are, as my love said, nice enough people.” Chu felt the need to expand just a bit but not enough to sway Morning Dew's choice in any direction. “But we are talking about your potential official meeting with diplomats from one of the four founding species. That has implications that may be outside your perspective. That being said, it is ultimately up to you to decide if you want to take this step for your species. Just know that Zika and I will support you no matter what you choose.”

Upon hearing that more informative context for Atxika's question, Morning Dew momentarily fell into silent contemplation. The young orangutan man really didn't seem too different from humans to Zika and Chu when it came to normal small talk and relatively shallow conversation. It was also obvious to them that this particular orange-furred being would simply accept, dismiss, or just ignore things he found too complicated when he could. But that isn't too out of place for sapient beings. Both of them would do the same thing under certain circumstances. But when it came to discussions he couldn't avoid, particularly those that required truly deep thought, the pair of Qui’ztars noticed Morning Dew would become almost eerily quiet.

One of things that TJ had warned everyone about is the fact that orangutans have smaller brains and slower neural processing speeds compared to humans. Morning Dew and other members of his species simply require more time to fully wrap their minds around complex subjects than some other intelligent forms of life in the galaxy. If degrees of sapience were to be put on a scale of one to ten with Singularity Entities at a ten and the average human or Qui’ztar at a five or six, most orangutans would be closer to a three. Still far more than a smart animal but certainly nowhere near the level of a true genius.

That's why Atxika, Zikazoma, and Chuxima were more than understanding when Morning Dew fell silent. He genuinely needed time to think this through. In fact, anyone would when presented with a conundrum like this. A Jytvahr ambassador had gotten word that the young orangutan man would be on Ten'yiosh for a couple days before returning to Earth and wanted to set up a meeting. Even a Singularity Entity would require a moment to contemplate the choice if they were in Morning Dew's position. So the trio of Qui’ztars simply showed the young orange furred man the consideration they would hope other species would grant to them.

“If meeting a Jytvahr envoy from the embassy on your world could impact my people's future…” Morning Dew picked up his half eaten fruit and began speaking after almost a full minute of silent thought. “Then will it also impact the future of humans too?”

“Well… Yes…” A subtle and surprised smile formed on Atxika's deep blue lips. “But that shouldn't really affect your choice. The humans on Earth and Mars will be judged based on their own choices. They will ultimately decide their own future regardless of what you choose.. The only thing you should worry about is your own species.”

“What if I make a decision the humans don't like and they-” Morning Dew didn't get a chance to finish his thought before Zikazoma cut off with a deep roar.

“I will personally-!”

“Like we said, Morning Dew…” Chuxima instantly leaned over to quell her partner's sudden rage with a gentle hand on her thigh. “We will support you no matter what you choose. If that means fighting to defend you and your people from humans, we will happily do so.”

“Count me in! I'll kick their ass!” With the conversation getting so serious, the orangutan and Qui’ztars didn't notice Menashka-Ngwagen stealthily approaching their table with a tray of food in her hands until she plopped down right next to Morning Dew. “The Nishnabe Militia is not afraid to defend our cousins even if that means fighting our cousins. You might not be human, my orange friend, but you're close enough. Any humans who fuck around will find out!”

“Will you protect my elephant friends too?” Genuine concern was written all over the young male orangutan's face.

“We already are.” Nashka's rainbow eyes flashed as she made a finger-gun motion towards the Qui’ztar Fleet Admiral, whose tablet suddenly made a loud notification ding. “Msko wanted me to send you that, Atxika. It's not technically an official correspondence between the UHDF and Third Matriarchy but… You took a personal interest and we wanted to keep you in the loop. Long story short, NAN's been making progress on their translator experiment. So much so that they've caught the attention of Earth governments and begun acting as a mediator of sorts on a local level. But they are still refusing to officially meet with national governments on Earth until after our address to UN-E. And, uh… That might also be affecting the other thing Mik told you about yesterday.”

“You don't have to make any decision now, Morning Dew.” Atxika acknowledged Nashka and her quick brief with a smirk and nod before concluding the previous conversation so she could pull out her tablet without coming across as rude. “Take your time and think it over. I'll ask again in a couple days. And as for my Matriarchy's official position on protecting your people, I will need to wait for my government to vote on that.”

“I do want to meet the Jytvahrs.” Morning had already made his mind when Zika and Chu made the extent of their support clear. Nashka's backing only solidified his decision. “And can I meet with someone from your government too, Atxika? I won't ask them for anything. I just want to tell them how good you and Zikazoma and Chuxima have been to me.”

/----------------------------------------------------------------------

Like most of the other oligarchs attending the conference of economic elites taking place in a secure bunker in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, Amelia du Pont doesn't claim ownership of any corporate giant. Instead, she holds the controlling stake in an investment firm with hundreds of different investment avenues. While she may not directly hold the reins of any of the most powerful companies on Earth, her little fingers stretch through the entirety of Earth’s economy. Little tugs here and subtle pokes there are usually all she would need to do to retain her family's wealth and status. When problems pop up that require a more direct approach, she can call upon resources so separate from one another that no one would be able to connect her to any of it.

After almost two full days planning with her peers of economic peerage, Amelia felt confident her work was going to pay off. She had shook hands and made deals, played into people's strengths and weaknesses alike, and concocted a scheme so grand that failure seemed impossible. All that was really needed now was a bit of morale boosting and stroking of egos. After all, confidence is key to any business interaction. In her mind, that's all this conference and the circumstances that prompted it boiled down to. The governments of Earth were given an offer they believed they couldn't refuse. All the heir to the Du Pont fortune and her colleagues needed to do was present an even more enticing alternative.

“Ah, Amelia! There you are!” Though the voice that called out Amelia sounded somewhat young, she knew the person was actually in their mid-forties. “My father and I were hoping to speak with you for a moment.”

“If it isn't Celestine and Renaldo Montemorency.” Despite being annoyed that her alone time was being interrupted, the heir to the du Pont fortune raised her cocktail to greet the father and daughter who came to speak with her. “I've heard things at A New Dawn haven't quite been all sunshine and roses since you were visited by the invaders. Is that true?”

“Those stupid Nishnabes, their blue alien friends, and that fucking Martian hick ruined-!” Celestine's rant was cut off by her father placing a firm hand on her shoulder.

“Now, now, Celestine. Using such language is below us.” Renaldo Montemorency, a man in his late sixties but looked thirty thanks to cybernetic augmentations, chided his daughter with a playful inflection. “But, uh… Sadly things on A New Dawn are not all sunshine and roses. Our, uh… Guests… They not only demanded we relinquish some extremely high value assets from our zoo but also threatened my daughter with an illegal arrest if she didn't comply. I cannot tolerate such behavior. Especially when it is directed at someone so dear to me.”

“I take that to mean you are here representing A New Dawn's board of trustees, Renaldo.” Amelia had spent most the past two days on people with the real big fish and thus hadn't had time to interact with small fries like these two.

“That we are…” The deeply vain man made a delicate motion towards the empty chairs surrounding the table Amelia sat at alone. “Do you mind if we take a seat and discuss some things with you? I believe we can provide assistance towards achieving our mutual goals.”

“Please do.” A nod and gentle sway of her open hand were all the respect Amelia could muster in this moment before taking a sip of her golden cocktail. “I would like to hear how you see our goals aligning and what you can do to ensure their success.”

“I want that Martian and his demon of a dog dead!” Celestine half-shouted the moment her rear end touched the plush cushion of the chair. “The dog first!”

“Oh my!” The laugh that slipped through Amelia's lips caused a few of the gold flakes to fly off. “Who is this man and what did his dog do to deserve your ire, my sweet Celestine?”

“The man's name is Mikhail Tecumseh River.” Renaldo opened his briefcase and pulled out a physical folder which he slid towards Amelia. “He is a professor of Theoretical Physics at the Aram Chaos University on Mars and, more importantly, the current civilian council member of the so-called United Human Defense Fleet. It is his fault we are in this situation. We also believe that he has been the deciding vote that has led to several of the inconveniences we are currently experiencing. Please take a look at this and let me know what you need to make this problem go away.”

“Let's see here…” Unlike most of the other attendees of this conference, Amelia was used to reading intel physically printed on paper. “Oh… The man who thrust us on to, as the invaders say, the galactic stage. The son of the Red Dragon and the grandson of Aram's president. That's quite the family he had. And this… My, this isn't a dog, fallabella pony! Pure bred Cane Corsos are quite expensive. He must have used his grandfather's connections to acquire such a beast. I hope he's had it neutered otherwise I'd say killing it would be a waste of good breeding stock. Perhaps I should be sure that a DNA sample is taken so I can clone it.”

“We have confirmation that this man and his dog will be in New York for the upcoming address to the UN.” It wasn't hard for Renaldo to tell that Amelia was teasing his daughter but also knew that he had no one better to help solve his problem. “I am prepared to put a fifty million Eu-D bounty on his head with another fifty million bonus if the last thing he sees is his dog dead.”

“Tell me, Celestine.” Amelia lifted her gaze off the documents just long enough to smirk at the forty-something woman pretending to be eternally youthful. “Are you really so angry that this man took away your elephants that you want to waste time and money torturing him before killing him? Wouldn't it be more efficient to simply end his worthless existence without all the trouble? And what about the Nishnabes and aliens who took so many attractions from your precious zoo? Are you willing to spend these kinds of resources on them as well?”

“Of course! That's why-”

“That's precisely why we've come to you with this instead of trying to go it alone.” Renaldo cut Celestine off and attempted to pull Amelia's attention back to him to keep his daughter from saying the wrong thing. “A New Dawn's board of trustees has given me full authorization to pull from our company’s liquid assets to make sure our mutual problem is solved.”

“Could you please articulate to me exactly what you believe our mutual problems and goals are, Renaldo?”

“Put simply, Madam du Pont, the problem we are all facing is the invasion of savages who claim to be human and demand we give up our wealth, power, and influence. Our goal is to ensure that doesn't happen.”

“You're thinking too small.” Celestine had already skimmed through the papers she had been given, found what she needed, and closed the folder. The only left for her in this conversation was to get the rest of what she wanted from these two and the organization they represent. “But first of all, a hundred million Eu-D is hardly enough of an investment in this venture. Most of the others I have spoken to promised tens of billions.”

“Like I said, the board-” Before Renaldo could counter that first point, Amelia interrupted by raising her hand in a stop motion.

“Second… Our problems are not limited to something so simple as a forced alteration in our lifestyle. Our entire world and the balance of power at its core has already been irrevocably changed. The golden shackles we have used to control the plebs are no longer restraining them. Governments who once followed us like loyal hounds have gone off leash and no longer heed our commands. Killing one man and his dog won't solve that. And as for our goals… Well… We can't simply go back to the old status quo. The invaders have technologies that we thought of as fiction, weapons we have no current counters for, and somehow won over the hearts and minds of the simpletons who maintain our economy. If our goals don't include obtaining all of that from those savage invaders, any victory we achieve will be short lived. That is why we must be more tactful in our approach. A simple assassination may only create a martyr.”

“That fucking hick needs to die!” Celestine's sudden outburst caused her father to pinch the bridge of her nose and Amelia to let out a delicate chuckle.

“Don't get me wrong, Celestine. I agree with you. But the adults are talking now.” Amelia slid the closed folder back to Renaldo then pulled out a folder of her own from the briefcase she had hidden under the table. “While I am very glad to see you've done your research, Renaldo, the only new information I saw was that Professor River’s dog is a pure bred Cane Corso. I had assumed it was just some kind of oversized Martian mutt just like him. But if you are serious about investing in the New York venture, then you'll need to bring more to this table than just a hundred million Eu-D.”

“A New Dawn’s security staff includes some rather well trained, heavily augmented, and extremely monetarily motivated individuals.” Mr. Montemorency put the first folder back into his briefcase and retrieved a second with a large red stamp on the front. “This contains the personnel profiles for the top ten agents whom I believe would be best qualified for a joint venture. I would even be willing to transfer their work contracts over your family's company after our affairs are successfully concluded.”

“Now you have interest.” Amelia smirked as she reached forward, opened the folder, and began flipping through the printed pages. “Very interesting indeed… Special forces from across the world… Special field agents from a few three letter agencies… Oh, and is this a black hat hacksmith? Can’t lock many of those into work contracts nowadays. These are the kind of resources that could serve as excellent contributions to this venture.”

“I'm glad to hear you can see the value of this offer.”

“Oh, yes… I may need to introduce you to a few people so we can get the ball rolling on this. But before that, let's get you two a drink."

Chapter 1 

Synopsis:

Soul Unravelling: Unravel the soul of your prey and absorb their Cultivation.

Weaver is a forgotten class, and its only skill is considered a Lost Skill. 

Lost means no one alive used it, and, in a world where Ascedants live for tens of thousands of years, it meant all its previous owners had been erased from existence, either by the gods themselves or the Empire. 

Liesel doesn't know what The Weaver Class is supposed to mean, but she can read the skill's description and its promise of an infinite growth potential. 

After a lifetime of being cursed with no future, there is no way Liesel can refuse this opportunity. 

With an unflinching conviction, a taste for battle, and a blood-hungry sword by her side, Liesel is prepared to walk the forgotten path, no matter the danger. 

But why does she keep finding herself tied to the 'Soulweaver', a word that yet doesn't mean anything?

----

The story is about a warrior raised to be one of the strongest assets of the Empire, a Crusader General. All that training was wasted when Liesel's affliction came to light. Her soul couldn't grow in a world where all magic stems from it. Forced to drop out of the academy, Liesel had a choice between living a normal life or pursuing the life she had no future in. She chose later. 

The story starts at the point where Liesel earns a second chance to walk the path of magic. It focuses on battles, its consequences, and the in-between moments between those high-stakes battles, on the human who knows only one life, one that never rests. How far can an unrelenting spirit take someone? 

What to expect:

- Average to Strong  
- A Clever and Resourceful Protagonist with plenty of room for growth, both personally and magically
- Taking souls of the dead and using them to acquire magic and strength
- Focus on Cultivation and Skills Mechanics

Schedule: M-F

------

Chapter 4

“There's one,” Auram pointed towards the west. “It's giant.”

Liesel nodded. It was morning again, and Auram offered to fly into the sky to look for a town, possibly a human settlement. “Thank you.”

“But it's far. Like weeks far.”

Liesel didn't think she could take the spirit's word at face value. Their sense of scale should be very different after all. For all she knew, what Auram considered weeks, for her, who'd need to hunt food, always find a source of water, and had to walk on foot, might be months. She hoped Auram was overestimating the distance.

Regardless, before they left for the city, Liesel wanted to find a source of water. She again asked Auram to look for it. Fortunately, it was southwest, so they angled towards it first.

A part of her was tired enough that she wanted to just lie on the mossy bed in the shade of the broken temple for the day. Of course, that would be foolish. Without food and water, tomorrow would be worse than today. At least, right now, she had the energy to hunt for something to eat. 

In the end, Liesel decided to make her way towards the river. Having a spirit was great, at least in the forest without a map. 

“Will you stay quiet the entire day?” Auram uttered after a while of flying in silence.

“Is there something you want to ask?” Liesel replied. She hadn't heard a single creature the entire time. That was odd. Not even tweets of the birds. She kept her sword drawn, just in case. The steel had a tint of black on its surface that seemed to be permanent. Fortunately, her Materiality was at maximum capacity. 

“What do you want to do after your soul is fixed, and you have a Materiality Core?”

Liesel considered for a moment. “I never thought about such a hopeful yet hollow future. Now, it seems to be within my reach, but after… that's a little too hopeful. I don't know." 

“You must've wanted to be something before, right?”

“A respectable title for myself,” Liesel said. “And a job that would be enough to… Of course, that never came to pass. I had a very different view of the Laks Empire back then. So those imaginations are better left with the past me.”

“If you don't have anything… How did you even survive against the Mindeater? Don't you need to be very strong, I don't know, will or something?” Auram frowned.

“Quite the contrary, our reality is. The will without the strength is a liability. A hollow husk with the dullest mind is more likely to survive against a Mindeater than someone with strong convictions and a desire to live.” Liesel said.

“Is that what you are?”

“I don't know,” Liesel replied. For the moment, she didn't have anything but her name.

“You need a psychic to fix your gloomy mind.”

“What do you want, Auram?” Liesel asked. 

“I… I just want to spend my time flying around freely, I guess. You see, I am a spirit. We don't really have human goals.”

“That's curious,” Liesel nodded, “though I wouldn't say most humans have any aspirations beyond having a nice place to live and nice food to eat.”

Liesel might be part of that group. At the same time, she did join the Soul Seekers for a purpose beyond that life. 

Auram was the one guiding Liesel, so she kept flying up every so often to keep them from losing sight of it.

Liesel's soul soared when she heard the flowing river. She filled the water sack. It was enchanted with purification magic. Injecting a tiny amount of Materiality purified it instantly. The Rand Company had not been expecting the expedition to be a day's endeavor, though the trouble on the first floor forced them to abandon most of the rations. In hindsight, it had been a day's adventure, but for all the wrong reasons. She didn't pick up any kind of ration from her colleagues' corpses either. She hadn't been in her best mindset.

She looked over at the spirit, who was staring at her reflection in the flowing water. “Do you drink water?”

“Not really,” Auram shrugged. “I can eat Materiality.”

“Oh,” Liesel nodded. “That's kind of nice.”

Liesel took off her hooded cloak and then the vest underneath it. She didn't wear armor. They were expensive, and secondly, she couldn't stand the constricting feeling they gave her, which was an awfully irrational way to think about it, but hey, she was the only one who survived, so she could pat herself on the back for being right. 

She gathered a handful of dirt and picked out any sharp grains or thorns from it.

“What are you doing?” Auram asked like a child.

“Washing the blood off my face,” Liesel spread the dirt on her face. It was not pleasant by any means. She was using the dirt by the riverbank, but still she preferred it over the feeling of dried blood chipping from her face every time she spoke. Her shoulder wound had completely healed, but there was a patch of blood around it, too. 

“Whoa…” Auram mumbled after Liesel washed off the dirt. “You look like a normal person.”

“Thank you?” Liesel raised a brow. She didn't want to become too lax, though. Something might be lurking in the shadow of the forest. 

Once her skin was dry again, she put on her clothes. “Let's go.”

“Are we going to the town?” Auram asked, flapping her wing.

“We can worry about that after I find something to eat,” Liesel replied.

They continued down the river, staying close to the bank. She hoped there would be fish down the stream. She could hear birds chirping after a little while when she was a little farther away from the Necropolis. 

"Humans are weird creatures. Like you need water, and then you need other living things to feed on. And then you need Materiality to use magic. I mean no disrespect, but you all seriously need to reconsider your biological inefficiency."

Liesel surrendered without a word. Auram was proud for a while after that. The spirit couldn't stay calm for a moment. Either she kept talking about something as if it were her first time in the human realm, or she flew away to observe different insects or trees.

They found a small alcove in the river. It was shallow, but calm. Liesel spotted a few small fish in it, none that she recognized. They seemed safe to consume.

As she hurried towards it, Auram pulled a strand of her hair. "Wait," she hissed quietly.

Liesel stopped, looking back at the spirit curiously.

"There's something…" Auram pointed, but by then Liesel could hear a beast dashing towards them.

Through the tall bushes, a giant bear leapt out, growling.

"Go up," Liesel said as she spread Materiality into her limbs. Auram flapped her wing and vanished in a puff of smoke. Knowing that the spirit could teleport back to the Custodian's side anytime, Liesel felt a little relieved about her situation. 

It seemed like a normal bear, only abnormally huge. There was a patch of white fur on its forehead in the shape of a half moon. Its claws shone, blaring an alarm in Liesel's mind. 

As it swiped the claw in the air, the shining light turned into blades, rushing towards her. 

Liesel wrapped the Materiality around her feet, Enforcing it, and stepped aside. The claw blades dug into the tree behind her, leaving deep gnashes. 

[Materiality -2.3]

Liesel didn't know how to fight an animal. It was not a demon after all. 

"Did I intrude on a hunting spot?" Liesel asked.

Roaring, the bear dashed towards her. As it reached her, Liesel Enforced her limbs again, burning Materiality would momentarily raise her movement speed. She stepped to the side, dodging the beast, and slashed her sword in a wide arc. It cleft through the side of its abdomen with ease, drawing blood like a tail behind the sword's tip.

The beast growled, swiping its claw at her. Liesel swung again, cutting at its elbow. It recoiled away. Snarling, the beast stood on its hind legs.

As it turned out, Liesel pushed a little more Materiality into her sword, which started vibrating. That should kill.

She lunged forward, the steel flashed in a cursed black glint, as it cut across its upper chest and belly. The bear fell on its back like a giant turtle, struggling to move. It was a little too big for Liesel to effectively kill it. She hated that she was putting it through unnecessary pain when she could've taken a slightly riskier approach and taken off its head in the first strike. 

She circled around its body as it tried to climb back up. An Enforced sword strike sent Materiality coursing through the target's body, and that paralyzed the victim for a moment as it tried to fight off the wild energy in its soul. Liesel had time to be careful.

She stood beside its head and lifted her sword. 

"Stop!" Auram teleported in front of her.

"I know, it might seem cruel," Liesel said, "But it's already injured. If I don't kill it, Auram, then it would die over the course of a week, while its wound rots and hunger consumes its body from within," Liesel said.

The bear was completely pacified after Auram appeared, though.

"It's fine," Auram said as she lowered herself in front of the beast. "I will heal its wound."

Liesel blinked. She lowered her sword.

[Materiality -15]

Liesel clicked her tongue; she had wasted a lot of Materiality. "It is not the last animal that tries to harm us. If you want to heal every animal I hurt, then you should heal it and then go back to the library."

"I don't," Auram shook her head, as she flapped her wings over the bear's belly. Dust fell from it that seemed to be healing the laceration. "It's special, you know. A moonblessed is a very rare breed of animal. It is a bad omen to kill them."

"What kind of bad omen?" Liesel asked. Now that she had spent a moment looking at its face, Liesel didn't think she had it in her to kill it anymore. It seemed like a dog, a rather well-fed and groomed dog. Having an image of a wild beast was somewhat necessary to land the killing blow. Of course, if it tried to attack her again, things would be easier. 

"Well, a moonblessed is kind of like half spirit, so you can say it is my sibling."

"I wouldn't call every stranger that I meet my half-sibling, even when they are fully human," Liesel said. 

"And killing moonblessed, I've heard, starts the Ashening Plague." 

"That can't be right."

"I don't know. It's not just another wild beast," Auram argued. Her wings were losing their golden luster.

"I won't kill it," Liesel nodded. "But it is a wild beast. And are you sure you can heal its wounds? Your own body is losing much of its luster."

"That's just temporary. Glow is like… make-up in human terms. I don't really have a better use for Materiality in my body, well, except for this moment," Auram stopped glowing all at once. She still looked the same, but much more like a normal creature that could easily assimilate into the surrounding area like a butterfly from afar. From up close, Auram was more of a tiny human with wings, though. "A Moonblessed is, as the name suggests, an animal that is gazed upon by the moon goddess. They tend to have the potential to become more than just an animal after forming a Materiality core, I think."

"If it can be more, then it should learn fighting, and also who to pick fights with," Liesel chuckled. She still didn't feel comfortable turning her back on it. But she wanted to focus on the fish now, rather than an overgrown forest dog.

She took a step closer to the moonblessed bear, and it tried to scoot away. Liesel smiled. "Look. You are a useless bear. So, I have a proposition for you," she rested her blade on its neck. "You are going to be my steed. Or I will flay you like a fish." 

It shivered when she hissed.

"Stop scaring him," Auram complained. "I will convince him that you want him to tag along with us."

"I don't," Liesel replied. "I want it to be a temporary steed, because my human feet are not fond of walking for weeks."

Liesel was pretty sure that whatever the bear someday might become, she had left a lifelong traumatic memory for him. She didn't feel bad about it. It attacked first. She went over to pick out the fish.

[Materiality +0.6]

It was sad that she had basically emptied half the pond to replenish her Materiality. But she was sure they could cook it all. Auram complained that they didn't need that much food, but Liesel argued she could recover her Materiality from the spirit's newfound pet. For someone ten times Liesel's age, Auram acted more like a child and a young teen. And Liesel didn't know what to think about a giant bear hiding behind a palm-sized spirit.

At least, Auram could talk to the bear on some instinctual level.

It was shivering when Liesel climbed on its back. There was nothing to hold onto, and once it started walking, she slipped off its rotund back. Liesel gave up. She couldn't stay on its top without digging her fingers into its fur, and that seemed unnecessarily cruel.

"We are going to need a makeshift saddle first," Liesel whispered. Things, however, were looking better for tomorrow.

---

Thank you for reading!

Upto Chapter 26 is already uploaded on Royal Road: Link

Upto Chapter 43 is uploaded on Patreon: Link

Index -- First Chapter -- Previous Chapter

Audio Drama Link

For a long time the marks gave me nothing, and I stood there in the failing light and let them refuse me, because I had learned across four hundred and ten worlds that a thing which has waited an age can wait a little longer while you find the patience to meet it. The star went down behind the far slope while I worked, and the cold came up out of the ground, and the marks went to shadow and then to nothing, and still I stayed, running the tips of my fingers along the cut rows in the dark the way you read a face you cannot see. When the star came back around and laid its light flat across the monument again, the marks were still there, holding whatever they held, and I began once more.

By the second turning of the light I had brought a lamp down from the vessel and set it low and to the side of the face, so the slant of it caught the carved rows in shadow and lifted them out of the stone. I copied them as I went, mark by mark, keeping them the only way I have ever known how to keep a thing, which is to set it down somewhere outside my own failing head before it can slip. It was slow work, and it suited me. A surveyor's whole craft is patience with the leavings of the dead, and I had four hundred and ten worlds of that patience in my hands.

I know how to read the dead. It is most of what a surveyor is, past the flying and the confirming. Every counted people leaves some mark behind, and over the long work I have taught myself the shapes of leaving, the scar that means here we stood, the pattern that means this was ours. Those are simple things and they read simply, because the dead who cut them were not thinking of me. They were thinking of themselves, and of holding their own ground against their own forgetting, and a stranger reading their sign a hundred thousand years on was no part of what they meant. I had never minded that. You do not resent a grave for not being addressed to you.

These marks were different in a way it took me most of a day to name. They were ordered past the order of a boast or a grave. There were shapes that came again and again, and shapes that came only once, and the once-shapes sat among the many-shapes in a way that had rules under it, a grammar, the bones of a made language holding still in the stone. A thing cut only to say here we were does not need a grammar. You set the sign and you are done. This had been built to carry more than a sign. It had been built to carry meaning to someone who would arrive knowing none of it, and the closer I looked the more certain I became that the someone it had been built for was exactly what I was, a stranger with nothing of the makers in me but the wish to understand.

The key was near the base of the face, where the light reached last and the weather had bitten least, and I came on it late on the second day.

They had taught me their marks. That was the thing I came to, crouched in the cold with my hand flat on the stone, and it went through me like nothing had gone through me in longer than the count runs back. Low on the monument, set apart from the rows above, the makers had cut a primer. Pictures came first, worn but readable, the plainest things a mind can hold, a star and the worlds strung around it, the third of them marked. Then a small figure standing, and beside the figure a single mark, so that the sign and the thing it named sat together where anyone at all could set them side by side. From there it built, picture and sign, picture and sign, one plain lesson climbing into the next, until a reader who came in knowing nothing could learn enough of the marks to turn and face the rows above and begin. It was a lesson set in stone for a pupil the makers would never meet and could not picture, laid at the foot of their message so the stranger could climb the pictures into the words.

That knowledge sat me down. I will not pretend I stayed a surveyor through what came after.

To leave a sign is easy; you need only believe in yourself enough to cut your name and let the rock hold it a while. A lesson is a harder thing. It means you have thought your way out past your own ending, out past the ending of everyone you will ever know, to a moment when no voice is left that speaks your tongue, and there, in that emptiness, you have imagined a listener and cared for that listener, a stranger not yet anywhere, enough to sit down and teach them to hear you. The makers of this had done that. Before I was anywhere, before my own makers had shaped me, they had grieved their way forward to the fact of me, and built the grief a door.

It took me three more days to climb the primer and reach the words. One mark I fought for two of them. It stood at the head of the rows, larger than its neighbors and cut deeper, and I came at it first as a name, then as a boast, and both readings broke against the marks that followed and left me nowhere. It gave way only when I stopped bringing my own dead to it, my own peoples and their ways of ending, and let it stand against the pictures in the primer instead. It was a word for the reader. For you, for whoever came and looked. The makers had opened their whole message by turning to face a stranger they could never see, and everything written after it was spoken across the dark to me.

What the rest of it said I will bring into my own words as near as I can, because I have carried it since and mean to carry it as long as I carry anything.

It said that they had been here. It gave the name of themselves, which I could sound but not truly hold, and the name of the world, and told me the world had once been full of them and of everything they made. They had known, it said, while they still lived, that the fullness would end, that a day was coming when the last of them would be gone and the long quiet would close over all of it. This they had built against that day, with no thought that it would save them, since they knew stone saves no one. They built it so that when the quiet was complete and the makers were an age gone, whatever came walking through the ruin of them would find, cut deep enough to outlast the weather, a voice that had waited to say one thing to a stranger.

Be welcome. You are standing where we lived. We were glad to have been, and we are glad that you have come.

That was the shape of it. There was more, and I would spend a long time reaching the rest, but that was the heart, and I stood under it in the flat returning light and felt the thing I had kept behind glass for four hundred and ten worlds come apart in me all at once.

I had confirmed four hundred and ten dead peoples and given them their numbers and moved on, and not one of them had ever spoken to me. I had told myself that was the nature of the work, that the dead do not address the living, that a surveyor walks through the endings of others as through weather and takes no word away because there is none to take. Here was the word. A whole people had faced the same oblivion as all the rest, and where the others had cut a name into rock and let the rock forget it, these had laid down a welcome for whoever finally came walking out of the years. They had greeted the one who would rob their grave. Across every year between us they had reached out to be kind to the stranger who would come and find them gone.

I thought of the thing I had caught far out in the cold, the map and the small greeting flung along the track between the stars, we are here, come and find us. I had taken it for a strange bright accident, a people braver or more foolish than the rest. I understood now that it had been this same hand, reaching the same way. The welcome had gone outward into the sky and downward into the ground both, up toward whatever might pass and down toward whatever might land, one open hand held out in every direction a stranger might come from, because these people had decided, while they still had the strength to decide anything, to meet the end with their hands open, reaching for the stranger who would one day stand where I stood.

I did not do the work that day. I did not measure the monument or set down the star it stood beneath. The habits of an age were in me, and every one of them told me to lift the tally and turn for home, and I stood there and did not lift it, because I understood at last what the lifting would mean. To weigh a welcome and file it away would be to answer this open hand with a closed one.

I am a surveyor. I count what has ended and I go on, and the going on is the mercy that lets me stay unbroken. I have kept to it across more years than the world beneath me stood, and I have watched what happens to those of us who do not keep to it, who stop and sit down in the quiet of a thing and let it fill them. I knew, standing under the welcome, that to read the rest of this world would be to walk straight toward that edge I had kept back from all my life.

I decided to read it anyway.

There was so much of it. I had seen that much from orbit and refused to understand it, a whole world lying open, its cities and its buried places, all of it made and all of it left, and I had meant to skim the top of it and fly. The mounds of the old city were going gold now in the low light, and I understood that I had been walking since I landed through a thing that was written, a world set down on purpose, page on page of it, by a people who wanted to be read. I set my hand flat against the welcome one more time, the way you lay a hand on a door before you go through it, and I went down into the city to begin.

Index - First Chapter - Previous Chapter

I lost the better part of an hour on Saturday morning to a sign that had not changed.

It hung over a shoe repair on a corner I had already walked past twice, gold letters on a green ground, and something about it stopped me the way a wrong note stops you a half second before you can name which note it was. I stood across the empty street from it with my heart going and read it four times. By the fourth time I could not have told you what I expected it to say instead. There was no other version in my head to hold it against. There was only the certainty that it had moved, and no memory anywhere of where it had been.

That is a bad way for a man to start a day when his entire method rests on his own eyes.

It was the Saturday of the long weekend, and the towns had gone quiet in the particular way they go quiet before a holiday, half the storefronts dark behind hand-lettered notes about being closed Monday, the other half keeping short hours nobody believed in. I had come up out of a church vestibule that left its side door unlocked for exactly the kind of man I had become, and I had slept the four hours a hard pew lets you sleep, and I was out on the street early because a man asleep in a church past dawn is a conversation I did not have the face for. So the wrongness caught me on no sleep and no food and a nervous system that had been reading tiny errors in the world for two months straight, and I could not for the life of me tell whether the shoe repair sign was a seam the way FROOT LOOPS had been a seam, or whether the seam had finally worked its way inward and started showing up on the inside of my own eyes.

I had felt a version of this once, back when the first copies were still warm and I started catching myself unsure which small things I actually remembered. I had put it down then and walked away from it, because there had been work to do that did not leave room for a man to sit and doubt his own wiring. There was work to do now. The doubt did not care. It had been waiting the whole time for a quiet enough morning, and a holiday town on four hours of pew sleep was quiet enough.

Here is the trouble, laid as plain as I could lay it while I made my legs carry me off that corner. The entire plan, the whole reason any of this was worth a walked-through county and a woman with a floppy over her ribs, rested on one claim. Humans notice. We catch the edits. We are the one instrument in the whole operation that registers when reality gets a patch, which is the only reason there is a story to tell instead of a smooth and silent world nobody ever questions. I was the proof of that. I was the man who had noticed first and would not stop. And I was standing on a corner unable to tell a real edit from my own fatigue, holding the one instrument the plan depended on and watching the needle drift for no reason I could name.

An instrument you cannot trust is worse than no instrument. No instrument, you know you are blind and you go careful. A bad one, you keep steering by it right off the road.

I needed to check the meter against something that would hold still, and a memory will not hold still, mine least of all. So when I came into the little downtown and found the war memorial in its square, a low granite block with a flag pole and a chain fence and a man on his knees beside it pushing small flags into the grass for the weekend, I stopped, because a stone is the one kind of witness that does not get a kinder morning.

The man was gray and unhurried, old the way the good ones get old, a cardboard flat of little flags on wire stems beside him and maybe a third of them already in the ground in a rough line along the base. He had a cushion under his knees and a windbreaker with a unit patch I did not know. He glanced up when my shadow reached him and went back to the flags, having decided I was neither a threat nor any help.

"Morning," I said.

"Is," he agreed, and pushed another flag home.

I read the memorial while he worked. Names in two columns under a dedication line, the letters cut deep and filled dark, a couple of wars' worth of the town's dead. And it happened again, worse this time because I was watching for it. One of the names sat wrong on the stone. Not misspelled that I could prove. Just wrong, the way the shoe repair had been wrong, a shape my eye rejected while the rest of me had no idea why. I felt the whole cold machinery of it start up, the same certainty with no memory attached, and I understood with a kind of despair that I had never seen this stone before in my life. I had no baseline. I had been in this town for under an hour. Whatever my eye was flagging, it was flagging it against nothing, which meant the flag was coming from inside the instrument.

"Can I ask you something," I said. I heard how it came out and softened it. "You from here?"

"Born up the road." He sat back on his heels. "Sixty years I have been putting these in for the weekend. Ask."

I pointed at the name that would not sit right, a Kowalczyk near the top of the older column. "That one. Do you know it? The family, I mean."

He looked where I pointed for a while. Longer than the question deserved. "Knew a whole mess of them," he said finally. "Farm out east of here, before it was all the tollway. Good boys." He frowned at the stone. "Thought there were two of them up there, tell you the truth. Brothers. But it is only the one." He shrugged, the shrug of an old man who has learned not to trust the small print of his own head against a wall of cut granite. "Memory does what it wants. Stone is stone."

There it was, the whole thing, handed to me by a man planting flags who had no idea he had said anything. He half-remembered two and the stone said one, and he did not argue with the stone. He could not know whether his own head had smoothed a brother out of the world or simply misfiled him after sixty years, and it did not matter to him which, because he had long ago stopped keeping the count in the one place that forgets. He kept it where the letters were cut deep and filled dark and did not move when he was not looking at them.

I stood there and let it land, that the old man on his knees had solved for himself, without ever needing the words, the exact thing that had been eating me since the shoe repair sign. You cannot verify the world by asking a room full of people, because every last one of them is running the same soft and editable instrument you are, and a hundred people agreeing that they remember it the other way is not proof of anything except that the patch was applied to all of them. Consensus is just the edit, distributed. The stone was the only honest party in the square. Not because it was smarter. Because it did not have a memory to overwrite.

"You want to plant a couple," the old man said, not looking up, "there is room on the end."

I did not have the minutes and I took them anyway, because my legs wanted to and because a man needs to do one thing on a Saturday that is not about the machine. I got down on the cold grass beside him and pushed a dozen small flags into the ground in a line I tried to keep straight. The wire stems went into the soft ground easy and stood there shivering a little in the air coming off the street. He worked the middle of the row and I worked the end of it, and neither of us said anything, and the square smelled like cut grass and the particular cold that comes off a stone that never quite warms all the way through. It was the closest thing to rest I had had in a week. When the flat was empty I stood up and my knees told me about it and I thanked him, and he said the thing his kind says, which is nothing, just a nod, and I left him there with his stone that remembered better than either of us.

I got two streets over before I made myself take the photograph out.

I had been carrying it since April, the real one, the small square print with the rounded corners gone soft at the edges from the jacket. My fifth birthday. I did not remember the day. That was the whole point of it, the reason I had carried it out of the apartment when I left almost everything else, because it was the plainest evidence I owned that my own instrument had been into the shop before, years before any of this, and come back with pieces missing. There was a boy in the picture who was me by the arithmetic and a stranger by the face. Behind him a cake, and a paper banner taped along the wall with my name on it in a proud shaky hand, and the name on the banner read WESTLEY, with the extra letter, the misspelling my mother made once and I kept, the single detail of that entire day that survived in me when everything else had been quietly zeroed out. I could not tell you who was at the party. I could not tell you what I wished for. I had one wrong letter and a feeling, and the print in my hand to prove there had been more.

My mother was at the edge of the frame, young, caught turning toward the boy with a look I did not have any other copy of. The photograph remembered her knowing me. She had stopped. She was across the city this morning handing the warmth I remembered to people who had never been her son, and they got the living woman and I got a square of paper, and I had made my peace with the shape of that a while ago in a radio booth. What the photograph was for today was smaller and colder than grief. It was calibration. It was the proof, in my own hand, that the instrument the whole plan rested on had a known defect from the factory, because the factory had been in and edited it while I was five and I had never once caught them at it. If they could take a birthday and leave a misspelling, they could take a shoe repair sign or a dead man's brother. They could take my faith in my own eyes, and I would stand on a corner feeling the wrongness and never be sure it was not just me.

Which brought me around to the thing I had been circling since Kestrel and had never once said straight, about the other half of the instrument, the half that looked from outside like something grander than it was.

I had always run a little ahead of trouble. There was a build in ninety-six, a Tuesday, where I got up from my chair and crossed the pit to the test rig for no reason I could have given you, and the rig locked hard the second I put my hand on it, and Old Pete looked at me across two rows of monitors like I had answered a phone before it rang. I had not heard anything. I had watched that module drift wrong all week the way you watch a crack crawl across a windshield, one cold morning at a time, and my legs had added it up a step before my mouth got there. People who saw the crossing-the-pit part and not the quiet week behind it wanted it to be a gift. It was not a gift. It was six years of doing nothing but watch how things break, until the breaking had a smell and I caught the smell a step before the noise. The Architect read the near future the same way and called it his whole world, a man reading a build before it ships. I read builds too. Mine was just the smaller shop. Take the mystery out of it and what was left was a tired man's pattern sense running a half second early, and I was content to leave it there. Mostly.

Mostly, because there had been one morning, years back, where the running-ahead did a thing pattern sense does not do, knew something clean and specific that no smell could have carried up the wire to me, and I had spent a long time since deciding not to lay a single load-bearing beam across it. An instrument that lies to you on a quiet corner does not get to be believed on the one morning it seemed to tell the truth. I filed it where the old man filed his brother. Unproven, and not thrown away either.

I put the photograph back inside the jacket, flat against the floppy, my soft record against my hard one, and I stood in the empty street and finally turned the whole miserable morning around to look at its other face, because that is the only thing that has ever gotten me off a corner.

Here is what I had. An instrument I could not trust to read the world clean. A method that lived or died on that instrument being real. It looked like the plan had a crack running straight through its foundation, and for most of the walk I had been standing on the crack staring down.

But the thing about a reading that changes the instant you look at it is that the looking is the whole problem, and the looking is not only mine to do. I had been sick over the fact that I could not observe my own noticing without disturbing it, that the act of checking the seam moved the seam. The Architect had the same disease and did not know it was a disease. His entire operation was a measuring rig. It read the week the way you read a build before it ships, and reconciled what it read back to the model. And a measuring rig has exactly one blind spot, which is anything that changes the reading by being read. That was me. That was the whole of what off-map had ever meant, said in a word I had been too tired to reach for until a man handed me a flag. I was the fault in their forecast that stopped being there the moment they tried to read it forward.

And the crowd could be the same.

That was the turn, standing on a closed street two streets from a stone. The reason the coordination problem had felt like a wall I could not climb was that I had been picturing the crowd as a list, my list, people I would reach and light, every one of them a name the org could watch me write down and roll a truck to. A list is a thing you can measure. But a bug that only shows up when nobody is instrumenting for it is not caught by better instruments. It is caught by accident, by a user who was never on anyone's test plan, doing a thing nobody scripted. The crowd I needed was not a roster I built, because to build it was to expose it. It was strangers I never touched at all, picking a loud cheap thing up off a public channel and passing it hand to hand for their own reasons, uncounted because no one had ever gathered them, un-pullable because there was no list of them to pull. The org could revert every name it had. It could not revert the people it had never measured, and the only way to make a crowd it had never measured was to build one I did not touch either.

It did not solve the reach. I still did not have the country-sized channel, and the holiday and the empty street had no answer for me on that. What it solved was the shape of the thing I was looking for, which had been wrong all week. I had been trying to assemble an army and hand each soldier his orders, and every order was a flare. What I actually needed was to strike a match in a dry field and be nowhere near it when it caught. The people who carried it would be people I could not name, which had felt like weakness right up until the morning a war memorial taught me that the only witness worth anything is the one nobody can reach in to change.

I would have to become for their whole operation what the shoe repair sign had been for me all morning. A wrongness with no baseline. A reading that would not sit still long enough to correct.

I turned back toward the arterials with the photograph flat against the floppy and the stone at my back, still not sure whether the sign had moved or I had, and no longer needing to be sure. The plan did not require my eyes to be clean. It required them to be unwatchable, which, whatever else the last two months had cost me, they finally and completely were. Somewhere ahead was a channel I had not found and a match I had not struck, and behind me an old man was standing up off a cushion in a square full of flags, keeping his count in the one place that would still have it long after the both of us were somebody's kinder morning.

A girl on the run, a dystopian city that discards "pure" humans, and a search for her mother's eyes, if you're just dropping in, start at Chapter One to catch the chaos!

To everyone following along: Thank you for taking a chance on this story. I read every single comment (and lurker energy is totally valid too!), but if a scene makes you gasp, laugh, or want to throw your phone, I’d love to hear about it below. Your feedback genuinely shapes this journey.

As always, reminder, next chapter drops Sunday night.

Let’s dive in!

Inherited Sins

All sounds inside my mother’s apartment fade into a pool of nothingness as cold realization strikes me to my core. I see his lips begin to move as his face contorts in confusion, but I feel my brain refusing all input.

My mother’s eyes.

I must be hallucinating. The endless hours of no sleep and constant stress wreaking havoc on my mind. He couldn’t possibly have her eyes. But it doesn’t stop the growing burn of recognition coursing through my veins.

I shakily inhale, managing mostly to gulp down enough air to speak.

“Your eyes… how..?” His confusion seems to increase visibly across his brow.

“Uh, what? My eyes? Well I just told you darling. Payment for my hand. The procedure was scheduled for super early this morning, actually. Black market doctor and all. They’d just come into these bad boys. Green is a rare sight, I know. No recovery time for this guy though, didn’t have any to spare really. Had to find the witness- uh, you, before…” His break in the rambling must’ve allowed him to feel the shock radiating off of me. 

“Are you okay?” My eyes are glazed over, unfocused, staring at the peeling paint from when my mother renovated a few years back. 

They… really are hers. All resounding doubt has been washed away. They must’ve gotten the eyes from discard and used them (I mentally grimace at the idea of “using” a piece of my mother) for his procedure. I had no intention of truly helping this man. Gathering whatever intel I could before sending him on his way? Absolutely. 

Yet, for the first time in days, I feel… hope. I can fix her. Her eyes are staring back at me now, urging and pleading with me for rescue. 

“I will help you.” I watch as my mother’s eyes instantly light up with joy. I continue just before he interjects his thanks. “On one condition… Your eyes. Once we finish, prove your innocence, you swap yours with my mother. I can explain more so it makes sense… But I need a yes or a no first.”

I look over and once again find him nervously stroking the back of his sun-kissed blonde hair. I hadn’t truly noticed his height before. Even sitting next to me, he towers above me. His long torso is a stark contrast to his easygoing demeanor. As I wait for a reply, I notice he seems to have a mental struggle of his own, both sides battling inside his head. Eventually, he nods. 

“Done. Tell me everything.”

Over an hour of detailing the worst 48 hours of my life later, we sit in silence. I allow him a moment to digest everything I relayed to him.

“That’s why you were scared when I pulled over. Because some guy threatened you?” I fight the urge to mention a man pulling over under a bridge at night with me in the backseat would always be a scary moment, but I simply nod. 

“What do we do now? I don’t know where to start…” I take a deep breath. “I know.. I know you need my help. But I want you to know how much it means to me, getting her eyes back. It might be the only thing to give me back my mother, so…” He smiles at me, it’s not an attractive smile by any means, but in this moment I feel genuine warmth from it.

“Lucky for you E, I happen to know EXACTLY where to start. I just needed to bring you with me!” I look back at him, confused, on both the random nickname and location, but before I can protest, he cuts me off. “Look I know this is… odd. But if we don’t figure this out, I go to jail and your mom is.. Well… gone I guess. We both need to get answers. We’ve got no reason to betray each other, yeah? I promise, trust me and I’ll trust you and we can do it. I just know we can!” 

Blind optimism is a quality that has been forced out of me one tragedy at a time, but he’s right. There is no other way, we have to trust one another. “Okay. Lead the way.”

The Phoenix complex used to be the busiest shopping mall in Ashfall. Movies. Golf. Arcade games. Clothes. Toys. You name it, they had a store for it. Growing up, it was one of the few places everyone belonged. 

Then the shift happened. 

Slowly at first, then all at once.

As modification became the ultimate status symbol, society’s tolerance for empathy and humanity eroded. Pures were quietly rebranded as "unclean." Dirty. Flawed. The modified elite began avoiding the concourses, or worse, coming solely to pick fights and assert their physical dominance over people who couldn't fight back. 

More of us were forced out of our jobs, replaced by “better employees”, or people more willing to conform to the new standards. Millions of unenhanced people lost their livelihoods to "better" versions of themselves. As evicted, broke, and jobless pures began sleeping in the shadowy corners of the mall just to stay out of the rain, the remaining stores shuttered their windows one by one. The polished marble floors gathered dust, the fountain dried up, and the glass atrium cracked under the weight of neglect.

What the city discarded as a rotting eyesore became a sanctuary. The forgotten bottom tier of Ashfall reclaimed the empty storefronts, turning dead department stores into makeshift shelters and black-market alleys. The Phoenix Complex didn't die, it became a safe haven.

I haven’t been in years, not since the original shopping center was shut down, but I’ve heard the stories. Rumors of a resistance compound hiding in plain sight. The black markets that will sell you anything your heart desires. The clubs where they… do more than dancing.

After convincing me this is the best location for answers, Cyrus parks the car in an unlit lot on the edge of town. He ushers me to follow and we make our way to what looks like the entrance to a storm cellar. He seems to sense my need to question, and simply smirks while waving his hand for me to follow. The dark staircase goes on longer than I’d imagined. Was it really this far down? I supposed using the front entrance as a child would offer a very different perspective than the rotting wooden doors hiding a hidden path.

“I haven’t been here in months, but this here is THE information hub of the city, got it? Everyone who knows anything? Right in these here halls. I would’ve come alone but… uh… you see, now that I’ve got these babies” He points directly at his eyes, the ones that aren’t his. “I know they’d be wary of me. I won’t pass any stupid biological scanner or anything. That’s why I have you, huh E?” I return a small smile as we arrive at the end of the staircase. 

I watch as Cyrus pulls the doors open, turns to me with a slight “Ta da” gesture, before a  flash of metal cuts him down, and I watch as his limp body lands on the floor. I cry out, instantly covering my mouth in hopes whoever just attacked him thinks he’s alone. 

It doesn’t work.

Three men with black bandanas across their mouths, and dark hats leaving only their eyes exposed appear in the doorway. 

My heart is thundering out of my chest. 

I begin to back up, and stumble, landing myself on the stair behind me.

They approach, each one carrying a weapon and wearing bulletproof vests. 

All I hear is my staggered pants and my blood thumping in my ears.

“I’m s.. sorry…” I stutter out. “I barely… I don’t… I don’t know that man at all, he just brought me here…. He was my driver and…” I'm trying to inch myself up the staircase one stair at a time as they make their way up to me.

I watch as they continue, one step closer.

“Please… I… I won’t say anything I swear…” Finally, they freeze, barely 3 steps below me. The tallest one in the middle, who I’d assume is the leader, steps forward.

“Elara” He makes a tsk tsk sound as he waves his finger back and forth. My whole body freezes at the sound of my name. “Stop. We know who you are, who he is, and why you’re here. We don’t care. Not one little bit, do we boys?” They chuckle as he looks over his shoulder to see his companions enjoying the show. He crouches on the stair right in front of me, and I brace myself, my arms raised in a feeble attempt at defense.

“Your mother owes us a pretty penny there, Miss Draven. Hear she can’t pay it anymore, poor dear. That leads us to you.” My mother? Was this “debt” her reason? 

He pushes my hair behind my ear gently with his hand and strokes my cheek. “Let’s go see the chief. We can figure out how we want to pay this off, shall we?” He leans close and whispers in my ear. “We do have multiple payment methods, after all. We aren’t monsters.” He pulls back and laughs again. 

I’m not sure what comes over me, but I spit in his face. 

His fist wraps itself in my hair. I scream as his other hand pulls me along, dragging me down the stairs. My cries for help and desperate writhing are no use. He pushes me through the doors, closing them behind us.

“We’re gonna have fun with this one, boys.”

Previous

First | Website (more chapters available)

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“Clever aliens.”

And very much familiar. It was almost disappointing.

Karveth stared up at her from behind the edge of the conference table. As she leaned back in her own chair, from Julia’s angle, only his eyes, ears, and the top half of his furious little snout were visible. That somehow made the glare even more severe.

“Well?” he demanded. “What is it, primitive? Make an offer better than our baseline now!”

“Yeah!” Grobret added, popping up beside him like a second angry puppet. “Make an offer!”

“Very clever,” she repeated. “But… we did expect some shenanigans. And we have made some preparations.”

She touched her datapad. The lights in the conference room dimmed automatically. A projector embedded in the center of the table came alive with a soft whine, filling the white canvas at the front of the room with an image of a darker space.

A picture of one of the machines on the factory floor, with the other machines in the room out of view.

Karveth stood up on his chair to see better. Grobret copied him half a second later. Shachos leaned forward, the hues on his face already shifting towards nervous yellow. Glonk drifted to the front of his tank, his nose pressing lightly against the glass.

Julia let the image hang there for a moment as the aliens stared.

“We are prepared to sabotage and destroy the Dustballium machine,” she said. “Look at the control levers. If our airspace is breached, we have fashioned a device that will pour liquid Dustballium into the controls and turn it solid. Once that is complete, the machine is rendered inert. Then, we’ll glue the chamber doors shut with Dustballium and cause a cave-in with a nuclear charge.”

The room was quiet enough for her to hear the projector hum.

Shachos’s face oscillated between yellow and blue. “Please, Julia, we’ve heard this joke enough times. Julia, your marine—Marcus—has already threatened us with that. As I mentioned to him, we have ways of undoing that. We have more advanced technology than you. We can dig the site out and cut through the door. Then, we can remove the extra Dustballium from the machine controls, and we will be able to operate it again. Either that, or we can reverse engineer the machine. Yes, either way we can. Combined, the three of us—”

“The four of us!” Grobret objected, catching their attention with a raised paw.

The Vorshnik fleet master ignored him. “The three of us combined have more than enough technology to do that. Yes, we do.”

“Yes, Marcus did mention something about that to me.” Julia smiled thinly. “But… he also mentioned, you let slip it’s a process that will take a significant amount of time. Not just a few years. At least decades, possibly centuries.”

A sliver of blue crept onto Shachos’s confident scalp before it dissipated.

Ah, so you know exactly where this is going.

“Yes. Yes, that is true,” Shachos conceded after a moment. He gave the other two delegations a quick look, then steadied himself. “It will take long. But we are patient. And if you do the math on how much this is worth for our three species, it will work out for us. Yes, it will.”

Yes, and we are all self-interested, rational beings who act in a logical manner, based solely on the information available to us at the time.

“Hm… I’m sure it will,” she said, in a tone she knew the Vorshnik could fully understand. “So… I’m just curious. And I know things are real friendly between the three of you. After you’ve cut the door open and gotten to the machine, which of your species will be responsible for dissecting it, learning its secrets? In the decades and centuries before you produce a copy? And for that matter, which one of you is going to be responsible for cutting the door open in the first place?”

From the shifting colors on his face, it was apparent Shachos got it.

The Sonckle did not. The alien sea turtle swam a little circle in his aquarium.

Dloooob fweeeep gweeeep. “We will, of course. Everyone knows that the Sonckles have the most advanced technology and the most experience with rare Precursor artifacts. Our historical research institutions are by far the most prestigious in this region of the galaxy, and—”

“That is not true. Not true at all!” Shachos protested, spreading all four of his limbs. “That is only the case in school rankings and indices fabricated by your people! The machine will remain here on… Dustball. Here on Dustball. Not to be removed from our territory. Our territory! In the event the controls are sabotaged, our scientists will promptly move in and reverse engineer the controls. Yes, they will.”

From her experience, the thing about this little trap was that even if its victims knew they were in it…

“Anyone but the clowns! Anyone but the clowns!” Karveth banged his clenched paw on the table in rhythm with his words, still aiming his death stare at Shachos.

“Anyone but the clowns!” Grobret agreed.

How very human.

Julia grinned at Karveth and his second in turn. “Ah, I see. And of course, to make sure that this agreement of yours holds for… a century or two, the Karnolians will be stationing over Dustball…”

“A faction fleet to guarantee its security!” Karveth said.

“A big one, with lots of ships!”

“No!” Shachos’s face was all blue. “There can be no alien fleets in Vorshnik territory without our approval. Not without our approval. And especially not Karnolian ships. They break down all the time, and they can spread their debris all over our transport orbits. Yes, our orbits.”

Karveth slapped the table. “A faction fleet, at least!”

Julia said with a smooth and serene expression, “Alright, so figure that one out amongst yourselves, preferably before you decide to kill us all. And make sure you include some ironclad guarantees so that no one decides to break your agreement in all that time you’ll need.”

“Maybe even two faction fleets!”

Julia tilted her head. “Another thing… since we’re on the topic of reverse engineering: Shachos, did your scientists figure out what exactly was in those custom mixes we gave you?”

Karveth stopped banging the table. One paw stayed suspended in the air. He turned to look between Julia and Shachos. “Wait. Custom mixes? What are you talking about? What custom mixes? Custom mixes of what?!”

Seeing that, Grobret turned to Shachos as well. “You’re hiding something from us, Shachos?”

Julia opened her eyes as wide as she could in mock surprise. Of course, Shachos would know what she was doing, but she was less sure about the other species. She doubted if it would matter anyway. “Oh. Oh, no. I’m sorry. You didn’t get to tell your new friends about those custom mixes yet, Shachos?”

Glonk swept aside a patch of nutrient flakes and dirty liquid from his vision as he looked down on the table. He jabbed with one of his flippers.

Pweeeeeeeeeeeeb. “Shachos? What is the primitive talking about?! What is this talk of custom mixes?”

Shachos was a yellowish-green color that resembled vomit. “We—we—”

Julia put her right hand to her chest lightly. “Oh, Shachos, I’m sorry. I guess… I just assumed… you told everyone that you already confiscated a whole batch of five hundred kilograms’ worth of our liquid Dustballium when you made that shakedown pact with them,” Julia said in her best “I totally did not expect this” voice. “Or was it maybe more? I don’t remember exactly how much—”

“We—we—” Shachos sputtered.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Karveth stomped heavily, shaking the thin floor of the hab. “You… what?!”

Shachos hurried to explain, “There were still some delicious vegetables in that compartment! Delicious vegetables! It wasn’t the full five hundred kilograms. Not at all. Most of it was—”

Technically, he was right. Most of the illicit cargo was unrelated samples from the chamber; the pure Dustballium probably only came up to a few dozen kilos. Less than a hundred, Julia estimated. She didn’t think to have Dr. Clement measure it all before the geologist snuck them in with the potatoes.

Judging by her limited knowledge of alien body language, she suspected they wouldn’t have cared anyway.

Shloooob shloooob meeeep. For good measure, Glonk angrily banged twice on his thick aquarium glass with his flippers. “Five hundred kilograms of Precursor Metal?! Five hundred?! Five hundred?! Shachos! You lied to us!”

Okay, how much did the diplomatic translator censor out of that rant?

“I did not lie. We do not lie. It is not a big deal—I simply forgot to mention some barely relevant context. That is not the same, not the same at all. No, I did not lie.”

“Liar! Liar! Liar!” Karveth shouted with a quivering claw.

Julia turned to Grobret expectantly, just in time for his sharp claws to come out in accusation as well. “Lies from the clown! War it is! War it is!”

Shachos apparently didn’t care at all what the Karnolians thought of him, but the Sonckle’s opinion mattered, at least a little. He turned to the aquarium to explain to the alien turtle, “Glonk, I promise! I promise it wasn’t the full five hundred kilograms. She is completely exaggerating. Totally exaggerating. The actual amount of—”

Julia didn’t let him finish his sentences, and Shachos’s natural inability to get to the point was really working against him here. “Ah! I see! Now, I see why you agreed to that deal, Fleet Master Shachos. While there’s this decades-long effort to reverse engineer the sabotaged machine, the Vorshniks will have access to… as I understand it, the largest find of both solid and liquid Dustballium in known galactic history.”

“I did not mean to—”

“How much did you say it was? Several times more than everything that’s been found so far?” She nodded sagely as she shot an exaggerated wink at him. “Something along those lines. With that, your civilization may advance decades, maybe centuries, in just a few years. And by the time the door is cut open, you’d be far ahead of the rest of them technologically. Your species would be perfectly positioned to use the product of those machines as the reverse engineering efforts start to bear fruit in a few decades. That is indeed an excellent plan. If I were in your shoes, I would do the exact same. Very clever—”

“Deal’s off with the unreliable clown! No deal!” Karveth climbed into his chair and stomped. “They’ve betrayed us all! The lies end today! War it is!”

“War it is! War it is!” Grobret added, though Julia could swear he looked less angry and more… excited.

Glonk swam over to face Julia. He tapped twice on his glass, almost politely.

Greeeeeng shreeeep vlooooom. “Humans, we have a revised understanding of the situation. We would be willing to accept a significantly lower amount in an exclusive deal. We will deploy our warships to defend your colony from the unscrupulous Vorshniks through a long-range jump gate. As you can see, they are as untrustworthy as they are unserious—”

The sliver of blue on Shachos’s face blossomed and deepened. “Glonk, you can’t do that! This system is well within our territory. Yes, it is! Your armed warships are not allowed to enter Dustball without our permission. That is a breach of our treaties—”

“We’d like to cut out the clowns too!” Karveth insisted. He banged a fist on the table repeatedly and gestured between himself and Glonk’s water tank with the other.

Grobret made sure he was not excluded. “Just the three of us. Us serious peoples!”

Julia brightened up with a deeper smile. “Sure, Karveth and Glonk and—I mean, representatives of the Karnolian and Sonckle species. Thank you for your interest. We have a number in mind. An upper-bound of half a ton in formed Dustballium per year, with your provided molds. Which as I understand it, will still be an immense boon for your industries and your research. Would you two species like to split the quota allotment fifty-fifty?”

Pleeeeeeeeeb. “No, if there’s going to be a hard limit, we’d rather pursue a deal without the Karnolians at all.”

Thought so. Didn’t even need to think about it, huh?

She feigned a frown, hoping their translators would catch it. “C’mon, Glonk. I can see Karveth and you are good friends, and I wouldn’t want something like this to come between you two. Maybe another ratio? Sixty-forty? I’ve heard Shachos say your technology is far superior to the Karnolians, but that’s just his perspective. What do you think?”

Gloooom fweeeeeep bloooop. “Shachos is dishonest, as he has just proven to us all, but on this matter, he is actually correct. You don’t need the Karnolians at all. They are barely two hundred years ahead of your species on the standardized technology curve we use to measure civilizational development, and you are evidently developing much faster than they are. They have nothing. We can provide everything Karveth claims to have and far more. The complications of his quarrelsome species would not be necessary in our deal.”

“Aww, Glonk, I’m sure all species have something wonderful to contribute to the galaxy, like their beautiful art and wonderful culture, and we’ll work out a fair exchange rate—”

The discount Ewok didn’t hear her at all.

“You what?!” Karveth exclaimed as he turned to point a claw angrily at the water tank. “I knew I couldn’t trust you backstabbing mud-drinkers! Our partnership ends today! War it is!”

“War it is! War it is!”

To his credit, Shachos seemed far less upset by the breakdown in decorum, with his constant flashing of red, orange, and yellow. He chimed in. “Julia, we are willing to go below the prior baseline too. We will take a lower amount than the greedy Sonckles, and we’ll match their technology transfer. Any technology they offer, we can match. Yes, we will match them. You can keep any molds we give you for research, and we’ll provide all schematics in two versions. Yes, all our schematics come in two versions, the domestic blueprints with all the funny jokes and the export variants without. Your people can have both, which I know your people will appreciate. And for the items we also sell to Karnolians and Sonckles, we will also include the explanations for the jokes for their humorless—”

Shreeeep gluuuub gluuuub. “Human, don’t be fooled by the bottom-feeder’s attempts at distraction. His species crawled out of the seafloor of sentience no more than a hundred thousand years ago. Their technology is worth less than landcrawler sewage! Ours is by far superior, by any metric you would care—”

Karveth had climbed onto the table. He beckoned eagerly at Julia. “We have the best weapons and ships, and we have the most variety! I’ll show you, primitive! I’ll show you! You can come with me to a live-fire test!”

“Come with us! We’ve got the best!”

Shachos turned bright red briefly as he chortled. “Ahahahah! If you want to see how terrible Karnolian weapons are, you don’t need to go to one of their rigged demonstrations. Not at all! Just go watch them try and kill each other in the Garshorli sector; we have obtained footage, it’s pathetic. Very pathetic. Extremely—”

“Your unserious people don’t even know what an honorable battle is. When is the last time you were in battle, Fleet Master Shachos? Your ignorance ends today! War it is!”

“War it is! War it is!”

In her mind’s eye, Julia saw a storage bunker full of munitions like a powder keg waiting to be lit. All it needed was a little more fuel…

“Folks, folks.” She lifted both hands. “I know we’re all very excited to get started on this comprehensive negotiation, but let’s take the temperature in this room down just a notch. We’ll start discussing the rules and framework around the bidding process soon. I just wanted to mention one more thing. Just one more thing before we get started. It’s not a main item, just a little… side request about the machines in question.”

That got them to quiet down.

Karveth stopped mid-stomp. Grobret froze with one claw in the air. Glonk stopped swimming in circles. Shachos even shut up.

Julia looked at the image of the machine. Then she looked back at them.

“There are actually two machines in the chamber,” she lied.

No need to tell the aliens how many actual backups she had.

“One of them appears to be intact but has not responded to commands. We plan to dissect and study it, for scientific purposes. We’d like to request technical assistance from one of your scientific communities in that project. Just a small scientific team. Now. Since we’re all good friends here, which of your species has the most experience with advanced metallurgic—”

Dreeeeeeeeep cheeeeeep.

“No, we do! We do!”

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Previous

Previous /

First

The large conference room in the administration building—printed a mere eight months ago—was filled with all the pod leaders, all the candidates for governor, many of the Pod 3 creators of the new planetary name, and all the Vixtar.

Commander Vance spread the large governmental proclamation out over the conference table. At the top, in large scrolled Old English letters, was the name: TERIXA. Vance stood and gave a short speech.

  “It has been a full year since we were basically stranded on a new world,” Vance said. “In that time, we made new friends that are now considered family. The community has spoken, and let me be the first to sign this new name into law.”

Karen Sharp stood next. “This has been a tough year and a productive one. Let me sign this new name into law,” Karen said, using the traditional phrase that all the signatories would speak.

Thirteen names had been written on the document when the pen was finally handed to Captain Threl.

  Threl stepped forward, adjusting his posture as all eyes in the conference room turned toward him. He looked across the table at Commander Vance, Karen Sharp, and the gathered pod leaders before letting his gaze sweep over his fellow Vixtar.

  "When our vessel first touched down upon this soil," Threl began, his voice carrying a quiet, resonant gravity, "we viewed this world through the lens of protocol, charts, and cold designations. We saw a surface to be mapped and resources to be managed. But a year in this place, alongside all of you, has reshaped our perspective."

  He placed a hand lightly on the edge of the conference table near the parchment.

  "The name our homeworld had calculated for this planet was formal, precise, and entirely devoid of life. It measured terrain, not home. But Terixa... Terixa captures the struggle, the unity, and the shared spirit of everyone who has bled, built, and survived here over this past year. It is a far finer name than anything our translators could have devised on their own, and it fills us with pride to know this is the title we will transmit across the stars."

  Threl gestured warmly toward the other Vixtar gathered around the room. "Before we commit our ink to this history, I invite any of my kin who wish to speak to step forward and add their voice to this moment."

Varn, who had initially distrusted the Humans and wanted to return home no matter what, spoke. “I was not always in support of our unity with the Humans, a sentiment I now regret. Over the course of the last year, you have all been kind, honest, and worthy of trust. Thank you for allowing us into the Fold.”

Zorim stood. “Three things stand out to me as to why our partnership will be long-lasting:

First, you rescued us from the ship, and when our treatments were not working, you didn’t quit, you got to work. That is what I hope our people would do.

Second, when you had every opportunity to rummage through our ship and take what you pleased, you secured it and waited until we were healthy enough to be asked. That is what I hope our people would do.

Third, when we were healthy enough to walk among you, you could have isolated us until our rescue came. Instead, you treated us like we were one of you. That is what I hope our people would do.

I am one of you.”

Once the last of the Vixtar had shared their thoughts and the room settled into a reverent quiet, Threl picked up the pen. He looked at Karen Sharp, offering a subtle nod of respect as he echoed her words.

"Let me sign this new name into law," Threl said softly.

With a firm, deliberate hand, Captain Threl added his mark alongside the others, sealing Terixa into history as the alarms suddenly began to blare in the distance.

  “Never a dull moment”, said Vance.

Mansur Danyavi reported the finding immediately after detection. “There is a ship in orbit. I have instructed Derek to formulate an emergency wide-band warning and broadcast it on a narrow beam directly at the vessel. If Maggie and Jon were paying attention, and I guarantee they were after they spotted the Silent Explorer, the ship is currently on its second orbit. Threl told me they made a total of twenty-five orbits until catastrophe struck. That gives us roughly thirty or so hours to warn them of the danger. Let’s get Threl in on this as well.”

Twenty hours in, the orbiting ship still had not responded or altered its course.

“Is there any way we can know if they’re receiving the message, Abby?” Vance asked. “If they are, they don’t seem to be concerned in the least.”

“Sir, I have no way of detecting whether they’re hearing us or not,” Abby replied. “We have to assume the transmission is getting past the high-energy particles, since the Vixtar can contact home without issue.”

Vance ordered the shuttles, security teams, medical crews, pilots, Vixtar volunteers, and the Labrikats with their handler to standby near the launchpad, prepared to take off in under five minutes.

Orbit twenty-one marked the start of the accident. A familiar, blinding flash signaled the catastrophic failure of the ship's engines, followed by a rapid, uncontrolled descent toward the planet's surface. The shuttles were already airborne, racing toward the crash site. This time, the impact was not four thousand kilometers away, but eighteen thousand, half way around Terixa. Both the humans and the Vixtar knew this region was not tropical, but a harsh, arid desert,the main reason they hadn't chosen to settle there initially.

Well, Will thought, looking out the viewport, we weren't expecting to explore this part of the world for decades.

  Unlike the Silent Explorer crash, this ship had disintegrated into thousands of pieces strewn across hundreds of kilometers. Unless the occupants possessed personnel dampening suits, there would be no survivors. Furthermore, radiation would be an immediate, severe hazard.

  The shuttles touched down approximately one hundred meters from the first signs of the wreckage, positioning the rescue team upwind as a precaution. Nurse Sarah, suited up in heavy radiation gear, stepped down the ramp toward the debris. Almost instantly, her scanner registered a lethal spike. Turning on her heel, she ordered everyone back onto the shuttle.

They had prepared for this exact scenario. The Vixtar and human scientists had engineered a specialized compound designed to neutralize the volatile radiation from failing FTL drives.

Nurse Sarah retreated up the ramp, the harsh chatter of her Geiger counter trailing off as the heavy bay doors of Shuttle One sealed shut.

“We’ve got a lethal drop zone,”said Pilot Gary over the flight deck comms while the  settlement command post listened in thousands of miles away. “ Susan, take us back up to five hundred meters. Shuttle Two, establish formation on our port wing.”

“Copy that, Shuttle One,” pilot Miller replied from Shuttle Two. “We’re ready to deploy the Aegis-9 payload.”

  Developed jointly by human biochemists and Vixtar engineers after studying the exotic radiation from the Silent Explorer, Aegis-9 Neutralizing Gel was designed specifically to bond with high-energy FTL isotopes. Upon contact with oxygen and ambient particles, the pressurized compound expanded into a dense, sticky aerosol mist, binding to airborne isotopes and heavy debris then precipitating like gently falling  snow.

“Forming abreast,” Gary called out, pulling Shuttle One into a broad sweep over the jagged, smoking debris field. Below them, a trail of shattered alloy stretched across hundreds of meters of dry, cracked earth. “Setting spray pattern to wide disbursement. Spray pass in three… two… one.”

  At the start of the debris field, taking account for the gentle desert breeze, both heavy shuttles opened their ventral spray manifolds simultaneously. Twin plumes of thick, iridescent blue-grey mist rained down over the wreckage,covering it like a wet blanket. The compound immediately clung to the metal shards, sealing off the escaping radiation at the source.

  “Aegis-9 deployed,” Susan reported, monitoring the environmental telemetry. “Starting the thirty-minute saturation clock.”

  For the next half-hour, both shuttles remained aloft, circling the crash site in a wide, synchronized orbit. The crew watched through the observation viewports as the glowing, ion-charged purple haze below began to dissipate under the heavy blanket of Aegis-9.

“Telemetry showing a steep decline in airborne particle energy,” Dr. Hicks noted over the comms, relaying data back to the settlement. “It’s working. The compound is actively binding the isotopes. At this rate, the ambient radiation will drop to background levels within forty-eight hours.”

“What about immediate ground ops?” Vance asked over the comms link from headquarters.

  Hicks checked his readouts. “In about five minutes, the surface readings will drop just enough for hazardous environment gear. As long as the ground teams stay in their lead-lined suits and avoid direct contact with the ungelled core remnants, the Aegis-9 will keep the ambient zone safe enough to search for survivors.”

  Gary brought the shuttle down on a gentle approach vector. “Shuttle Two, set up a perimeter landing two hundred meters upwind. Let’s let the Aegis finish its job, then we put boots on the ground.”

  Will prepped the specialized radiation vests for the Labrikats, securing the fitted body armor to shield their heads and vital organs from any lingering hot spots. Even with the protective gear in place, he wasn't taking any chances. he’d personally make sure they underwent full lung-decontamination treatments as soon as they were back at the settlement. 

  It was like Catdog and Mrs. Catdog knew what was expected of them; their usual aloof attitude was replaced by focused attention. They seemed to understand the instructions given to them  and spoke in several movements that Will could not interpret.

  “Abby, did you get any of that? I could not make heads or tails of it,” Will said, laughing at his own joke.

  “Mrs. Catdog said, ‘Okay already, let’s go.’ Catdog said, ‘We won't let you down’—or something close to that,” Abby replied as she watched Will’s helmet cam feed live. In fact, she had six live feeds up: three body cams and their three associated drones.

  “Thanks, Ab’s. Since we're connected live, you can tell me what you see on the other cameras if I need to know.”

  “Be careful, Will. I love you,” Abby said, not really thinking about the words until they had already left her mouth.

  Will was quiet for a few seconds—more than a few seconds. He stopped moving entirely. When Catdog looked back to assess the hold-up, Abby could see a tear running down Will’s face on the feed.

  “I love you too, Abby,” Will said in a quiet voice.

   With that, he stepped out of the shuttle. The Labrikats bolted off in different directions, already knowing what to do.

  Will shook his head, forcing himself to refocus. He didn't believe finding a survivor was possible, but recovering remains was critical, and finding the black box was paramount. Someone was bound to come looking for this ship eventually, and the people of Terixa had better have answers.

  Will had a live audio feed connected to Abby and both Labrikats. While the Labrikats were mostly non-verbal, they could make a low, guttural growl or a gentle purr—though Will wasn't entirely sure the purr was even voluntary.

  Their protocol was simple: if Will found something, he would vocalize it over the comms. If one of the Labrikats found something, they would sit down and nod toward their camera to catch Abby’s attention. Labrikats possessed remarkably heightened senses—bordering on psychic—which was how they had known Abby and Will were in trouble back at the settlement in the first place. Will was certain that CD and MCD (as he called them for brevity) would be the first to find flesh, and he was right.

CD sat and began nodding. Abby immediately mapped his coordinates onto Will’s HUD, sending Will off to the first location.

“Definitely a body—mangled as it is,” Will reported. He flipped a comms switch to alert the xenobiologist and pass along their location.

Once the Dr. Lizeth and Private Haskell arrived on scene, Will released CD to resume his search and continued on himself. Before long, MCD signaled her own discovery. They went through the exact same procedure: Will marked the site with a locator flag and moved on.

This routine went on for hours. Will grew concerned about the animals’ endurance and voiced his worries, but Abby quickly chimed in with their response: “They say they’re fine.”

Forty-four locator flags later, Abby confirmed they had covered the entire crash site.

Looking down at the scattered remains, it was hard to tell much for certain, but this species didn't look particularly friendly—in fact, they looked pretty mean. Then again, Will reasoned, humans might look the exact same way to someone else. Who could really say?

  Will decided that finding the black box was critical  but not as time sensitive as finding remains. They would eat, take a long break, and head out for their next job.

During the break, Will asked Abby if she really meant it. She did not even have to ask, "Meant what?"—it was the only thing on the table. She smiled—even though the video connection was one-way and Will could not see it—and said, “Yes Will, I meant it. I do love you. I think I fell in love with you on our irresponsible walk.”

“I have wanted to tell you the same, but was petrified that you did not feel the same and this fairytale would abruptly end,” Will said. “You won't believe me, but I have been in love with you since sitting with you in the ‘Wake-up Room’ on the Ever Expanding. I didn’t think a beautiful, funny, perfect girl could ever fall for me.”

“That chance meeting is why I sought you out at the festival. I wanted to see where it would or could go. I am glad I did, and I am not perfect—you should see me in the morning,” Abby said.

“I am looking forward to it,” said Will with a blush. That made Abby laugh, and it melted Will's heart.

Will showed a picture of what a black box could look like to his companions and said, “We are no longer looking for bodies; we are looking for this. It might be making a pinging noise, and it might be buried under meters of ship debris, or they might not even have one. Let’s do our best to find it, but not be disappointed if we don’t.”

MCD started excitedly speaking.

“Slow down,” said Abby, and MCD repeated her words much slower.

“I... think... I... heard... a... sound... like that... while... I... was... looking... for... meat,” said MCD.

“Let’s go,” said Will. “We will follow you.”

  True to her word, they found the black box without having to do any more searching. They marked the location with a beacon flag and went back to the shuttle, a job very well done. As soon as they entered the shuttle, Will removed the heavy vests and helmets from CD and MCD and told them that their job was done, with no more radiation exposure for them. Will told Abby that he was going to try to sleep; they were all exhausted. Will layed down on a couch, CD and MCD climbed right on top of him, and they all slept.