Eve watched the two hunting parties that were guarding the cave passage, they looked alert and ready, their weapons in hand to protect the tribes. Everyone else was either asleep or passed out from the party they spontaneously threw in Tali's honour. The guards failed to notice that their chieftain was still awake and watching them, with her small fire hidden in an alcove behind some unusually large stalagmites.
As far as Eve was concerned the party had been worth it, if only to allow her tribe to let loose in a manner that didn't involve wholesale murder, even if she did have to break up a few particularly vicious fights. That they had used the last of the looted alcohol as well as a good slice of their buried food cache was just part of the cost.
As early evening had progressed into night a few of her doe's broke out a few simple instruments and played some music, with more enthusiasm than skill, but still managed to craft a haunting melody that reminded her of her fathers garden. Which would have sent her into a spiral of melancholy, except Wrex choose that moment to try his hand at blowing one of the horns and created a sound that could kindly be described as a wet fart, much to his consternation and everyone else's boisterous laughter.
Slowly the tribes began to drift away to their tents and bedrolls, the more intoxicated left to sleep it off where they had fallen. Eve had returned to her tent with no intention at all of getting so sleep, as the recurring dream she had been having since waking from the coma was growing more intense and disjointed, but she couldn't put it together as a cohesive whole. She knew it was a memory from her time in the garden, during the time she spent running experiments with her brother. He was telling her something important, something she would have to do at some point, she remembered the words 'sooner the better' and 'penultimate step', and nothing else.
Idly she poked the small fire with a femur before tossing it on the flames, her mind hovered in a strange state between complete exhaustion and a stubborn desire to remain awake. During her N7 training she had used a pin to stab herself in the palm, the little spikes of pain keeping her just awake enough to continue. Now she felt nothing as she drove a dagger into her calf, scraping down the bone and brought her free hand close before working the blade back and forth opening the wound further. Taking hold of the flap of skin, Eve pulled back and peered inside her own leg.
The muscles, tendons, veins and arteries were all leached of colour, with the lack of any blood in her body, leaving just an off browns and muted blues. She causally gave the squirming muscle a poke and it had the texture and resistance of meringue, so with a little force the surface cracked and caved in. Wiggling a finger about inside her own muscle was not something Eve ever thought she would do, but she wasn't causing anyone any harm so she continued. She had no idea what the internals of a muscle should feel like, but she guessed a pile of writhing worms was not it.
Withdrawing her finger she watched as the worms in the muscle quickly knitted it back together and releasing the flap of skin the worms there sorted that out too. Less than half a minute later there was no sign of what she had done to herself. With a deep sigh she pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them while staring into the fire.
Then she remembered something Tali said to her the day the had been reunited. It had been such a hectic day that Tali's impassioned words had fallen by the wayside, given that within the hour Tali was selling her soul and Eve had been dragged before her father to be judged. Words Eve should have given a great deal more consideration to, rather than discarding them at the first opportunity.
"Am I still human?" She whispered to herself and froze.
She felt something within her chest as she uttered the words. It felt and sounded like a heartbeat, which she knew it couldn't be, as her heart had literally fallen out of her body. She remembered searching around inside the cavity where her organs should live and only finding her lungs and reproductive organs.
Eve wondered if her little colony of adorable creatures were up to something, focusing inwards she found them to be oddly quiescent and focused, even the hive of insects that dwelled inside her were still and quiet. Which was highly abnormal for her lively guests, as though they were waiting with patient anticipation for something. Keeping her focus inwards she spoke again.
"Am I still human?"
She felt another beat, but weaker than the first. She had a feeling she was close to remembering what her brother had tried to explain to her, so she tried a different question.
"How much of me is still human?"
She stretched out and gave her body an inspection. From her knees down she most certainly wasn't human, but even with hooves she wasn't quite like a beastman either, as she had no body hair other than that on her head, eyebrows and lashes, while the beastmen were almost fully covered in a course fur. Without a mirror she had no idea if her privates had visually changed but a quick touch test told her everything felt as it should if she were human, and she had no intention of asking one of her girls to let her examine them for comparison.
Giving her toned abdomen a poke as she thought about her lack of organs and blood, which was as far from anything living, human or otherwise, as she could imagine something could be whist still moving, even reaper husks only had some of their organs and fluids replaced with cybernetics. But of course she had hundreds, perhaps thousands, of worms that now squirmed inside her skin, muscles and bones, knitting her back together from any wound she had thus far taken.
Then of course there was the fact she felt no pain. Tali had, for some reason, an entire backlog of scans for every member of the old ground team. Which proved to be quite useful for comparisons, aside from their obvious physical differences both Tali and she had major changes on their nervous systems. While they were not doctors or biologists they both surmised that the reason they and the tribe felt no pain was they, literally, had no pain sensitive nerves to transmit the signals.
Looking at her heavily tattooed hands they still remained as human as she expected, but then she recalled her brother who's hands were also human like, albeit they were swollen, green and his nails were vastly overgrown. Reaching up she ran her fingers up her two horns, which were certainly not human.
A sudden thought occurred to her and she focused on taking over the senses of one of her scout flies, ordering it to take flight and return. Following its return to her internal hive she paid attention to the distance it travelled back, then ordered it to the lowest part of the hive. Thanks to the time she had spent dissecting subjects with her brother, she felt nothing but a mild fascination as she slipped a finger into her mouth and pushed against the roof. The scout fly bobbed up and down as the surface it stood upon moved in time with her finger.
"They've hollowed out my skull to make their hive. Why didn't that show up." She said after removing her finger and filing it away for later. Eve had her answer and it was clear. "Okay, I'm not human. So what am I?"
She remembered the day of her judgement and the replacement process her father had done to her body. Just how much of her had been replaced and with what? She had no way of knowing either answer and just knew that her father would not be forthcoming with an answer. But a theory was taking shape.
Another of Tali's scans had shown her body, out of everyone in the tribe, was the most highly saturated with God particles by an order of magnitude. Eve had not put the two incidents together but it made sense. Why would her father use anything else to change her body and mind more to his liking. For a while she went over the experience, searching for any detail she may have missed and found nothing.
Then came an epiphany. When she had first come into contact with the Gods, in her old home, they had done something to her, pushed something that was fundamentally her outside of her body so they could communicate with her. Only one thing came to mind as to what that was, her soul. In her old home the revelation would have come as a total shock, here it barely even registered as a surprise.
Taking that knowledge she began to search for where her soul should have resided in her body. Eve immediately knew she was on to something when time slowed then ceased to pass as she searched. It began fruitlessly as she checked all throughout her body, until she looked at her guests. They were all staring at the same point inside her, getting closer the only thing she found was something smaller than a grain of sand. Mentally she touched it and found herself elsewhere.
An endless black void on one side, an aurora on the other and hovering in the centre a semi transparent representation of herself. It slowly changed from her original human body to her current form and then reversed. From the void came a single hair thin thread, while from the aurora came an organic looking tendril thicker than her thigh, both were stretched taut and attached to the representation.
From behind her laughter boomed out making her jump. Spinning around she found a giant fanged maw open and howling with gleeful laughter, towering over her was the enormous bloated bulk of her brother.
Like a switch was flipped Eve instantly felt like a child once again, and a misbehaving child at that. A nearly overwhelming need to check if she was allowed to be here, to ensure she had not seen something she was not supposed too, after all her big brother was here so he would fix everything.
She couldn't help but frown at the feelings welling up inside her. Why was it whenever she met one of her family she felt like this. She was a fully grown woman, not a child. She stamped her foot in frustration, then realised what she had done. He just laughed harder and she was sure if she had any blood in her body it would now all be pooled in her cheeks.
He reached out with one of his swollen fingers and tapped her gently on the head.
"You are a child, little sister. Tell me how old are you?" He said, speaking from both mouths.
"Thirty three, maybe thirty four. Time in this world is strange." Eve replied, whist a shiver ran down her spine. How she had missed this fullness of communication but she knew it would not last.
He snorted then leaned down so his face was close enough to touch.
"No. You are less than one of this planets orbits old. A year, I believe the word is." Eve blinked in surprise. "Your soul may be older than that, but your mind and body were made by Father when he judged you for your impertinence. I know that you witnessed the birth of a plaguebearer, were they not born fully grown?" She gave a nod and he continued. "Then why did you think you were any different? Besides which, many of your brothers are hundreds of millennia old, myself included. How can you be anything but a child in our eyes. Really you are barely more than a larvae still changing in your chrysalis." Rocking backwards he sat down before Eve. "Now that is enough of that, I came to this place with a purpose. I wish to watch and see if you can take another step in your growth, or stumble like most mortals do at this point." He gestured towards the thin strand attached to the representation of herself. "There it is sister, the last tiny piece of your humanity that is holding you back. What will you do?"
Eve narrowed her eyes. Why would he think she might fail? Did he think her incapable of tearing out the last remnants of her humanity? She hadn't been human for months and now that she knew she was something else. Resolve filled her and grasped the strand firmly. Giving her brother a look of triumph she tugged, hard. Then she screamed. Pain shot through her whole body for the first time in months, as something deep within her began to tear apart, the two forms of the representation separated for a brief moment, before snapping back together.
"Did you believe it would be a painless process to rip out the last of your humanity sister? I've been told it will only grow worse. Keep going." He said, Eve muttered something unkind and continued.
Eve had lost all sense of time when she entered this strange place, but she experienced more pain that she could ever remember feeling, each time she made progress the pain increased. Eventually it reached a point where there was nothing but pain and pulling. Until there wasn't, all at once the pain vanished as Eve ripped out the last of humanity and with a roar that could not have come from a humans throat cast it into the void.
"Well done sister, you've taken the penultimate step for your ascension to daemonhood." Her brother said, with warmth in his voice. "Rest now and fear not, for your family watch over you here and your warriors watch over you there."
Eve barely heard the words her said as darkness claimed her and she collapsed.