2. The Tale of the Last Dragonslayer

Once upon a time, a hero defeated a fearsome dragon. Twice she cut off its head, and once she broke its heart. When she emerged from its cavern, however, she found herself unable to tell her story to anyone. Over time, as she wandered the peaceful and lonely world, she began to wonder if there had ever been a dragon in the first place.

Seven years ago

One would have thought she would have been used to the inexplicable by now.

The lights that shot across the night sky like fat tadpoles shone down blue and orange, red and white. They were too big and bright to be meteors, and their rippling patterns suggested heat rising from pavement.

She should have left as soon as she stepped past the threshold and sensed a familiar metallic taste in her mouth, partnered with a static feeling over her joints. She hadn't felt that in years, and there was a bitter nostalgia to it. She knew that shade of blue, and that scent of ozone. On the outskirts of the ruined city there had been nothing but flat grasslands and stars. On the other side of the strange, shimmering wall surrounding this place, even the sky itself appeared broken.

This was not Aperture, but it had their stink all over it.

She should have turned back, but instead she hobbled further into the city of twisted girders and rubble palaces. She took her time, for there was no need to run and waste energy. The years had aggravated the damage done to her knees and ankles by overuse of long fall boots, though a walking stick took the edge off of the pain.

There were other reasons, too, for an old woman who traveled alone to carry a heavy stick.

At times, the pains were her only reminder that it had really happened to her, and hadn't been some kind of coma dream. In the past, she'd done whatever she could to dull the memories, pretending she wouldn't immediately know certain voices the moment she saw them and ignoring how the sounds of machinery put her on edge. They left her too prickly to stay in one place, and so she wandered, desperate to leave the memories behind.

Months had become years, however, and years decades, and now she had to admit, she wasn't sure why she wandered anymore. She could no more leave her memories behind than her own skin, and at times she relished them in a bitter way; they kept the mind sharp, after all. A fear of what was behind her became a desire for what was ahead on the horizon. She was looking for something, or perhaps she was meant to find it before she could rest.

Rest was increasingly a treasure worth more than gold to her. She looked around and listened carefully for signs of movement before settling down on a concrete block, brushing grey hair from her face and resting booted feet. Whatever she was looking for, she doubted she'd find it in a place like this, a ruin where the night sky itself bore the scars of Aperture's "science."

There was no good reason to stay. She doubted the locals wanted anything to do with outsiders. And there was the advice she'd gotten from the last stop, a town five miles out famous for absolutely nothing at all, where the locals averted their gaze and served her politely, and fell quiet at any mention of anomalies.

"Go there if you want," the pudgy old man at the counter had told her in a hushed tone as he handed her coffee with extra cream. "Woman your age, I wouldn't even suggest going near there, but folks is always curious. Go there if you want, because we can't stop you. But don't stay. Whatever you do, leave before dawn. If you ever want to come back here and rest your feet in a nice motel room in a world that makes sense, don't stay."

It was sound advice. Really, she shouldn't have come, but after hearing the rumors, she knew the curiosity would eat her up inside like a parasite if she didn't satisfy it. Besides, she had to know if her guess was true, and if this really was one of their projects. Still, she reminded herself, she had no obligation to it. She'd fought GLaDOS and killed her twice. She'd made it out alive. If anyone had earned the right to wander and live without building up more troubles, it was her.

She leaned back and stared up at the warping sky. It was beautiful, in an eerie way, and cast colorful tones down on the concrete and glass landscapes. Her sense of self-preservation had worked so hard over the years, perhaps it was fraying and tiring with the rest of her. Maybe it wanted to rest for once, too. At any rate, her knees had made the decision for her; there'd be no five mile trek back to town tonight.

Perhaps whatever it was she was looking for, she'd find it here. Maybe there was one last Aperture experiment she could disrupt, for old time's sake. Perhaps it was time for one more new disaster.

She sat up, and waited without sleep with her staff across her lap and a knife in her hand, in case there was someone who would attack an old woman at night.


P-body loved Atlas, and Atlas loved P-body, and they both loved God.

There were times when P-body did not particularly like Testing, but she felt irrational thinking so. Everything was a Test. If she were to find herself resenting Tests, she'd have nothing to look forward to in life. It was easier to embrace the simple joy of leaping across endless pits than to acknowledge the pain and difficulties in being rebuilt when she didn't make a jump.

She and Atlas had grown concerned as of late, however, with God. God wasn't as happy with the Tests, even if they did well. God was all too willing to detonate one or the other out of irritation, and while P-body had stored backup data on God's server that let her retain the memories of all the other P-bodies, it still hurt to explode.

It broke her heart. They only wanted to make God happy.

"Do you think She'd prefer if we failed the Tests, maybe?" P-body chattered with Atlas over the subject while they tried to figure out how to use the Dual Portal Devices to get them across an electrified floor. "As in, maybe this is all a Test about Testing, a Meta-Test, and she wants to Test our willingness to fail to make her happy."

"Seems a bit too complicated. She really dislikes failure, so I doubt She's changed her mind." Atlas waved a dismissive hand at his partner. "We can ask Her what would make Her happy, maybe. When she's happy…"

An elevator door opened up to a new, labyrinth test chamber, and all thoughts of speaking to God directly evaporated as P-body concentrated on the test. She shot a portal at a distant panel and used it to propel herself forward as Atlas followed suit. God would be angry if they addressed Her.

The ultimate heartbreak came when Atlas and P-body completed the test in one go, without a single mistake, landing on the same platform and clapping in delight. So sure were they that this would please God, they both waited with baited nonexistent breath for the passive-aggressive, venomous approval of their beloved GLaDOS.

"That's good, I guess. We can use that. Proceed." The voice of God hung listless in the air, indifferent and tired. GLaDOS, immortal and dedicated, did not tire. That was for humans.

P-body's hands trembled, and she turned her optic to Atlas, who was covering his face and looking away in shame. She didn't have to communicate with him to know he was thinking the same thing. God was not angry. God did not care enough to be angry.

God no longer cared about them.

"What could be wrong? Why is She acting like this?" P-body hovered over Atlas as they descended in the elevator, the wonders of Aperture passing them by in a glass tube. The hum of machinery hung around them, punctuating the uncomfortable silence.

The laboratory had been cleaned and restored to its former glory ever since First God had been, in the words of GLaDOS, 'banished to the moon where no one will ever have to listen to him natter on ever again, and where he will never return from if he has any sense of self-preservation forever, and where he will hopefully freeze and die.' The work had taken Her weeks. Over the years, She had made adjustments here and there as even She reached the limits of Aperture's walls, and her testing had taken Atlas and P-body to almost every corner of the massive complex. Almost. There were floors they were forbidden to visit for some reason.

Was it possible God Herself had reached her own limits? Was she bored with her creations and her Heaven? Was that why one of the recent testing chambers had colored, flashing lights for no apparent reason? Could that explain the electrified floor being moved to a wall in one case?

Atlas set a comforting hand on P-body's chassis and shook his optic back and forth. "It's not our place to know. Hopefully it's just a phase. Soon she'll be just as irritated with us as before, and everything will make sense."

The elevator descended much further than usual, passing floor after floor before finally opening up on a nondescript chamber with a typical Aperture iris-eye door. The door, however, didn't open when the two robots approached it, not even when P-body politely knocked and Atlas just as politely slammed his body against it.

The voice of God filled the room.

"So I hate to disappoint you, but there's no test chamber up ahead." Her voice still sounded tired and detached, but there was a hint of something now, the faint spark of life returning. Whatever was ahead must have been dreadful. Had P-Body doubted God for nothing? "The truth is, I think I have a better use for you. For my sake. You might have noticed a slight drop-off in my attention span lately. You might think I'm slacking off. Don't. I've just been very, very busy, with an experiment that is long in the making."

A panel opened in the wall and a clawed arm reached out, grabbing Atlas's optic by the sides and pulling. The round robot flailed in pained protest, and when P-body ran to try to pull him away, something closed around her midsection before she could get any closer.

"Oh, it's going to hurt. Sorry about that. Except not really, because you always knew it was your fate to suffer for Science."

And it did, but even as every simulated, carefully programmed pain impulse in P-body's consciousness flared up at once, some part of her still rejoiced. God did care. She had a use for them after all.


Mari woke up at dawn. She always did, unless she was sick. Grandmother had taught her how to do it, and when to take cat naps, and when to merely pretend to sleep. The daylight was precious, and neither of them wanted to waste any of it with closed eyes.

She shifted on the old mattress, following her usual ritual. She picked up a stick waiting by the bed and looked around the rotting hotel room, in case anyone else had decided to set up camp. She scanned the usual hiding spots in case they'd been disrupted. Only then did she rise to wash herself in the supply of safe water and hide her hair under her baseball cap.

Michelle was still sleeping.

"Grandma?" This wasn't the first time Michelle had slept in, but it was becoming alarmingly frequent. Mari didn't want to admit she knew why. She knelt down next to the woman with bone-white hair and sun-wrinkled skin, tapping the side of the mattress. Mari knew better than to startle Michelle even when she wasn't feeling well.

The head turned, and a pair of grey eyes blinked up at her. "Oh, you are awake, right?" Mari was answered with a little nod. "Good, okay, just checking…just checking. Grandma, listen, you just stay in again today, alright? It's okay, I know there's good days and bad days."

Michelle's expression hardened, and she struggled to sit up, shaking her head.

"No, no! It's fine! Really. Come on, I'll be fine. I'm a big girl. I've seen you fight, I know how to do it…" Mari knew she was begging and hated herself for it, but whatever look was in her eyes must have worked, as Michelle finally relented and returned to the mattress. "You're going to be fine here, right? I'll leave your knife by the bed, just in case. You just need a-a few more hours of sleep, right?"

Michelle's eyes looked off into the distance right through Mari for a moment, but then she smiled and set a wrinkled hand on Mari's shoulder. "I'll be fine. Come back before dark."

"Okay. I'm going to the marketplace, okay? It's open today. I'm gonna get us something nice." Mari realized too late her voice had cracked for a moment, a good sign that she was hiding something, and Michelle picked up on it, squeezing her shoulder. "No, it'll be fine! It'll be great, okay? Gonna get us a cake. I bet someone's selling flour and sugar and I can steal bird eggs…"

Michelle had to know it. It was impossible to hide anything from her. Mari was going to look for a doctor.


Technically it wasn't a "real"city anymore. The central government had collapsed in the wake of the Combine and the war, and most of the survivors had fled. The city was still there, though, or at least its skeleton was. Buildings leaned and rotted, winked with broken windows and grumbled through barricaded doors. What might have once been a glittering financial district sat clogged in overgrowth as nature tried to reclaim the land. Some who were old enough said the city used to be beautiful before the wars and the troubles, back when people could come and go as they pleased. Others said, good riddance to it all.

That was the official story. It didn't explain everything, and even Mari knew there had to be more to it. But she'd been born in the city, and its current state was all she'd known of it. There was no time to guess about the past.

There were, however, advantages to living in a labyrinth of bent girders and rubble. While those out in the countryside had to grow their own food and wait until the right day to sell it, the city had steel and stone, with whatever else had been salvaged to sell. A scrapper could make a good living digging through ruins to find treasures, and trading them at the makeshift marketplace for food and clothing. Mari's height and short hair gave her an advantage over some of the other scavenger children, and she knew it. It was easy to mistake her for a boy several years older than she was, and a thief who might have tried to steal from a 12 year old girl would have been more reluctant with a teenage boy.

Still, she wasn't stupid. She only carried a few items at a time in a satchel over her shoulder; if anyone stole it or tried to fight her for it, she wouldn't lose everything. She had her hiding places just as everyone else did. She and her grandmother rarely stayed in one place for too long, but there were always little nooks with food stored here or clothing there, just in case.

The problem with the marketplace was that it was all based on barter. Nobody could quite agree on the value of one particular thing, and it was simply easier to haggle and trade. Glass and ceramics could be made into weapons. Wood burned. Paper, well, everyone needed paper for one reason or another, though books were especially valuable. Sometimes a few brave souls would arrive from the countryside to sell their crops, and Mari would look on with envy at the sight of fresh tomatoes. They only came once a month, of course, and never stayed.

There was only one day a month when anyone could enter or leave the city. Of course, no one who had settled there ever left.

Food, medicine, clothing, these were more valuable because everyone needed them. Medicine was the worst, and Mari knew it. It's why she'd spent all day yesterday digging through piles of rubble, braving empty subway tunnels, and risking her own infection searching through an abandoned clinic in an attempt to find something, anything worth trading for her grandmother's life.

Grandma Michelle had always seemed so strong to Mari, tougher than an old woman ought to be, able to stare down street gangs who dared threaten the tiny wayward family. Even the Puppets didn't scare Michelle. But as Mari had grown taller, Michelle seemed to slow down, her coughing fits far more frequent. Grandma needed to sleep more often than not, and it wasn't just the ravages of age. She was sick, far sicker than she wanted to admit to her granddaughter. Her skin had taken on a yellowish tone.

Guilt festered in Mari's stomach, reminding her of how Michelle would never approve of her going out to find a doctor by herself. Some of the physicians who still lived in the city were kind enough to offer their services for a pittance, but as a result, they were always desperately busy and hard to find. Some of the others knew how valuable they were, and charged accordingly.

She'd gathered as much as she thought it was safe to carry. It might have been wiser to hold onto the fruit and vegetable cans, at least some of them still usable as far as she could tell. The pineapple can was her true treasure; she wanted to eat it with Grandma on the day Michelle had decided would be Mari's birthday. It was fine. It was worth it.

She waited in line in the sticky heat for an hour while one of the physicians in a booth stacked with hoarded medicines handed out what the sick could afford. Ahead of her, a heavily pregnant woman shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and a man in his twenties with a scarf over his mouth looked back and forth self-consciously. Mari looked healthier and stronger than some young people in the marketplace, if a little on the thin side, and knew she was getting glares from those who thought a healthy child would monopolize the doctor's time. The smells of sweat and chemicals mixed with the scent of earth coming from a farmer's booth, turning her stomach.

The farmer was selling tomatoes and onions. Her feet were already sore from the hunting she'd done, and it was tempting to leave the line and trade the cans for fresh tomatoes. Maybe Grandma just needed something nutritious, the tempting thought whispered. She shut it away and held her resolve until she reached the front of the line.

"I'm…I'm here about my grandma."

She explained the symptoms to the doctor, a broad-shouldered man who listened to it all silently, nodding. She described the shortness of breath, how thin and frail Michelle looked, how much time she had to spend sleeping. Surely a doctor could fix heart trouble. Doctors could fix everything. When she'd finished, the long pause before he answered her already told her the dreadful answer.

"I'm sorry," the man with a scarf over one eye said as he shook his head, looking down at the cans she'd brought in her satchel. "I can't waste medicine on an old woman, not if that's all you have." He had the good graces to sound compassionate and guilty, and somehow that just made Mari angrier.

"It's not a waste! She needs help, dammit! She's helped me, and I can pay you, I can work for you if you want, please…" Mari stood tall, fists clenched, refusing to cry. She wouldn't be a charity case, and she wouldn't make herself look weak in the teeming, crowded marketplace of tents and makeshift booths filling what might have once been a public park. The trampling of feet had prevented the grass from growing back properly, and the lack of rain all summer had left the ground cracked and dry beneath Mari's black-booted feet.

The man with the patched eye lowered his voice. "I'm sorry, again, but it may be best just to let her move on. She'll be in pain. The symptoms you described suggest she's slowing down, and it's natural. We need to use what we have to keep the young healthy and prevent disease outbreaks so the city can rebuild. But…"

He gestured Mari closer, ignoring her razor-sharp glare. "I can tell you're not going to be swayed, are you? No, you want to save one person, damn the rest. Fine, then. I kind of understand, at least." He pointed a gloved finger at a corner of the marketplace where Mari spotted a colorful figure sitting by himself, holding documents.

"…The ragman?" Mari didn't know his name, and neither did anyone else. He'd only shown up a week ago, but rumors traveled fast. The ragman didn't speak, though he'd gesture frantically towards anyone who passed by as if he had something desperate to say. He wore layers of clothing that hid most of his tall form, a jacket over a shirt, a scarf and dark glasses over his face, another tied around his head, and rags tied here and there in haphazard patterns. Mari had assumed he was selling clothing and just wore his wares, but he protested when she tried to trade him for his jacket, so she came to the conclusion that he was one of those vagrants who simply wore everything he owned. "What the hell do I want to approach him for?"

He unnerved her, with his frantic, frightened hand-gestures, the way he reacted angrily whenever someone mistook him for a beggar and offered him anything. He always gave the impression of being trapped somewhere else.

"It's not him, it's who he works for. Go up to him, and say you want to commission a piece of art. That's it. Don't give your name or make any offers or anything until you see his boss. They say she's a bit frightening and weird herself, and she sure don't work for canned food, but if you're really so desperate to save your grandmother from the inevitability of time, she's your surgeon. She makes miracles happen." The doctor scowled and spit on the dirt floor. "That's what they call 'em, anyway."

Mari half suspected the market doctor was making a fool of her in return for offending him with her pleas and anger. The ragman was a strange homeless man, that was all, someone apparently too proud to sell his clothing to someone who needed them more than he did. Still, she found herself dodging carts and merchants shouting at one another over the value of dandelions for salad and unhealthy-looking fish before she stood there in front of the man, trying to remember what it was she was supposed to say.

But she'd heard rumors, just like everyone else. The Puppets came from somewhere, after all. Someone knew how to replace fingers with blades and offer eyes that could see in the dark, lined with ugly bruises and scars. Someone was responsible for the figures who came out at night, the reasons why the city itself shut down as the sun went down and became something else entirely. There were reasons why Michelle never allowed Mari to wander around at night without a knife and a torch, and then only if absolutely necessary, and those clicking, clacking, laughing reasons had to have a source. Someone who could replace a skeleton with steel could cure an old woman.

Or someone like that could make Mari strong enough to survive even if she couldn't save Michelle. Alternately, someone like that would kill her instantly. She couldn't turn back now, though, for the ragman had seen her.

As he always did whenever someone acknowledged him, the ragman stood up and tried to communicate with wild hand gestures between the two of them. His gloved hands were a bit disproportionately large compared to his body, his legs just slightly unwieldy, and as he flailed she caught a rare glimpse of exposed pale, freckled skin near his cheek where the scarf didn't quite reach. Well, she reflected, there was a white man underneath there somewhere. There was metal, too, at the neck, which was the other part partially exposed, with vents on each side. If he was a Puppet, he was a tame one, and they never came out in the daylight anyway. She wondered how he felt covered in all those layers at the peak of a dry summer.

"I want to c-commission a piece of art." Mari spat out the words all at once, and they felt foreign in her mouth. Maybe this surgeon worked for a few select clients and demanded passwords, like some of the gangs lurking in the bad corners of the city. Following the doctor's instructions, she didn't say anything else, and expected the ragman to keep on pantomiming to her.

Instead he froze where he stood, in an awkward half-gesturing position, lowering his leg and then arm. She couldn't see his face, but somehow got the impression he was smiling as he took her hand and shook it forcefully with more strength than he appeared to have. Something about the hands felt off, like they were leather over bone.

He reached into the bag he always carried, slipping her a printed document. Whoever he worked for had enough electricity to spare running a very old printer, which she hoped was a good sign. She unfolded the document and read it silently.

Hello, my dear prospective client! Since you have found my lovely assistant here, it proves you are someone who appreciates true art and seeks miracles beyond those nature can offer. The individual in front of you is Cero, and he can neither speak nor read, but he will take you where you need to go. Follow him and don't look back, and he will lead you to wonders.


Mari wasn't the first client, of course, but she (or was it a he?) was the first one who didn't frighten Cero in some way or another. He wasn't easily frightened, of course, having been brave enough to sit in that hot, crowded marketplace all by himself day after day until someone was strange or desperate enough to ask for Muse's services. Apparently before he'd been given the job, she'd had her little drones do that job for her. A return client had told him about it, flexing a steel hand lined with spines.

The return clients only approached him at sundown.

He always found himself wanting to talk to the clients, even the odd or upsetting ones, but Mari in particular seemed to invite discussion. She was entirely too young to be spending time with someone like Muse, or Cero for that matter, and he wanted to turn her around and tell her to go find her parents and be sure to wash behind her ears. Respectable people didn't come down here, he wanted to tell her, and lest of all children, who are the future and therefore really shouldn't be rewriting their futures to involve strange and probably illegal medical procedures. Besides, he would have added, she was still growing, and the sort of medications people like him had to take would no doubt stunt her growth. Perhaps to make a point he would have taken off his cloaks to show her what he looked like.

Ah, no, he added mentally, he would never have done that. He'd never do it for anyone. He probably wouldn't warn her away, either, because here he was leading her right to his boss, desperate to be of some use or importance to someone. It was only until he could afford a voice, really, and some upgrades to look more human. Everyone had to make compromises sometimes.

Mari kept looking over her shoulder as they descended down the stairs and walkway towards what was apparently once a subway tunnel. She scratched at marks and scars on her skin and kept looking over at Cero, only to turn away quickly the moment he noticed. Cero pulled his coat around tighter, even though it just made the uncomfortable heat even worse. Of course she would stare. He would stare at himself, too, even covered up. He'd quickly realized that there was a rhyme and a reason to human clothing, a certain methodology he still hadn't quite figured out. Unfortunately, summer clothing usually involved exposing flesh, and if Cero didn't want to look at himself, there was no way anyone else would stand it.

Rats squeaked and scurried away as he led Mari down the dimly lit tunnels towards the system of concrete rooms. He could always find the path back even without one of the escort drones, or at least had learned after the fourth trip down. Most of the underground area was dusty and disheveled, smelling of moss and mold, but Muse kept her laboratory neat, clean, and free of graffiti, old blood stains notwithstanding.

"So how long have you worked for her?"

As if reacting to a reflex he didn't have, Cero opened his mouth to answer and empty air came out. He pointed at his throat as an irritated reminder, and then held up seven fingers.

"Seven…years?" He shook his head vigorously. "Months?" Another head shake. "Days? Seven days?" That earned a nod and a smile, though Cero realized after the fact she wouldn't see his facial expression anyway.

"Oh, so, you're new…that's what I figured. It's not really so scary in the city. I mean, as long as you have someone with you, and it looks like you have powerful friends." Mari insisted on staying right behind Cero, refusing to go ahead of him even if she didn't want to look at him directly. "You look like a Puppet, but I mean…Puppets don't flinch at rats. And they don't hide their alterations."

There was that 'Puppet' word again. One client had been murmuring the word when Cero brought him in, bleeding from the mouth and barely conscious. Another had sneered about them over the course of a long rant about the many enemies she'd lay low with her upgrades, metal hoops clinging around her wrists.

At least Mari seemed content to ask him questions. Some clients acted like he was just another faceless drone. "The card said your name was Cero, right? Do you live down here?" When he nodded, she continued. "You're so lucky. It's nice and cool down here in the subway tunnels, though probably not very safe if you aren't…I mean, if you're not properly armed. My grandmother said there used to be trains running in here. I bet if you go far enough in, you can find a train car…would make a good shelter for a while…"

Where was the expression of pity he was hoping for? How could she be jealous of him, living in the darkness most of the time like some kind of frightened nocturnal animal? What a heartless little girl.

"Your eyes."

He stopped walking for a moment and turned to stare at her.

"…I was right. They keep flickering blue. You've got implants." Cero braced himself for disgust, but Mari's tone just suggested curiosity. "Are they for night vision, since you live down here?"

Cero immediately nodded even if it was a total lie, only then realizing he probably did have some kind of night vision and ought to explore that when he wasn't busy trying to figure out everything else about his life.

"That color blue…it looks kind of like-hey, is this it?"

They'd stopped in front of a nondescript iron door, and Cero surreptitiously glanced at the inside of a scarf before inputting the lock combination. It was an old-fashioned lock that had to be turned in just the right direction, and he hoped Mari didn't notice how many tries it took him before the door opened.

The waiting room, as it were, was stark and painted white, deceptively bright and clean. Cosmo was waiting for Cero as he usually did, and skittered right over, earning a little gasp of shock from Mari. The yellow-eyed robot climbed Cero's legs with his spidery appendages and the man laughed silently, picking up Cosmo and giving the little fellow a perch on his shoulders. It hurt a bit, but it seemed to make Cosmo happy. Cosmo liked high places, for some reason.

The moment he entered, Muse's voice filled the room through a wall-mounted speaker. "Cero, dear doll, did you bring a new patient...Wait, that's a child. You know I don't work on children. The bones aren't fully formed yet. Go away, little girl, I can't give you wings or a dragon tail or whatever it is human children want nowadays. You're all practically beasts at that age anyway, no offense."

Cero winced in embarrassment and even gave Mari a sympathetic shrug, even though she'd denied him the sympathy he deserved just moments earlier. He'd forgotten that rule, that immature humans were to be turned away.

Mari, however, stood where she was on the concrete floor, digging her fingers into her palms. "It's not for me. I've been refused by the doctors up above, and one of them told me you can make miracles happen. I know someone who needs a miracle and I want to commission a piece of art."

There was silence on the other end of the radio, and the double doors on the other end of the waiting room opened. "…Alright." Muse's tone had changed, cautious but curious. "Come on in, little one, and tell me why you came to a fairyland like this. No, Cero, you stay here. Keep watch over dear Cosmo and take off those ridiculous layers. I keep warning you of what will happen if you overheat, self-conscious little thing. I want to speak with our new guest alone."

Muse's vertical white eye peered out from the doorway, blinking slowly, like a cat.

Author's notes: Hi! Glad you've been reading the story up to this point, and I hope you're enjoying it! Much longer chapter this time, as you can see. Apologies for the italics abuse.