VM

by demonicgallade

for listening

4. 61-80

Delicious Humans

"Lark… you know, I… if you want, I could heal you as well."

I glance up from my meal, looking at my Claretta with confusion. What is she talking about all of a sudden?

"I can heal myself," I point out, leaning back over to take another bite.

"Well, what if you're stuck without food? Or you get hurt extra badly?"

I lift my shoulders up and down to indicate I'm indifferent to the idea while I swallow.

"Then you can heal me. That's fine."

"No, I can't, Lark," my Claretta says. "I'll have to teach you to lower your magic resistance first."

I take another large bite, more than a little confused about what all that meant. I am not eating my Claretta, though I should soon. Her limbs have almost grown back to elbows and knees. But first, I have to finish figuring out how my body functions. I'm not stupid; I've noticed I tend to pick up traits from creatures I eat a lot of. I can't control which traits I pick up, though, or at least I don't seem to be able to control it. I can, however, control my diet.

Moving to another part of the forest was risky, but I've managed to set up another home for myself and my Claretta. Many other things surround us, and they are much larger and more aggressive than the nestweavers which had made up so much of my diet before they were replaced by the Fulvia. Now, without the Fulvia to be my meal, I'm back to inferior creatures. Out of them all, I've decided to hunt what my Claretta calls 'katzels.' Slightly larger than I am, these four-legged furry creatures are sleek pack hunters with exceptional hearing and speed, the latter of which is of particular interest. Chowing on them for days has improved my mobility significantly, as well as given me claws on the ends of my fingers and toes, which are a welcome compromise between human hands and the bladed nestweaver forelimbs I previously possessed. Much less useful is how my ears have slowly moved to the top of my head, getting all triangular and fuzzy. Katzel fur is brownish, blending in with the dirt and trees of the area, but as usual even the parts of my body copied from other living things end up an inky, all-consuming black. It's convenient at night, I suppose, but the vast majority of the time is day.

Either way, katzels are phenomenally fast, and they have the agility needed to make sharp turns at those speeds. At first I could not catch them in my webs, as they can somehow detect and avoid them at the last second. There is a limit to how sharply they can turn, however… and since discovering that, I have been collecting them by the dozens. The more I eat, the faster I manifest their attributes.

"What is magic resistance?" I ask once my current meal struggles its last.

"It's, um, how well you resist magic," my Claretta answers rather uselessly. "Yours is too high, and I can't get through it."

"You said those things already," I complain. "What is 'resisting magic?'"

"It makes spells cast on you not work, Lark."

I scowl.

"Mine can't be that good then. I got burned by that fire guy. You said that was magic, right?"

"Yes, but it wasn't magic cast on you," my Claretta clarifies. "When a thermomancer throws flames at you, they cast their magic on an area nearby to produce the flames. By the time it reaches you, it's not magic anymore. Just heat. Your magic resistance would only apply if they tried to cook you from the inside."

"So you can't cast on me because… all your magic is on my insides? Fulvia tried to get you to stop, though. You healed her anyway."

"I… well, something you did to her weakened her magic resistance. Wait, you understood us back then?"

"No," I grumble. "I remember what you said, though, so I understand it now. Anyway, I do not need healing. I want your…"

I don't know the word for it, so I pantomime aiming and firing the ranged weapon that my Claretta and the Netta used. The one that the Netta pierced death with! My Claretta doesn't answer for a while, which is fine by me since I have time to finish off my katzel and move to the next one.

"...I can't show you how to make or fire a bow without arms, Lark," my Claretta eventually says.

I scowl at her, thinking on that. I haven't really been eating her lately anyway. She has become more like a flower than a Katzel. Rings of flowers are planted all around her, in fact, carried here by me whenever I find one I like. A different sort of pleasure than food, one that doesn't sharply vanish the moment after it arrives. Something my Claretta and I made together. I'd like to make a 'bow' with her as well.

"Okay," I say. "I'll stop eating you. You can regrow your arms. Legs too, if you want."

There's a moment of silence before I notice my Claretta let out a shaky, slow breath. I glance her way between bites, noticing that eye-water coming out of her face again. Curiously, I finish off my meal before plodding over to her, curling up on her chest as I so often do.

"Claretta?" I ask. "What are you doing?"

"Th-thank you, Lark," she blubbers. "Thank you."

"What does that mean?" I ask. "I've never heard that word before."

She chuckles a little, though it comes out as a series of chokes. More eye-water stuff. It makes me worried for some reason. Is it stopping her from breathing right? I hope she'll be okay.

"W-when you thank someone, Lark, you show them… appreciation. You thank someone when they do something nice for you."

"Oh, okay," I murmur. "So why are you leaking water out of your face? You've done that a few times."

"That either means I'm sad, or it… means I'm happy."

Aren't those opposites? That's kind of confusing, isn't it? Ugh, humans.

"You're not going to die, though?"

Another strained chuckle.

"No, Lark. I… I think I'll actually be okay."

Well, that's good. I settle into a comfortable torpor, enjoying the rise and fall of my bed as my Claretta's breathing starts to stabilize once again. She'll be okay. She'll grow her limbs back and teach me more things. Maybe we'll hunt together, maybe I'll let her 'cook' the bodies like she keeps asking about. Yeah… that could be fun. She's more than a meal. More than a flower, even. I can't replace her. There is only one. It would be nice if she could come with me when I'm hunting away from home.

I'm sure she'd like that too.

Time passes as we rest until eventually one of my long-distance webs shakes and goes slack, signaling that something broke it. I grumble softly, quite comfortable on top of my Claretta's sleeping form. If I leave now she'll probably wake up before I get back, and I'll miss the start of her songs! Still, I have to make sure nothing dangerous is headed our way. Regretfully, I rise, rubbing my eyes as I plod on over to follow the thread.

It isn't long before I hear the voices, and terror fills me.

"Where's it at now?"

"Still heading this… no, it just stopped. I think it heard you."

Humans. Oh, no. Are they here to take my Claretta like they took the Fulvia? Will they be prey, or will they be death?

"It stopped?" another voice asks. "If it heard us it wouldn't stop."

"Unless it's our target. Or something like it."

Target. I don't know that word, but it has a dangerous feel to it. Should I just run? Turn around, grab my Claretta, get out of here? ...No. I just built my new territory! I don't want to leave again. I want to capture the humans! They're so delicious, and so interesting! They're like nestweavers or katzels in that they all look the same and work together, but they're also like my kind in that each one of them is a vastly different threat. Maybe these would be dangerous, but I can tell by their voices they aren't the death-slaying humans. My lips curl upwards. Ah, I hope I can eat them!

I resume my slow trek forward, layering more and more traps around the area as I approach, because why not? Even if they can break the webs, by forcing them to break a web I stack the fight that tiny bit more in my favor, buying myself that tiny bit of extra time. It all matters, when death is on the line. Hmm… should I try talking to them again? I guess it was fun the first time, and they already know I'm here. So why not?

"What's a target?" I ask a few traps later. I'm close enough to track them by sound now, so it seems safe enough.

They stop moving. By their footsteps I count five of them… no, six? If there's six, the sixth is more than a little difficult to hear.

"Are you Lark?" a voice hisses, calm and sure.

"Yeah!" I confirm, surprised. "How did you know that? I haven't told you my name!"

"Watcher's eyes, it sounds like one of your sisters, Vita."

"Don't fucking say that," what I assume is the 'Vita' answers.

"Answer my question, please," I insist. My Claretta says people like it when you say 'please' after demanding something. Well, those weren't her exact words, but that's what I got from it.

"The last people to come here told us your name," the hissy voice says.

Oh, wow. Why didn't I think of that? These humans must come from the same place! They can talk to each other!

"So… have you all seen Fulvia?" I ask, starting to slowly circle around them as I build more and more webs. "They stole her, you know. She's mine."

"Fulvia is not yours," the hissing voice responds. "You ate her. You tortured her. You nearly killed her."

"None of those things mean she's not mine," I growl.

"None of those things mean she is yours either," the hiss counters. "How about you come out here where we can see you, and we'll have a chat?"

"I got attacked the last time I did that," I point out. "Do any of you have fire? I hate fire."

The hissy one lets out a wheezing chuckle.

"I hate fire too, actually. No, none of us have fire."

Oh, awesome, an actually sane human! Plus, if they can't burn through my webs, they're going to be way easier to capture and eat.

"What do you want to talk about?" I ask, continuing to build my traps.

"She's circling around," the Vita reports. "Probably making more webs. Also, I want to amend my threat assessment higher."

"Understood, Vita. Lark, I want to talk about you. Your species. What you're doing here. Would you like to talk about any of that?"

"Sure, I guess," I answer, unconcerned. It sounds kind of fun, actually. "I like talking. I usually only get to talk with Claretta."

"She's alive?" a new voice asks, deeper than the others by quite a margin.

"Of course she is," I snap. "I won't let her die."

Finishing my circle, I approach through the brush and poke my head out, spotting the humans in a decently-sized clearing, or at least what passes for a clearing with the tree canopy choking out light from above. Most of them spot me immediately but none of them attack, so I step the rest of the way out of the brush, standing up straight. The humans are all quite interesting. There's a soft-looking one, there's a huge one covered in chitin that I know isn't part of its actual body, another tall one with a huge sharp thing who smells extra tasty, one hiding up in a tree with a bow that's difficult to hear or smell, a shorter one with a funny thing around its neck and finally the shortest one of all. That one smells very strange, like the other humans in some ways but in others, it isn't like them at all. Whenever I look at it, my eyes keep flicking to its sides, trying to catch movement that I sense but do not see. A mix of expressions are visible on their faces, but the only one I really recognize or comprehend is from the strange short one: fear and fury, fight or flight. It's a state I know quite well, both in myself and my prey.

"Shit," the armored one whispers. "I didn't expect the limb-eater to be cute."

"Cute?" I ask. "I don't know that word either."

"Interesting morphology," the soft one mutters to itself. "I wonder how much of it was beforehand and how much is a result of diet. And the skeletal structure..."

"Keep your comments to yourselves," snaps neck-frills, who is apparently also the hissy one. "Lark, do you know why you and your kind are here?"

"I don't understand the question," I answer. "I've been here since I hatched, which is forever."

"Do you have any goals? Objectives?"

"To live with Claretta and eat good food," I respond. "Like you guys!"

"Like us? You plan to eat us?" the hissy one presses.

I give it a flat look.

"Of course. Do you guys not eat each other? Haven't you figured out how delicious you are yet?"

"You can't eat someone just because they taste good," the shortest one growls. Apparently that one is the Vita, by the voice. It's also demonstrably wrong, so I ignore it.

"Lark," the hissy one presses, once again ignoring my question. "Are there any others of your kind that are intelligent? Any others that speak?"

"I don't know," I respond with a shrug. "Maybe, but none that I've seen. They're all stupid, they just run at whatever's closest and don't even taste very good."

It lets out a raspy sigh in response, glancing back at the other humans for a moment before speaking again.

"Okay. Executive decision time. Lark, I want you to come with us. We'll ask you more questions and poke at you a bit, but… you'll be safe, and we'll give you plenty of food."

"No," the Vita protests immediately. "Bad idea, Seong."

"Really, Vita?" the 'Seong' asks. "This from the girl who tried to negotiate with brain parasites?"

"Vita did what now?"

"How much of the food will be humans?" I ask.

"None of it," the Seong hisses. "You won't be allowed to eat any more humans."

"Well in that case, no," I answer frankly. "You're my favorite."

"The alternative is death," the Seong insists. "Come with us, or get killed by us here."

I take a deep breath, tensing my muscles. They don't smell that tough.

"Seong," the squishy one murmurs. "I'm a no-go on offense."

"Then support, Penelope. Come on, Lark. We can help each other."

"Or," I retort, lips curling back to reveal black, curved teeth, "I can help myself."

I pick my first target and lunge. The humans spring into action, weapons swinging my way all at once. I haven't been sitting around and waiting for food to fall into my traps, though. I've been proactively consuming each and every good meal I come across, amassing as much strength as I can as fast as I can. Six humans against me at once? What do I care? I'm stronger, I'm smarter, and lately I've become much, much faster.

My teeth sink into flesh, and the battle begins.

Void Beast

I've never felt souls that fill me with such abject dread as the creatures from Hiverock.

I've felt souls that I know are dangerous plenty of times. Large souls, painful souls, deadly souls, ugly souls. I've looked at the core of a person and felt disgust, revulsion, or outright hate… but not dread. Not fear. Yet at the core of whatever I am, some instinct knows I should fear these monsters.

Their souls are like a void. Many of them are just a void: a blackness so dense and so hungry that there is nothing else to their being at all. The void consumes, the void grows. Nothing but mindless automatons of hunger, with a core so dense and so dark that I'm terrified even looking too deeply into it could get me sucked inside, never to return.

The monster known as Lark is also a void, horrible and starving. Yet orbiting around the inexorable pull of that perfectly dark sphere are other shards, bits of souls deformed and broken that act like a rotating shield between the creature's mind and its all-consuming hunger. Like leaves caught up in a whirlwind, they spin around and around, moving too fast for gravity to take them and pull them in. I recognize some of the bits and pieces from the parts Fulvia's soul is missing, jagged fragments of personhood malshapen and distorted by their transfer from human to monster. Now part of the beast's soul, I feel them slowly growing on their own, though into what I have no way of knowing and no desire to find out. This thing was born, what, a couple months ago? Yet it's already powerful enough to put me on edge.

I bet Penta would have been all for Seong's little offer. It's a monster that's a person, same as us. I get the idea behind it, too: if we can capture Lark alive, we can learn how these Hiverock monsters tick and how best to kill them. Skyhope needs that advantage if these things aren't going to slow down their growth.

Penta's not here though, and I want this soul-mutilator dead. Every part of my being screams to kill it or run.

I'm going to kill it.

The tiny freak dodges four different weapon swings before tearing into Bently's hamstring, pulling out a small fragment of soul alongside the flesh and swallowing them together. In the same motion webs shoot out from its fingers, latching between us and restricting our limbs. Orville of all people nails a bowshot in one of the monster's arms as Seong draws a liquid-coated knife and cuts the rest of us free, webs hissing with every stroke of their blade.

"Fucking focus!" Seong snaps at us, tossing a dart with their free hand to force the monster back.

Damn it, they're not wrong. I swallow my revulsion, shifting to position myself behind Norah to help her cover Penelope while she heals Bently. We're already on the back foot after letting this thing draw first blood. We need to take the momentum.

Thankfully, we luck out and the monster makes a dive towards Norah, trying to bite right through the armor around her knee. A loud clang rings out as its horrible maw collides with her talent, the monster recoiling in pain and surprise as the teeth fail to penetrate. Norah and I each jab from a different side while I also reach a couple tentacles out to grab its horrifying soul.

It twists its head with startling speed, teeth snapping around my tentacle and biting it off. I scream, pain flaring through my soul.

"Vita!" Penelope fumes. "Don't you dare get hurt yet, I'm not done with Bently!"

"I'm fine!" I snarl back, watching as the monster tries to swallow part of my being. Without flesh or a soul core to stabilize it, however, the tendril-tip just phases through the beast's mouth, quickly disintegrating into nothing. How did it even bite me in the first place?

Lark is already jumping back, dodging another arrow from Orville while pulling the first out of its shoulder. Black blood splatters out of the wound, and as it twists to fire webs again Seong catches it in the rib with a dart. The horrible little thing snarls in pain, immediately twisting and fleeing into the brush, out of sight. It's way faster than all of us, except possibly for Seong, but they decline to chase it down alone.

"It's in full retreat," I report between clenched teeth.

"What the fuck was that?" Seong snaps, turning on us. "I thought you were a team of hunters, but you got caught like kids with your pants down! What happened to teamwork? Where was your formation? Your strategy? Bently, you didn't even fucking swing at it!"

"B-but… she's a little girl!" Bently protests, still on one knee as Penelope finishes healing his leg. "We hunt monsters, right? That was a person! We talked to her!"

"Yes, Bently," Seong sighs. "You're right. We hunt monsters, and that was a person. But it's a monster, too. You can be both, and eating other people alive is a damn sure way of accomplishing it. If you think you're never going to have to cut something that walks on two legs and can say hello, then quit. The rest of you! Penelope, why the fuck did we not have support spells on us before that thing ever moved? You had more than enough time to get your ass casting."

"I was trying to kill it," Penelope growls. "It seems to be resistant to just about every disease I can conceive, however."

"Well then you give up ten minutes ago and you start casting goddamn support magic because that is your job. We're not here so you can get off on your power trip fetish. Norah, you are too fucking slow. Good block on its second pass, but you need to be blocking everything. We're only fighting one target, you have no excuse. Vita, don't scream like a little girl in combat, it's a waste of breath and you'll distract your allies. I shouldn't even have to tell you that. Orville..."

They glance up at our archer.

"...Good shot."

Orville nods back, stoic on the outside but with pride and smugness radiating out of his soul.

"Are you done throwing out insults in the middle of the mission?" Penelope snaps.

"No," Seong hisses. "But experience tells me it's better to not give idiots more than one thing to try and learn at a time. Vita, did my poison finish it off?"

I shake my head, swallowing anger and shame. Seong is making me feel like the girl that just walked into the guild hall again. It's… easy to see why they and Remus are friends.

"Doesn't feel like it. I think it was hurting for a while there, but it stopped for a moment to eat something and now it's fine."

"Shit," Seong curses. "The report said fast healing, but that's real fucking fast if it shrugged off a poison like that. Do you think the healing is tied to eating?"

"Definitely is," I confirm. "I'm sure of it."

"Okay then," Seong nods. "That's bad. So what's our plan?"

"Don't you already have one, oh great and wise leader?" Penelope mocks.

"Yes, I do. But if you want to live to be half my age you need to start thinking all by yourself. Quit relying on your talents and rely on your head. The forest isn't going to keep rolling over and letting you kill it."

"We're not trainees, Seong," Penelope seethes, standing up after finishing with Bently's leg. "We're not verbal punching bags for you to stroke your ego on. Vita and I have saved your life and you haven't done the reverse. Do not act like you've earned the right to insult us."

The short, venomous hunter shakes their head.

"I don't need your permission, third lady. I will do anything I have to in order to keep you and your team alive. If that includes hurting your feelings, then too fucking bad. Now plan."

We all do as they say, shutting up to think for a moment. Bently is actually the first person to speak up.

"I… I think we should just find that person we're supposed to save and get out of here. She's our primary objective anyway, right?"

"No," I protest immediately. "We can't let that thing live or it'll be even harder to deal with the next time. It grows way too fast."

"Pot calling the kettle black," Orville murmurs. I shoot him a glare and he shrugs.

"Bently may actually have a point, even if it's entirely unintentional on his part," Penelope comments. "I agree we need to kill or capture that little creature, but we should secure Claretta first. The prior team noted that the monster grabbed her and ran once it thought it could no longer win, and that's our worst-case scenario. With Claretta secured, it's either forced to fight us or flee without her, both of which are preferable to what happened last time."

"Do we know where Claretta is?" Seong asks.

"I'm not sensing anybody right now, but I'd bet she's that way," I say, pointing. "There are a ton of captured monsters around that are alive but stuck in webs. They're thickest in a sort of semi-circle shape, which I'm going to guess extends into a full circle outside my range. The closer to the center of the circle, the more the captured monsters thin out. I say we start by checking the middle. Plus, if we kill everything between here and there, the little horror won't have as much to heal off of."

"I think that's a good plan," Orville agrees, "but we need to just admit we have no reliable way to put that thing down for good. We should aim for the head and kill it before it can heal if we can, but if it decides to run away, can any of us stop it?"

"Not safely," Seong concurs, nodding.

"But it needs to die," I insist.

"Then aim to skewer it through the skull and don't miss," Orville answers, shrugging. "First priority is rescue, though. Right? I say we grab our captured hunter and flee through the area we clear on the way there. If that Lark thing moves to stop us, we kill it or fight it off. If it doesn't, whatever. We're just not equipped to go out of our way to chase after it, especially not on its own turf."

I grit my teeth, wishing he wasn't so right. He is, though. My soul aches, wounded in a way nothing else I've ever encountered has managed. My tendrils extrude from my core, but thankfully aren't part of the core itself. I don't think I keep any vital parts of the soul in them. They're still me, though, and losing a part of myself has me both furious and terrified. The damn thing didn't even have the decency to swallow it! My tendril-tip just dissolved into dusty soul-stuff that I couldn't pick back up. Slowly but surely the injured tentacle heals, drawing power from my body and core to replenish itself. I don't want to get anywhere near that thing's mouth again, though, and I'd be an idiot to try and grab at its soul another time. I'm back to being a subpar spearwoman for my team, even if one that's significantly stronger and faster than the last time I was limited in this way.

I wish I could just sic an army of Revenants on the damn thing. ...Although I wonder how its bite would affect them.

We move out, systematically killing (and thereby letting me eat) every monster from here to the center of Lark's territory. The little fucker doesn't seem to like it, making prodding attacks at us but never fully committing. What little non-soul damage it does is healed up by Penelope, and while the soul damage will stack up eventually the little monster only breaks off tiny bits of core with each bite. My team should be okay for a while. Unfortunately, we have just as much trouble. What little damage we do it heals by running well outside our range and snacking on one of the meals we simply don't have the time or stamina to get to first. The damn thing is just built for speed, and even Seong struggles to get a killing blow without their poisons working fast enough. It's looking like a solid stalemate, though that means we should be able to at least rescue Claretta and get out of here.

It's not enough, though. I do not like having an intelligent, soul-damaging monster running around. That just sounds like exactly the sort of thing that will bite me in the ass down the line. Perhaps literally. Our progress is slow, with endless webs, rock traps, log traps, pit traps, and countless other annoyances in our way that are certainly dangerous but not difficult to spot when we're looking for them. This 'Lark' is clearly used to fighting animals, not people as smart as it is.

Or 'she' is, as the case may be. My senses don't get an impression one way or the other about it, which is something I've started to notice I do pick up on sometimes. Not always, though. I'm not sure why. Still, with the horrible little gremlin running around naked everywhere, the biology of the matter is clearly on display. A hungry little girl, huh? I'd definitely sympathize if it wasn't trying to kill me. ...Or if it didn't have an uncomfortably high chance of succeeding. Eventually, however, I feel our goal on my senses and things quickly start to get more exciting.

"Primary target in range," I announce quietly. Lark seems to have scary good hearing, and we don't want it to know any more than it has to.

The team nods in acknowledgement, tensing up. They're still a long way away, and the closer we get to this thing's home the more likely it is to get aggressive. We walk in a tight clump, Norah standing between the direction I point and the rest of us at all times. I keep my finger pointed at Lark, of course, a constant real-time update of the monster's position that also happens to make my hand and the rotating set of tentacles supporting it really damn tired.

The pain pays off, though. It takes a risky rush at Orville to try and remove a limb so Penelope can't quickly heal it, and pays for the attempt. Seong shoves a knife clear through the little bastard's throat, and it runs off absolutely gushing blood.

"That one's coated in an anticoagulant," Seong hisses. "Should fuck with its crazy healing rate, and I'm pretty sure I nailed a goddamn artery. If that doesn't finish it off it's decapitation or nothing."

"Still moving," I report. "...Just ate something. Now it's running to eat something else. I dunno, I think it's going to live. It looks like it's clearing out a bunch of its food at once, at least?"

"Watcher fucking damn it!" Seong seethes. "Does it not need blood or something?"

"She certainly has a lot of it, if not," Penelope comments wryly.

"All of the Hiverock egg monsters are this durable," Orville realizes. "We just don't notice because they fight to the death when injured instead of running off to heal up. But what if there are other intelligent ones? Or what if any of the ones that eat humans and survive end up intelligent?"

"Shit, man, that sounds like a High Templar problem," Norah groans. "Let's just get this done and live happily ever after, please?"

"You picked the wrong fucking job for that, little lady," Seong hisses.

"Little lady? You barely kiss my belly button, you old fart."

"Can we focus?" I snap.

Normally I'm fine with banter, but we could seriously die this time. My team shuts up and I continue leading them towards the human on my radar, not being attacked by the monster even a single time the rest of the way. I feel it off at the periphery of my senses, devouring endless hordes of trapped monsters. At least Seong seems to have hurt it pretty badly.

Finally, we break through some bushes and spot our target. A young woman, probably somewhere in her twenties. She's blonde, freckled, and was probably at some point fairly tall back when she had all her limbs. The poor woman is webbed to the ground by a lake that makes up a majority of the clearing, flowers planted in colorful rows around where she rests.

"Are you Claretta?" Seong asks, stepping forward. "We're here to save—"

"Stop!" the woman wheezes out. "Webs here. Can't see…"

"We've got fifteen seconds until—" I start to report, quickly cutting myself off. My attention is stolen by the monster suddenly accelerating way beyond the speed it had shown previously.

"Scratch that, contact!" I bark, everyone peeling their eyes away from Claretta barely in time to see Lark blitz out of the brush, aiming right for Bently's throat. Norah is there in a flash, putting her shield up only for Lark to grab the air and fly right past her and towards our healer.

Webs. It has to be. My senses are crazy good now (I mean, my soul literally hatched into an eye, that has to count for something, right?) but I can't see them at all. There's no time to think about it. I make a jab towards Lark a moment too late.

Penelope puts up an arm to block and Lark just bites the hand clean off, clawing through her throat anyway. It happens in an instant. There's no time to process, panic, or scream.

I ready a tentacle to catch Penelope's soul as I stab at the monster again, though it jumps away with a gleeful swallow. Our healer's remaining hand moves to stop the blood, but she's casting half as fast with half her fingers. I will my mouth to produce saliva, blowing spit in an arc around us, the drops beading on a few of the wire-like webs. There they are. The webs themselves seem invisible. How thin did she get them?

"I win," the tiny monster gloats, leaping around and laying out yet more of those damn threads. "That one is the only one that heals. You'll all tire before I run out of food. I win! More humans for me! Claretta! Make sure the rest of them don't die!"

Claretta takes a deep breath, and starts to sing.

"...No, Claretta," Lark growls. "Not now. The one that's bleeding can die."

The blood gushing from Penelope's neck starts to slow as her song continues regardless. Seong pulls down their collar and starts spitting as well, cutting through any revealed wire-webs with their acidic knife.

"Claretta, I said not now!" Lark snaps. "Claretta!"

We book it her way, Bently scooping up Penelope as Claretta buys her the time to complete her own spell, fighting back against the multiple open arteries. How Penelope remained conscious with multiple gushing arteries, help or no, I'll have to ask later. For now we follow Seong, forming a wedge through the traps to grab the brave hunter that's rescuing her own fucking rescuers.

"Claretta!" Lark shrieks, almost desperately. "Claretta, what are you doing? Stop! Stop! They're here to take you away!"

The monster dashes forward to intercept us, panic filling its features. It's so fucking fast! I whip a tentacle out to try and distract it, jabbing with my spear as the rest of my team turns to cut it. We land a few blows, bleeding the child horror. It leaps backwards.

"Claretta! Don't go with them! Claretta!"

Confusion and terror spread across the monster's face, and it hesitates. We waste no time capitalizing on that, landing more cuts.

"Stop stealing her!" it begs us. "Stop it! Claretta!"

Sing, sing, and sing some more. It's all the broken hunter does in response. Bently scoops her up as well, one biomancer in each arm as we turn and make a fighting retreat from the area. Element of surprise lost, the battle falls out of Lark's favor and into ours, wounds on her small body stacking up with very few nearby creatures to eat and heal from.

Wailing and begging, her voice screaming raw, a monster cries as something she loves is taken away.

Void Child

"Claretta! Claretta!"

I scream as loudly as I can, barely choking the name out between sobs. My blood drips on the earth and I know I have to run, I have to go eat something or I'll die… but Claretta! They're taking my Claretta! They're taking her, and she's helping them, and I don't understand why!

I don't understand any of it. Water pours from my eyes, just as it did for Claretta and the Fulvia so many times. Is this why? Is this what that meant? Is this how they felt?

I don't understand.

An arrow flies my way, stabbing through my belly. I have to go. I have to go! No, they have my Claretta! No, no, no! I'm barely even thinking when I turn and run, fleeing to my closest stored meal, hateful instincts pulling me to survival, to food. I have to heal, I have to go back and kill them all. I have to save Claretta! She's… she's silly, and she doesn't understand that she's leaving me! Right? That has to be it.

I tear into my meal, flashes of joy flowing through me as the gnawing hunger within is abated for a glorious instant with each bite. I ignore the feeling, the water running down my cheeks being so much more right for the circumstances. Over and over I and the humans repeat the dance, but my increasingly desperate and panicked attacks only leave me worse off with each engagement. I land hits, I know I do, but… Claretta heals them. If I don't get her back soon, they'll be out of my territory and I won't have any trapped snacks to heal up with. My odds of saving her will just get worse and worse until she's gone forever. I can't let that happen, but I don't know how to stop it.

It doesn't take long. Soon, they're beyond the reach of my webs and it only helps them move faster. I follow. I have to follow. What else can I do? I need to calm down and think. Think. I can't go ahead of them and make traps because I don't know where they're going. What else can I do? How else can I beat a bunch of humans? I don't know how much time passes, but I'm eventually given my answer: an island starts to pass overhead and I remember that humans have to sleep.

These ones don't. They keep pressing on, knowing I'm following them. But they can't do that forever, right? Lots of creatures I've seen are like that. They eventually run out of energy well before I do. As long as I keep eating, I can keep going. Humans can't, though. There's a limit to how much food Claretta can eat at once. There's a limit to how long she can stay awake before she loses consciousness. The same should go for all humans, shouldn't it? It does. It has to. Otherwise, I'm doomed.

I follow them. Night and day I keep on their trail, tracking them by sound and circling their position. They know I'm here, the Vita can sense me from further than I can hear them. It doesn't matter, though; as long as I keep something between me and them they can't do anything about me. I will outlast them.

Another day, and they start to slow down. Another day and I attack, prodding at their defenses and testing their strength. Half of them seem exhausted, but the other half are fine: the Seong, the Bently, and the Vita still fight with the same vigor of the first day. Not the rest of them, however. I'll keep waiting, keep wearing them out. I'll get you back, Claretta.

Finally, another day later, when the sky-ground comes they finally stop. I grin, lying down to wait and rest myself. The island above is massive and the night will be long and dark. Let them get comfortable. Let them sleep. That's when I'll strike. I lie silently and pick my moment. I can't see them, only hear and smell them, and the sounds from their camp are quiet. I can only guess when the best time to attack is, but I am an experienced hunter and my guesses are very, very good. I move forward.

"Go away!" Claretta suddenly shouts into the darkness. "Don't get any closer!"

"Claretta!" I call out, breaking into a sprint. What are they doing to her!? Is she okay?

"Fuck you, Lark!" she shrieks. "Get out of here! Leave us alone!"

Wait, me? I skid to a halt.

"Claretta? What—"

"LEAVE! Go back to your fucking spider nest and dunk your own head in a lake for once! Just go!"

I don't know what it is that made me take a step backwards at those words. The raw, hoarse terror to her voice, perhaps. The Claretta I know is always… calm. Measured. She chooses her words carefully, always putting me at ease. She knows better than to do otherwise, which is why she's so much better than the Fulvia. She's smart. I barely understand tone anyway, and she knows that too. I'll always respond better when she's calm. This sound, though, this tone… it isn't calm in the slightest, and I absolutely do understand it.

It's the same sort of scream I made when I begged her to come back.

"I… Claretta, I like you!" I remind her desperately. "We were going to do things together! We—"

"Shut up! I don't care! Why would I care? You stupid fucking child! You ate me!"

Another step back. I'm terrified and I don't know why. I should just rush forward, kill the other humans and take her back, right?

"I was going to let you—"

"Lark," Claretta seethes, an unbridled hate oozing through her words, "you made me choose between torturing my friend and watching her die. People are going to come for you, and they are going to kill you, and there is nothing in the entire world I want more than that."

I turn and start to run the other way.

"I hope they bring me your corpse," Claretta murmurs, "but I don't deserve that kind of closure."

I run and I run and I don't stop. I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't understand I don't understand I don't understand I don't understand—

I don't know how long I flee for. Days, maybe. At some point my terror shifts to anger, pushing me to follow my baser instincts. How dare she hate me? After I spared her, after I made her special to me! With these thoughts I tear my teeth into everything I come across, not bothering to go for limbs or consider my approach. I'm just a whirlwind of death and fury, ripping apart my prey like any other stupid member of my kin. Darkness forms in the day, dropping water on me like the sky itself is crying.

I don't even know what I'm fighting when the rain falls. Rain. Claretta described it to me once, but I've never seen it before. Gloomy, dreary, and cold. A perfect mix for my battle with this… five-legged bug thing? Why am I even trying to eat this? It looks gross. I don't want to look like that.

I jump away, making distance until it stops chasing me. The anger is gone and nothing replaces it. What do I do now? Where do I go? Should I bother going anywhere?

Where am I?

There are no landmarks in the forest, not when every inch is covered with dense layers of bushes and trees. It's part of why I marked and webbed such a huge territory; the only other way for me to even tell what direction I'm going is to find a clearing and look up at the sky, orienting myself with the islands above. Those change, however, and after many days of… whatever I was doing, I don't recognize any of the ones close enough to tell me what direction I'm pointing.

Does it really matter, though? I have nowhere to go. I need to find water, I guess, if I want to live. ...Do I want to live? Do I want to do anything?

Yes. I decide yes. I want to live. But what will I do? I've lost my Claretta, and she's the only Claretta there is. Not the only human, though, I suppose. Claretta was kind, Claretta taught me things, Claretta sang for me. Maybe there's another human like that as well. I don't know how to find any, though, so I just keep wandering. Ambling. Eating anything in my path that looks powerful or interesting. I have no plan other than to keep walking in the same direction until I find a human or something kills me.

...Or I walk off the edge of the island, I suppose. Claretta said we're on an island, too, just like the ones in the sky.

More days pass like this, and I once again don't bother to keep track of how many. I suppose I could count them all if I wish; I don't forget things like the Fulvia did. I don't really want to think too hard about the past however-many days, though. Not now, and probably never again. It hurts too much. It scares me too much, though what exactly scares me I'm still not sure. Eventually, however, my non-strategy lucks out and bears fruit. I find a human.

"Damn," a deep voice swears. "It ran into the forest."

To my left I hear a scuffling in the underbrush and quickly pounce on it, grabbing a small animal between my claws and pulling it into the light. Brown and fuzzy, the creature's long, floppy ears and powerful hind legs seem like decent enough traits, though the thing is so tiny and weak I suspect it spends more time running away than catching any prey regardless.

"Well… fuck. I guess I'll catch it next time."

Oh right, the human! That's a human voice! I found one! I quickly bind up my next meal and carry it under one arm as I scurry towards the sound.

"What were you trying to catch?" I ask.

I hear my quarry pause. I'm so happy to have found one! Either it's wonderful like the Claretta and I'll get to keep it, or it's not and I'll get to eat it.

"Um, hello?" it asks. "Is someone there?"

"Yes," I confirm. "I am here. My name is Lark. Hello!"

"Um, miss… Lark?" the human asks, confused. "You sound way too young to be playing this far from town, you're going to get hurt if you do that. Come on out of the forest now, yeah?"

"Okay," I agree.

Seems sensible enough, I do get hurt all the time. But what does it mean by 'out of the forest?' Into a clearing, probably? There are patches of forest all over without the otherwise ever-present bushes and branches. Sometimes it's because of bodies of water, sometimes it's because of rocks, sometimes a huge monster recently smashed the area and sometimes I'm not sure why the trees are gone at all. The areas are never particularly large, but they're welcome places to rest, collect one's self, and…

My train of thought screeches to a halt as I push through the thick brush into… not a clearing. Or perhaps the ultimate clearing? I can see so far! There are so many things out in front of me I can't see the forest on the other side! There might not even be forest on the other side! It's too much at once. I've never seen this many new things at the same time since the day I was born. I have to… oh, wait, the human is running away.

"Help!" it screams, sprinting towards… I don't even know. The long, yellow grass? The odd square stones? The tiny, tiny creatures… no, the far away creatures that I can barely make out moving between them? It doesn't matter, really.

"Quit running," I command, shooting webs out of my fingers and catching it in the back.

With my other hand I shoot webs into the ground, anchoring my smaller body down to manage the weight difference before I tug. To my annoyance, I only manage to yank the human's cloak off. Right, the detachable skin thing that they do. Whatever, I just shoot more webs and grab it for real this time, pulling it back towards me. The human lands on its back with a heavy thud, and I quickly web it up before showing it the other animal I just caught.

"Question. What's this?"

The human is silent for a while, looking around in a wild panic for a few moments before hesitantly answering.

"A… rabbit?"

"Rabbit," I repeat, memorizing the word. "Okay. Thanks."

I sit down on the human's chest, biting off the first of the limbs on the 'rabbit.' It screams in distress, which I'm used to ignoring by now, even with my sensitive hearing. It's a pretty normal reaction for my food. I web up its mouth a bit more.

"W-what are you?" the human asks. "What are you doing?"

"I'm Lark," I say, slower this time so he can understand easier. "I told you that already. And right now, I'm deciding whether to keep you or eat you."

I bite off the rabbit's other leg, swallowing immediately. Not that big or tasty, but food is food and I kind of like how it looks. Like the Katzels, but a bit deformed? And smaller, which is... appealing somehow? I don't know, I just kind of like it even though I know larger creatures are more likely to fare well in combat. The human, meanwhile, seems to be thinking rapidly, its panicked mind coming to a decision that would define the rest of its life. It takes a deep, deep, breath, and bellows as loud as it can.

"MONSTER ATTACK! SOUND THE ALARM! MONSTER ATTACK! SOUND THE ALARM!"

"Hey, quit that," I grumble, getting up and kicking the loud human in the head. What is it even doing?

"HELP! MONSTER ATTACK!"

"I said stop!"

"HELP! HELP! ALARM! PLEASE, SOMEBODY!"

The human's voice is already hoarse, each scream bellowed with the fullest extent of its lung capacity. Face red, body sweating, the terrified creature does… what? What is it doing? Surely it understands that annoying me will get it killed?

I glance around, eyes catching on the faraway moving blobs. I'm still struggling to interpret what I'm seeing. I've never seen so far without looking up, and there's nothing to see when I look up except rocks! Yet I think those might… be… more humans? I think a bunch of them might be coming this way.

People are going to come for you, and they are going to kill you, and there is nothing in the entire world I want more than that.

...Shit. I guess this human is choosing to be food. I web up its mouth, dragging it into the forest and out of sight. On a whim, I take the cloak, too. Maybe it's big enough to hide me. If not… it might at least be good for rain. I glance down at my prey, seeing water leaking from the human's eyes.

Damnit. I hate when they do that.

Understanding

Humans. Humans everywhere. It's terrifying.

I don't think I'd normally be so worried. A bunch of humans came to investigate after I captured and ate that one who screamed. They never entered the forest, though, keeping a respectful, cautious distance from the trees. The trees are my domain, after all. None of them smelled that tough; if they had gotten closer, I'm sure I could have killed them all in the forest.

Yet now I'm terrified, because I'm not in the forest anymore.

The human lands have no trees to hide behind or hang webs from. Vast, flat, the tallest things are flimsy grasses and the structures humans themselves reside in. This is their domain. Here, their ability to attack from a distance goes from an incidental consideration to a constant looming threat. Any human that I can see could pull out a bow and shoot at me, even if I'm well out of range to retaliate. One arrow, I can dodge. But an arrow from each human? There must be at least ten tens of humans here. No, many times that number. Tens of tens of tens? At some point, the structures get so numerous that I can't see past them anymore. Each and every one of them wants me dead.

So why am I walking towards them?

Tall wooden towers dwarf the landscape, the humans up top no doubt able to see me coming for ages as I walk down the dirt trail driven through the landscape towards their settlement. Yet no alarm is raised, none of them sparing me more than a passing glance. My lower arms clutch tightly to the inside of my stolen cloak, holding it closed. Hood up, I must look like a small human. I hope I do. That is the goal, after all. I walk past the towers, stone buildings looming ahead as countless humans walk around between them.

What am I even going to do when I get there? Start eating them? I'd surely die. Behind the towers, on each side of the main path into town, smaller wooden structures are dotted around, humans sitting behind them and shouting at passersby.

"Hearty stew here! Salted directly from the mines!"

"Fabrics! Died or plain, any income catered!"

"Treats for the little ones! Fresh, imported fruit!"

It feels like I don't understand half the words being shouted, but the further in I get the more humans surround me, heading to and from the stalls, exchanging little chitin chips for whatever thing the yelling humans seem to have in abundance. The whole process enraptures me, overwhelming me with questions as I watch these rituals I have no hope of understanding on my own.

"Oh, um, hey there, sweetie. Are you lost?"

A human approaches me. I jump backwards, a bit startled. Had they been talking to me? It's one of the big humans, as opposed to the humans that are more my size. This one is wearing a long, flowing piece of cloth that encompasses both of its legs rather than the individual per-leg cloths that the hunters all wore, which I find interesting. I stare at it a while, accidentally meeting the human's gaze as it kneels down.

"Oh, woah! Are you okay?" the human asks. "What's that on your face?"

I reach a hand up, double-checking the integrity of the bandage-like webbing I wrapped myself in to hide my features. Only the tiniest slits are open for me to see and breathe out of. I had no idea if this would work, but… I was right! It's not attacking me! Humans really don't attack things that they think are other humans. Even ones they don't know! Why not? That's so strange!

"I-I'm okay," I insist, increasingly aware of every possible mistake that could expose me.

"You sure?" the human asks. "Where's your mom and dad?"

I don't have any idea what those are!

"I don't know," I murmur, heart pounding in my chest. Seriously, what possessed me to come here? What am I doing!?

"Okaaay…" the human hums back. "Well, that's all right. Where was the last place you saw them, sweetie?"

I don't have any idea how to answer that, either, but the only place I could have ever saw anything is the direction I came from, right? I point back up the path, away from the human structures and towards the forest. The human's expression is as difficult for me to read as always.

"...Oh," the human eventually murmurs. "Oh, no. You poor thing. I'm so sorry."

"Alina!" another human calls, this one taller and deeper-voiced. It has the leg-by-leg cloth, too. "Hey, there you are. What are you doing over here?"

"Elias! I think something happened to this girl's parents on the road here."

"What girl?" the Elias asks.

I, of course, have already slipped away, using other humans like trees to break line of sight the moment the Elias took the other human's attention off of me. There's simply too much I don't understand going on in that interaction, I'm afraid I'll slip something up and they'll realize I'm not really one of them.

Frankly, having all these humans so close to me is already driving me into a panic. My ravenous instincts start bubbling to the surface, each new smell a new meal that the core of my being wants to consume. I can't though. Not in this place. So why am I even here? Quickly, I scurry off the road, away from the crowds of delicious creatures and behind the small structures with the humans that yell about whatever objects they have nearby.

I'm sweating. The webs on my face are itchy, but if I scratch with my claws even a little, I'll break them, expose my face, and die. Even as-is, a lot of humans glance at me as I pass, staring at the white webs that hide my dark body. I can only imagine what their expressions mean, but I doubt it's good. I need a more human fake-skin. I need a better way to cover my face.

...Or I need to do what I should have done in the first place, and not walk into the middle of a bunch of angry meals. Yet I'm just… too curious. I want to understand, to know. When I figure out how this human colony works, I'll be able to start eating them safely.

There are other wooden structures out here, away from the dirt path but well before the cluster of stone structures that seem to be where most of the humans are. Humans sit behind these too, yelling out whatever they seem to want to give away, but far fewer people are moving around between the stalls away from the road.

One place in particular catches my eye. Three humans are there, a large and small one outside the wood structure and the one sitting behind it. As usual, small chitin discs are given to the one behind the stall for an item in return, which looks like an oddly-shaped round piece of wood. It's when the wood is given to the smaller human and it covers its face with it that I start walking closer. A fake skin for the face! That's exactly what I need!

I creep closer, waiting for two of the humans to leave before walking up to the fake-face acquisition structure with my hood pulled low. All sorts of odd knicknacks dot the stand alongside the wooden face-coverers, all of which are made of wood but none of which have a purpose I can divine. Hmm… how best to take one?

"Hello there, little lady!" the human in the structure exclaims. "See something you like?"

"I would like a face-coverer, please," I demand.

"Well, you're going to need some money for that."

Hmm. 'Money?' Is that the word for the little chitin circles people have been giving to each other? Still, this human clearly hasn't thought of the obvious.

"I can just not give you any and take it anyway," I point out.

It's an odd-looking human, even by human standards. Its face is wrinkled, its hair missing in all but but its nose, ears, and thin patches on its head. It has an odd sort of thinness to its body, muscles taut over a frame that doesn't quite fit. Still, the human doesn't smell weak. I suspect it would make a wonderful meal.

"You probably could," the human agrees, lips quirking in an odd way I can't place. "I'm not too fast these days. But if you do that, you can bet I'm going to track down your parents and tell them all about it."

I look up at the human, forgetting to keep my hood down for a moment as I point towards the forest.

"If I have 'parents,' they're a long way that way."

Its expression drops, face softening considerably. The human takes in my wrapped-up face and hands in silence for a moment before answering.

"What's your name?" it asks.

"Lark," I answer immediately.

"Lark, are you alone? Do you have a family?"

"I'm alone," I agree, not understanding the word 'family' well enough to answer.

"Why do you want a festival mask?"

"To cover my face with," I say, a bit confused by this line of questioning. "I'm going to take one now."

"It's nice to meet you, Lark," the human tells me. "My name is August. You know, Lark, it takes me a long time to carve these masks."

"Okay?" I'm not sure what the August is on about, so I just start looking around for an easy mask to grab. I'm very short, and the wood structure is made for taller humans.

"If you spent a long, long time making something, getting all the details right, putting your love into it, and someone just came one day and took it away without giving you anything in return, how would you feel?"

I stop. My home. My nest. My Claretta.

"...Bad," I answer.

"Well, I would also feel bad if someone took a mask from me. Do you want me to feel bad, Lark?"

I'm reaching out to grab a mask but something in the words makes me stop, my mind without any input from me imagining the August standing in the rain, screaming out for Claretta like I did back then. My hand drops back down to my side. The August can feel that way too, huh? I glower up at the wrinkly human. It's an interesting thought, I suppose, but of course I don't care. Why would I care? I eat people. I kill them. What happens to anyone else, how anyone else feels, is not my problem. Of course I'm going to take the stupid mask.

Yet my hand does not move back up to steal one.

"...I don't have any money," I admit. "But I need a mask."

The August nods as if it expected this.

"Well, if you want to do some work for me, I think that would be a fair trade for the work I put into them. I would be happy with that. Would you be happy with that?"

Happier than just having the mask and being done with it? Still, I nod, slowly but firmly.

"Okay. What do you want me to do?"

It smiles, words warm and voice calm. Somehow, this human felt even more Claretta-like than Claretta when it spoke.

"First, how about you choose what mask you like best? I have a lot of varieties."

I glance around.

"They're all just wood in weird patterns. I don't really get why they're different from each other."

The August laughs, putting a hand over its chest like I'd wounded it there.

"Agh, you've hurt my inner artist, little Lark! My pride might struggle to recover from that. They're animal masks, see? For the festival." He grabs a few, holding them out to me. "This one is a cat, this one is a bug… you see?"

What is this human talking about!? It's just weirdly-shaped wood. No… wait. Wait, I kinda see it. Yeah, it's carved to look like the animals, just without the right colors or textures or movements. It's the shape. The cat one looks like a katzel, complete with ears that look like mine. I, of course, therefore do not at all want that mask. The whole point is to hide my features! The one that catches my eye is a wide-eyed mask with a funny faux beak. It looks like some kind of bird, which is perfect because I love birds. They can fly, just like I can in the song Claretta used to sing about me.

"I like this one best," I tell the August.

"Oh? The owl mask! Good choice! That's fitting for a Lark."

"Huh?"

"Oh, well… the Lark and the Owl. They're both birds, you know? That's what your name means. A Lark is a kind of bird, beloved by people everywhere for its beauty and songs."

Oh.

Of course.

Claretta was never singing about me in the first place. I grit my teeth, pulling the owl mask to my chest and squeezing it hard. Tears form in my eyes behind my webbing, and try as I might I can't will them away. So frustrating, so very, very frustrating. I can't control anything that's mine. Not even my own body.

She never liked me.

"Lark?" the August asks. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I choke out, putting the mask on the way I saw the smaller human do it. "Do I look less… weird now?"

"You look lovely, Lark," the human answers. "It's a bit early to be wearing a festival mask, but I don't think anyone will mind. You… shouldn't have to hide your face, though, if you don't want to."

"I want to," I assure it.

The August just nods, and soon after starts to explain how I am to help it. The task seems easy and straightforward enough, even if it attracts more attention than I'd like. I agree. It's not like I have anything else to do.

"Festival masks!" I call out, heart pounding as eyes turn my way. "Cheaper when you buy in advance! Don't wait, get them today!"

Cloak clasped and mask secure, the humans have no way of knowing I'm not one of them. Apparently all the yelling helps the August get more people that do have money over to its stall, and that's all it needs as repayment. I'm not entirely sure I understand, but it's simple and I get to watch lots of humans without arousing suspicion. A few hours later an island starts to pass nearby, and the August starts to 'close' its 'shop.'

"I have performed your service," I intone at the human. "So the mask is now mine, and you will not scream or cry when I leave with it?"

The August chuckles and shakes its head.

"The owl mask is yours. I promise to not scream or cry due to its absence. You are free to go, Lark. You've been a big help."

The human looks at me, lips quirking upwards. Not a single shred of fear or tension is visible on its features. It's… so different to anything I felt from Claretta. I don't have any response to its words, but nor do I leave.

"Lark," the August continues, "do you have anywhere to stay tonight?"

I tense up, again faced with a question I don't know how to answer. The human starts talking again after my silence.

"I admit, I asked my customers about you," it says. "I wanted to make sure no one was looking for a child your age. But they weren't. You're homeless, aren't you?"

I nod, slowly.

"My home was destroyed," I admit.

"And you don't have any parents."

It's said like a statement. Well, I don't even know what parents are, so I'll wager the human is probably right on that.

"No," I agree. "I don't."

The human takes a deep breath, wearing one of the many human expressions I can't yet decypher. The fact that it's all wrinkly doesn't help either. I don't feel in danger, though, I just feel… weighty. Like this decision the human is making is of great significance.

"If you wish, Lark, you are welcome to help me pack up and join me at my home tonight. We'll get you clean, get you food, get you a bed. Only if you want it."

I don't take long to think about it. I probably should, but I don't. Everything feels wrong and out of control.

"Okay," I agree hesitantly. The human nods, lips quirking up once more. Mine do as well, not that the human can see underneath my new mask.

I help the August pack things into the stand, the round parts of which apparently rotate to help it move anywhere the human wants to take it! I'm immediately fascinated as the human grabs the stand and starts to pull it along after itself. The August walks in the opposite direction to most of the other humans, moving further away from the stone buildings rather than towards or into them. We get closer and closer to the forest, in fact, eventually coming across a large structure at its edge, made of wood like the cart rather than stone like the buildings of the town. Leaving the cart-stall structure by the side of the big-structure, the two of us head inside. I can't help but look around in awe at the hinged entryway, the artificial cave within sectioned off into multiple areas, the vast array of structures inside that I've never, ever seen before—

"Well, Lark?" the human asks. "Welcome to my home. What do you think?"

"I like it," I murmur, stepping slowly around and taking everything in. So enclosed, so many places to hang webs! "It's neat. The things here are neat."

It laughs again. Oh, how easily I could eat the human here! We're so far away from any others. It's a free meal. I'll definitely eat it. ...Later.

"Well thank you! I made most everything myself, the house included. So, what would you like to eat? I have a few good vegetables from my garden, or—"

"I ate already," I inform the August.

It looks surprised, but nods in assent.

"How about a bath, then?"

I hesitate. Another word I don't know! Humans have so many of them! How should I respond? Hmm… well, I suppose if I agree I'll get to see what it actually is.

"O-okay?" I answer hesitantly.

The human nods once more, setting off to do… whatever it is a bath involves. Firstly it's apparently drawing water from what looks like underground into a person-sized bucket in one of the enclosed rooms. Then it's making that water bubble a little and start having a bit of mist come out, which the August calls 'steam.' Then it's…

"Well, you first, Lark," the August says. "Get on in!"

...Getting in. To the weird water which, as I approach, turns out to be warm. Hot, even. I poke at it. Definitely hot! Yet not painful. Slowly, I start to lift myself inside…

"Lark, wait, wait. You should undress first."

I freeze instantly, horror dawning on me. I have never seen a human without their fake-skin on, at least not without taking it off the body myself. I'd just assumed I would never be in a situation where I would be expected to remove mine! What do I do? Do I just eat him? I should probably just be eating him anyway, right? What am I doing? Why am I here?

"...Lark?" the human asks slowly.

"I-I don't want to!" I stammer, stepping away from the human and the 'bath.' "I'm not… please don't ask me to take it off!"

A lot more fear than I had intended creeps into my voice, and the human picks up on it. No, no, not like this! Not one that talks to me. Not one that gives me things. I don't want to—

"Lark," the August says, slowly and calmly. He kneels down to my height. "You don't have to. Ever. Okay? I'm sorry."

I let out a deep breath, nodding slowly. What does the human think of me? What is that expression on its face? Sadness? I'm safe for now, though. ...No, wait, I was never in any danger. My lie is safe for now.

"I think you will feel better after you take a bath," the August continues. "You don't have to, but I promise this is a safe place for you. How about this? I will leave and close the door. You can take a bath with your clothes on, or with your clothes off, or you can not take a bath at all. I will wait outside this room and I will not go in as long as you are in here. And I will never, ever touch you unless you ask me to. I promise, Lark. You can leave at any time, for any reason. But as long as you are here, you are safe."

I have no words to bring against that. I only nod again, watching as he leaves the room and closes the door. There are no windows here, only a glowing series of symbols on the ceiling give light. I'm alone, and no one will see me unless someone opens that door.

It's safe here, and I am very, very itchy.

I'm not going to just blindly trust that human, of course. I claw through the coverings that hide my hands, setting up webs around the room that I can take down and hide before leaving. Then, gratefully, I start to undress, dropping my cloak and ripping my bandage-like webbing to shreds. It feels so good already, and I'm not even in whatever a 'bath' is. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the human, like I did with Claretta. Maybe it's making me misunderstand on purpose, somehow. Maybe it'll come in here, maybe it'll see what I really am.

Fine. If it does, it dies. I'm hungry anyway. I look forward to it.

I get in the bath. The human never comes in.

It feels nice.

Rest and Recrimination

"Well," Norah announces loudly, "fuck that whole mission three times up the ass."

I glance up at her with a raised eyebrow.

"What?"

Skyhope is finally in sight, which more or less marks the end of our half-successful mission. Claretta sleeps fitfully on Bently's shoulder and Penelope once again walks on her own, though her hand isn't yet fully regenerated.

"I'm just saying, that mission was fucking awful! We nearly died like twenty times and then we had to trudge for three days without sleep, and… y'know. So fuck it three times up the ass!"

"Yeah, I mean, I get that," I answer. "I just don't understand why you're using that phrase to complain when it's something you'd probably ask someone to do to you."

Norah physically staggers, making a wheezing noise like I just socked her in the gut.

"D-did I just get verbally annihilated by Vita?" she chokes.

"What?" I ask again, looking around in confusion.

"Damn, Norah, I don't even think she did it on purpose," Orville comments. "How does that feel?"

"Watcher's eyes, it doesn't end!" she announces, starting to bellow out laughter. "Mercy, mercy!"

"She's got a point," Penelope chimes in. "If you really hated the mission that much, Norah, you shouldn't be going out of your way to give it a good time."

"S-stop!" Norah begs, now laughing so hard she's barely able to breathe. "Stop, I've already been killed!"

Penelope smirks and Bently blushes. Seong just glowers. I'm even more lost than I was before, torn between happiness that my team is happy and that creeping feeling that I'm somehow the butt of a joke I don't quite understand.

"Teenagers," Seong hisses derisively. "Stay focused, will you? The mission isn't over until we're back behind the walls."

I don't sense anything remotely dangerous in my range, but I'm inclined to agree with them. It would be awfully embarrassing to die just outside our destination. It's happened before, even if not to us. My comment was just a thoughtless idea, the kind born from weeks of very, very little sleep. Everyone got pushed to their limits on this mission, and our escape from that soul-eating beast took a toll on everyone. Of course, as the scout, I didn't get to sleep much after the monster finally left us alone, either. I've barely gotten a couple hours of sleep a day, most of it during the day with light out and my teammates moving around and making noise. I'm running entirely on fumes and soul snacks at this point, and there's nothing I want more than to get back to the guild, grab Rosco, and pass the fuck out for three days.

We finally make it back inside Skyhope after getting scanned at the gate for Nawra. There's a line today, but thankfully as hunters we get to skip it. The biomancer on duty is so fucking slow though. I can immediately tell there isn't a single person with a Nawra, and I would have already dealt with it if there was. It's midday and the streets are bustling, though most people give us a wide berth considering that we all absolutely reek of rancid monster blood. I've probably collected more of that monster's insides on my armor than the damn thing actually has insides at any one given time. What is that creature, anyway? Another bioweapon? Or did something like that develop naturally on one of the other islands? From what I understand, that's entirely possible. Humanity is pretty much only alive because the worst monsters have no reason to prefer eating them over the prey in the deep forest.

Once we make it back to the guild, the first stop is unfortunately not my bed, but the infirmary. It's a lot more full than the last time I was here, but we manage to find a bed on which to get Claretta situated and stable. Also new is the collection of blankets and dirty food plates that sit stuffed in a corner of the infirmary floor, in which a snoring young man rests. Penelope shakes her head with amusement, a rare grin blooming on her face as she walks over and presses a boot into his belly.

"Jeremy!" she fake-gasps. "Have you made a nest in the infirmary?"

"Hurgh! Who the fuck... Penelope?"

The young man starts to get up, Penelope immediately removing her foot and offering him her good hand instead. He takes it, his messy black hair and slightly gap-toothed grin giving him a boyish look. The guy's no slouch, though, possessing a decently sized soul that feels like a knot of tree roots thriving in damp soil.

"A woman fit to be queen, sent in my time of need!" Jeremy announces, his voice half joyful and half dead-ass exhausted. "Truly, the Watcher does care for us."

Penelope finishes pulling him up, chuckling lightly.

"Don't flatter me too much, or I'll start to expect it. Have you left the infirmary at all since I departed?"

"Pretty much no. It's been bad here. Almost everyone's been coming back injured if they come back at all. Then the branch leader officially got the Templars involved to help us, and now they're coming back injured too!"

Penelope scowls.

"Can't the Templars hire their own biomancers instead of mooching ours?"

"Don't ask me," Jeremy shrugs. "I just eat, sleep and heal. Don't have time to question stuff like that. I am so glad you're back, Penelope."

"Mmm, don't be too glad," Penelope mutters. "I'll help where I can, but I have duties outside the hunter's guild, you know."

"Who's this guy, Penelope?" I ask.

"This is Jeremy," she answers. "Jeremy, Vita. Didn't I tell you about him back before we left?"

I shrug.

"I dunno, I guess I kinda remember you talking about another biomancer? We brought back someone else that needs healing, but she's a healer herself, so maybe she can help when she wakes up?"

He grimaces.

"Normally I'd never ask a patient to work, but we're pretty damn desperate. Come on, Penelope, couldn't you have healed her on the way over?"

"I did my best," she answers, raising her still-regenerating hand. Each finger is barely past the first knuckle.

"Oooh, ouch," Jeremy winces. "Right then, I guess… I'll get back to it. Fuck, what time is it?"

"It's about ten hours to Sky Canyon," Penelope answers. "I'd take over for you, but I'm about to collapse as well."

"Well, all right," he relents, cracking his neck. "Fuck it. I've been at this for weeks, another ten hours isn't going to kill me. Good job surviving out there. Get some sleep."

Gratefully, we move to follow his advice. I already have my armor half off by the time I get up to our room. I finish stripping it off, not giving a single shit how much the rest of me is also covered with muck and gore. I flop onto my bed, curl around my favorite stuffed crow, and pass blissfully into sleep.

Waking up naturally, with no impending monster attack or other crisis to attend to, is a somewhat novel experience after the two-week round trip where we rescued Claretta. I'm fairly certain Norah and Penelope fell asleep in here with me, but both of them are gone when I wake up. How long have I been out? I continue to lay motionless for a while, cuddling Rosco and enjoying the simple comfort of a warm bed.

I still feel exhausted, but I should get up. I bet my family's worried.

I sigh, pulling myself out of bed. My stomach starts yelling at me, demanding we go to the mess hall first and then see my family. I have to admit, that's a good idea. I grope around exhaustedly for my armor and spear, hands coming up empty for each. What? They're gone!

I groan in annoyance. Penelope or Norah probably took my stuff to get cleaned. I don't… actually have any other outfits, though, other than the uncomfortably fancy ones Penelope got me.

...Meh, screw it. I'll head to the mess hall in my underthings. It's enough clothing to be technically decent. Speaking of Norah, she and the boys are also apparently in the mess hall, so I nab as much stew as I can carry and head their way, sitting down next to them.

"Hmm? Oh, hey Vita. You're looking… significantly less dressed than usual," Norah greets.

"Yeah, well, somebody took my armor," I grumble.

"Uh, have you considered… I don't know, wearing something other than armor?" Orville asks.

I glower at him while I take a bite of stew, swallowing it immediately.

"No," I answer firmly.

"Vita is very diligent!" Bently observes.

"We took everyone's armor to get cleaned," Norah explains. "It's not going to be ready for a few hours, probably. You're going to have to put something else on."

I scowl, shoveling more food down my throat.

"I am not putting that dress on again," I insist.

"Uh, okay, then just wear something else? If you keep wearing what you're wearing you're gonna flash sideboob at somebody, Vita, which… is a thing you actually kind of have, now," Norah says matter-of-factly. "You're growing pretty fast, girl. You need to pay attention to that, or you'll be getting all kinds of attention that you don't want."

I take another few bites.

"...You wear this shit all the time, though," I point out.

"Vita, I like that kind of attention," Norah answers. "You don't. Right?"

I glance up at my team. Bently just looks a bit concerned for me and a bit confused, but Orville is very pointedly looking in a different direction and blushing. I begin to feel a blush of my own start to work its way across my face.

"...Oh," I murmur quietly.

"Vita, you are an oblivious little dork, and I love that about you, but you're growing up, so you gotta start paying attention to other people a bit more. Okay?"

She flashes me a wry grin as I nod awkwardly, focusing my attention a bit further into my teammates' souls. Yep, people are uncomfortable, and I probably could have figured that out before ever sitting down if I'd been paying attention. Yet I hadn't thought to give them more than a passing glance.

"You took my cloak away with my armor," I mumble. "That's the only other thing I wear. My other clothes had so many holes in them that somebody threw them away when I put them in the laundry."

Norah sighs.

"Of course. Orville, can you lend her an outfit or something?"

"Why me?" the mage grumbles.

"Uh, because Bently and I are like twice her height? Any shirt I gave her would be a dress."

"Okay, okay, fine," Orville grumbles. "Come on, Vita, we'll get you something."

"Wait," I insist. "Lemmie get some more stew first."

I don't care how incredibly embarrassed I am right now, I am not leaving without finishing my meal. I head back and refill my huge bowl, then return to chomp down on it as quickly as I can. Norah laughs.

"Watcher's eyes, Vita, it's no wonder your tits are growing so fast! All that food has to be going somewhere."

"Nah," I grunt between bites. "It's probably Penelope. ...And they're not that big, are they?"

I feel like they're definitely not. I don't even really have breasts yet, I just have like… little uncomfortable fat triangles poking out of my chest. They hurt and I hate them. I can't believe this is even a conversation we're having! I should have just stolen the cheapest thing I found in Penelope's dresser. Better to be ridiculed for wearing a dress than… this.

"Hmm? What about Penelope?" Bently asks.

"Oh, right," I begin. "Yeah, Penelope admitted before we left that she's been like, using her biomancy voodoo on my body to do stuff like this. Messing with my growth, making me 'conventionally attractive,' whatever that means."

No one responds. The table is utterly silent. Which, of course, is fine by me. I tear into my stew, happy to no longer be obligated to talk.

"What the actual fuck?" Orville suddenly blurts.

"Yeah, uh, agreed?" Norah stammers. "Like, I don't even know what to say to that. Did she ask you first?"

"Nah, not at all," I admit.

"Isn't that illegal?" Bently whispers.

"Oh, it's super illegal," Orville insists. "She could have her license revoked for that. She should have her license revoked for that!"

"Do you think she's doing stuff like that to us?" Bently asks.

"I got the impression it's just me," I comment, taking another bite.

"You are really weirdly calm about this," Norah insists.

I shrug, swallowing my stew.

"So what? Do you want me to be hysterical? We talked about it already. I yelled at her for not asking me first, she spouted a bunch of philosophical shit at me, and I made her promise to tell me this stuff beforehand. It's handled."

"Doesn't it creep you the fuck out that she did that at all?" Orville asks.

I shrug again.

"She had good points."

"She had good points?"

I sigh with irritation, picking the stew bowl up to my mouth and shoveling the rest of it in. I really don't want to talk about this.

"Vita, biomancers have to respect other people's bodies or they just end up… inhuman," Orville insists. "You should be concerned about this!"

"It is kind of scary," Bently mumbles. "It's not right for Penelope to do that to you."

"I would just… feel violated, you know?" Norah agrees, mouth agape. "I don't like the idea of someone going in and just turning my body into something else, something that might not be me."

"My body isn't me!" I snap, thunking my bowl back down on the table. "It's mine, and I don't like that she messed with it without asking me. But do I care what she does to it? No! Not really! My body sucks, guys! It's tiny, and it's weak, and it looks way too young and my face is all wrong and I just do not give a fuck about it beyond the fact that I have to live in it. Penelope knows her shit. She certainly knows way more than I do about how anybody should look or why. If she wants to go and… and fuck around with how many moles my skin has, fine!"

I get up, grab my bowl, and walk off to drop it with the dirty dishes. No one says anything.

"Can we go get me some more clothes now?" I ask when I get back.

"Yeah," Orville agrees, standing up but refusing to look directly at me. "Let's go, Vita, I think I have some stuff we can jury rig to fit you. It's going to be a bit big, but you can tie it in place."

"Whatever," I grumble. "Everything is too big for me."

Not long after I have some pants and a tunic, although to my mounting irritation I continue to have no weapons. Whatever. I've lived my whole life on the streets without a spear, I'm sure I'll be fine one day back without it. With how fucked up and bloody my face still looks, I doubt anyone will give me too much shit. And if they do, well...

I'm always hungry.

Big Sister

Returning to the streets without armor on is both extremely familiar and extremely weird. I never noticed how comfortable I got with people fearing me. Fear is the right word for it, too: people in full expedition gear don't exactly frequent our part of town, and rarely do people wander around here as heavily armed as I do without being up to no good. Couple that with the fact that I'm less than five feet tall, and I'm like a glowing beacon that screams 'deadly talent here.' People my size don't keep that kind of gear without being able to prove they can use it.

Without gear, however, people my size just look like a free mark. Yes, it's entirely possible that any random schmuck can blow your head up with a talent, but the thought is if I had a talent like that, I wouldn't be here. A risk? Sure. But people are desperate enough in this part of town to take that gamble. My face may be an unwashed mess but the clothes I borrowed from Orville are clean and devoid of holes. Not to mention I do actually have a bunch of money on me. If I'm stupid about where I go, I'm going to get attacked.

Not that I plan on being stupid, of course. I descend into the bowels of my part of the city via a larger street, only ducking into alleyways when I'm sure no one is watching. Eventually I make my way to the bread stand I like, nodding to a surprised shopkeep.

"Hey, Dathus," I address him.

"Hmm? Vita? Vita! It is you! Made it back alive I see?"

The old man grins in proud defiance of his toothlessness, to which I grin back. He's a shriveled old fellow, and while his soul isn't at all powerful, it is certainly warm. Soft and green, smelling like grass in the sunlight. He's a kind soul, one I'm glad also happens to run the cheapest bread stall in the city.

"This and every time," I promise. "Death would be inconvenient."

He chuckles amicably, nodding and preparing my usual order without instruction.

"That it would, that it would! Not here with your boyfriend today, eh?"

I tilt my head, having to think about that one.

"Uh, do you mean Orville? He's not my boyfriend."

"Of course, of course!" Dathus laughs. "Well, I'm surprised to see you out of your armor for a change. Your new outfit is lovely."

"Thanks, I guess. It's Orville's."

He stops baking for a moment, staring up at me. I stare back. An awkward silence passes between us as his soul pulses with amusement. Without a word, he soon returns to his work with a grin on his face that he's clearly trying and failing to repress.

My face falls into a scowl. I don't get this apparent joke and I'm too tired to ask. I just wait in silence for the bread to finish, grabbing it all before I head to a nearby veggie vendor.

"You be careful hauling all that, Vita," Dathus calls after me. "Don't get hurt now!"

I shrug, about the furthest thing from worried. If anything, he should be worried about anyone trying to mug me. I buy some tiny, slightly squishy and sad-looking vegetables before cutting away into an alley, heading home. I'll absolutely get mugged if anyone sees me unarmed with all this food, so I take a circuitous route there, avoiding human contact. Frankly, I probably would have done the same even if I had armor; I'm not exactly in a social mood today. After about an hour of meandering, my home finally hits the edge of my senses, the dozen hungry kids I call my siblings popping into the range of my soul-sense.

...As do a half-dozen other people. Hmm. I worm my senses deeper into one of my… sisters, I think. The little black soul pulses, still growing its form and color like most children I sense. I focus, trying to get a read on her emotions. Concern. Fear. Resignation. Anger.

Pain.

Gritting my teeth, I pick up the pace, going from a meandering walk to a full-blown sprint towards home. Who the fuck dares to mess with my family? The six souls I don't recognize are all stronger than the kids, of course, but compared to me they're weaklings. Barely even snacks. Do these shitstains seriously think they can get away with this?

I hear the stupid bastards before I can see them.

"Come on, brats. You know the drill. Money. Where is it?"

"We don't have any today!" one of my brothers protests. "A-and mom or dad will be back soon, so you'd better—"

A sharp smacking sound cuts off his voice as I round the corner, fury and death on my face as I watch the aftermath of Jarod getting backhanded across the face. All but the youngest kids are out in front of the shack, as if to bar entry. Though the assailants have their back to me, they turn to face my direction as I run into view.

"Don't you fucking touch them again," I command.

Five of the six are men, or perhaps more accurately they're male. Two of them are just boys, barely thirteen or fourteen, though they loom just as aggressively over my family as the adults leading them. One of the younger one's eyes just about bulge out of his head when he spots me. Do I know him from somewhere?

"Oh, hey, free food! Thanks for fetching that for us, little miss," one of the pathetic degenerates sneers. "Bring it right over here, will you?"

I certainly start to approach, but I have no intention of giving them a single crumb.

"Big sis!" a little one cheers. She's the one I gave a piggyback to the other day, I think. Angelien.

The girl has no visible wounds, but I can tell she's in significant pain. These bastards know to only bruise below the collarbone, to let the kids hide the evidence. They know to scare children enough to make them do just that, to hide from the people that would be, should be helping them. Some of the kids look at me with fear, with guilt. As if getting their asses kicked, getting stolen from by these lowlifes, was their fault.

"All right, hand it over," another one of the assholes orders.

I walk right next to him, glaring upwards.

"You can fuck off or die," I promise.

A shocked silence settles over the little nook that passes for our street. Even most of my own siblings are looking at me with surprise, nowhere near as happy as Angelien seems to be. They're scared for me. They think I've set myself up for a beating. They know vaguely that I'm a hunter, but they've never seen me fight.

Most of them have never seen me mad, either.

"Stupid bitch, I said hand it over!"

He raises a hand to slap me, but my tendrils are already wrapping around his soul. Terror crawls onto his face in an instant, my spiritual arms squirming and squeezing. Disgusting filth. I don't even want to touch him.

"Go on," I hiss, taking a step forward. "I'm not going to give you a damn thing. So hit me."

He backs away, towards his group. All eyes are on me now. I step after him, squeezing his soul harder.

"I've had a very, very bad month," I tell them. "I was already in a fucking shit mood before walking in on this. So try it. Hit me. Steal from me. See what happens."

"Th-that's her," the boy that was staring at me earlier whispers. "She's Vita! She took my dad away!"

I glance at him again. Oh, that's right. I do know him. Grig's son. Wow, that feels like a lifetime ago. The kid's words seem to spur a bit more life into the confused thugs, all but the one I'm squeezing quickly recovering their bravado.

"This is her?" the woman of the group asks. "This is the tramp that put you and your mom on the streets?"

Of course. Isn't this just typical? The group moves to surround me, my blood boiling. Is this my fault? I really want to kill them, but I know I shouldn't. I don't have a ton of non-lethal options, though. I might be able to out-fistfight them, but I doubt it, especially if any of them have a knife. Maybe I can spook them all with soul-grabs? Yeah, that might work. It really seems to freak people out. I just need to get them all in range at once. Let them surround me, let them get close...

"Leave her alone!" Angelien screams, running at the gang as they close in on me.

The tiny girl pulls out a shiv, scraped together from wood, twine, and a broken coin. Sharp, chitin-tipped. Deadly if she hits just the right spot. A bunch of the other kids do the same, pulling out hidden weapons and approaching alongside her. I can't help but feel my spirits lift a little. The kids are proper street rats. They haven't been sitting here and taking it. They didn't hide their bruises out of fear, they hid them because they wanted to fuck these assholes up themselves. Still though, I don't want to see them get hurt.

"Guys, I'm fine!" I insist. "I got this. Back o—"

Grig's son steps towards Angelien, smacking her in the side of the head with a kick that sends her sprawling to the dirt. Her neck twists at a terrible angle, a snapping sound ringing behind the dull thud of the impact. I watch in horror as her soul floats up from her body.

All six of my family's assailants fall dead to the ground, their souls in my arms.

"Hide downstairs," I order the kids, dropping the food I'd brought.

"But—"

"Go," I snap, and they all scurry to obey. Except Angelien.

I eat four of the bastard's souls. They don't deserve anything better. Two others I put shards in, raising them as my Revenants. I make sure Grig's son is one of them. I want him to hurt. The whole family is rotten.

"Take these bodies to the sewers," I order. "Don't let anyone see you. Hide them in an outflow channel by the walls, then walk in with them and kill yourselves."

"W-what?" Grig's little monster whispers, confusion and horror warring on his face.

"You heard me, murderer," I snarl. "Follow my orders or I'll send you home with worse ones."

The terrified Revenants hop to the task, taking two bodies each. Carefully, delicately, I kneel down by Angelien's body, scooping up her soul and holding it safe. In a kind of desperate madness, I check her body, confirming what I already know. No pulse. No breathing. Dead. She's dead from a single kick.

Killed by a child with a dangerous talent. It could happen to anybody. Grig's kid had inhuman strength, just like daddy, and when I killed the man… I put his son on the street. The kid joined a gang. I found him roving around with adults despite being half their age. Of course he had a damn talent! His soul was so weak, but I should have known, I should have known he would be fucking dangerous. They underestimated me and died for it. I underestimated them, and Angelien fucking died for it.

My sister.

...She'd be mad at me if I left the food here. I collect it off the ground, taking it inside and tossing it down the trapdoor to the other kids.

"Vita!" one of them calls up. Fuck, but I can't even remember his name. "Is Angelien…?"

"Sorry," I mumble back. "Just… stay here until Lyn and Rowan come home. Okay?"

It never should have come to this. I should have killed them all the moment I saw them.

I lift Angelien up in my arms, holding her close. Still warm. Her knife drops from her tiny hand, so I reach down and grab that too. My sister's soul is inside me. Dead does not mean gone. I'll bring her back.

None of these thoughts stop the tears. They well up from my face, dripping down on a dead girl's body. I find myself surprised that I care this much, then disgusted that such a thing would be a surprise. But it is, isn't it?

I barely even knew her name.

Pit of Despair

I don't know how long I kneel there, holding my sister's corpse. I haven't just failed to repay my debt. I got my family killed. I can't imagine a more inexcusable failure. I should have killed them sooner. I should have killed those child-abusing bastards the moment I saw them. Damn it, damn it, damn it!

Eventually I start to get my senses back, start to actually think again. I fucked up. This is just like Penta. Someone died, again, because I tried to do the right thing, the humane thing, the slow thing. Maybe I'm just too weak to make it work. I don't know. It doesn't matter why. I don't… I don't have time for this. It's the same mistake as Penta, but it has the same solution as Penta. I can fix this. I just need to get Angelien's body somewhere safe, to get Penelope to preserve it, and then figure out immortality. Fucking easy, right?

I need… a sack. Or a blanket. Something to hide the corpse. I head into the shack, a pang of bitter nostalgia hitting me as I find the wads of cloth that once served as my bed. I wrap Angelien's fragile body up, disguising her as a huge wad of rags. It might not fool everyone, but… well, it doesn't really have to. I've seen people carrying around children's corpses before. No one likes to ask why. It's never a fun story.

I bet 'killed by a street thug' would be a pretty common answer if people did ask, though.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. I feel like I might just kill the next damn person I see, so with Angelien in my arms I stomp back towards the hunter's guild, carefully feeling out the area in front of me so I don't run into anyone. How am I going to break the news to Lyn? To Rowan? How are they going to react?

Weren't the Broken Drakens supposed to protect my family in exchange for Lyn working for them?

A bit of the rage I feel at myself condenses, focusing in another direction. They are. Lyn said that was the condition. Why would they let this happen? Is it because I missed that idiotic meeting with Sky? I'm a goddamn hunter, they know that! Sometimes I have to leave! Stupid bastards can't take over the city if a bunch of monsters sack it. These dumbfucks can't be that shortsighted, right? Right?

So either Lyn and Rowan did something to piss them off or… the Drakens are just fucking incompetent. You know what? Fuck it. It doesn't matter why. I'm going to rip their whole organization into shards and corpses.

...As soon as I make sure Angelien's body is safe. I have to go back to Penelope. She can help. She has to. The return to the hunter's guild is slow, methodical, and automatic. I barely even think about where my steps are taking me, barely even notice the tears still running down my face. I hate this. I hate myself.

Fury and despair boil inside my soul. I can't take it anymore. I'm tired of failure after failure. I'm tired of reacting, waiting, going with the flow, and letting things happen to me. It's those disgusting old habits from my early life rearing their ugly head again, isn't it? I only look at what's in front of me, only consider immediate problems and immediate survival. For everything else, I rely on others. Anyone that steps forward and tries even a little just pushes me around. I never really changed from that powerless orphan girl, in the end.

Another thought passes through my mind, unwanted and unbidden. Why do I even care? People die. I've seen the deaths of hundreds of acquaintances, many of them children just like Angelien. I never even knew her that well. I… should have, though. Right? That would be the human thing to do. To actually know your fucking family. I don't deserve to be thinking of her as a sister.

Then again, I don't think of myself as a human anymore. I used to, but I haven't for a long time. I started getting the feeling something wasn't right ever since I got my talent, and when I hatched… well, it's obvious now. My soul has fucking tentacles, it isn't even remotely human in the first place. Though my body is, and that's… wrong. It's just wrong somehow. I promised Rowan I wouldn't lose my humanity, but it really doesn't seem to be working out well for me. Maybe I never had any in the first place.

Oh. I've made it back to the Hunter's guild. I feel for Penelope, finding her in the infirmary along with a few other souls I recognize but lack the mental wherewithal to immediately place. Something grassy? A brown soul that roils with purple fire? A fragmented soul, not yet woken up? The one soul I place immediately is Claretta's; I walked right next to it for the whole trip home, after all. It's an odd soul, fragmented and broken in places, but nowhere near to the degree of Fulvia's shattered mess. ...Right, that's the unconscious girl's name. Fulvia. Funny I remember that name but not my own brother's.

Anyway, Claretta's soul is strange because it has no color. Most souls seem to have something that feels like a color to me, but hers is all pressure and sound. A soul of music personified, obviously related to her musical metamancy talent that Penelope kept babbling about during the trip. Yet there's something wrong with it, a twisting, fetid feeling like her very spirit is trying to destroy itself. It's a frustrating and uncomfortable experience for my senses, though given recent experiences I now find myself capable of interpreting it. Claretta hates herself. I think she hates her talent, especially, which is pretty weird. I don't think I've ever even heard of someone hating their talent.

My idle, distracted musings carry me into the infirmary. Claretta's despair is a pleasant thing to think about when the alternative is the corpse in my arms. I start to put faces and names to the souls I failed to recognize earlier: the grassy one is Penelope's biomancer friend, and the brown and purple fiery one is…

...First Lord Erebus? What's Penelope's fiancé doing here? From the sound of their conversation, that's exactly what Penelope wants to know as well.

"—not at all acceptable. I barely got an hour of sleep before they woke me up to come down here, and you think you can just drag me away? You shouldn't even be here, Johann, this is my business. Not yours."

I've only seen Lord Erebus once, so his thin, bird-like features and pale complexion surprise me again. What strikes me this time around, however, something that I didn't really think about too much the last time I saw him, is how much older he is than Penelope. He's probably at least thirty years old, and I'm fairly certain Penelope isn't even twenty. All of these thoughts pass through my head with a perfect blandness, a fog over my mind dulling the impact of every impression. The tall man wears a fancy black suit, his words and tone all the perfect picture of politeness.

"I hardly see the issue of inviting my wife-to-be to dinner on the day of her triumphant return," he answers, unfazed in the face of Penelope's irritation. The man is so clearly used to dealing with her, it almost feels like his soul is rolling its eyes.

"Well I regret to inform you that now is not a good time, Johann. In fact, there likely will not be a good time for at least a month. Between dealing with missions, healing the victims of our scouting excursions, investigating the creatures dropped by Hiverock and my own research it should be obvious that I am too busy for such frivolities! You should be too!"

"Penelope, please! You know I work hard for this city. But a certain degree of occasional relaxation improves my ability to do so, it doesn't lessen it. The same goes for anyone. Besides, these sorts of jobs… are they truly the best use of your abilities?"

"I, and no other, will be the judge of—"

Penelope cuts off her words, noticing my approach for the first time. Her angry expression melts instantly, shifting to surprise, confusion, and then a deep concern. Her true feelings even match her face.

"...Vita?" she prompts, carefully and quietly, as if her words would somehow break me.

"I, um. I brought..." I stutter, words failing me completely as I try to think of an excuse. Something about a delivery for her? She can buy corpses legally, right? I hadn't really thought about the fact that other people would be here.

Penelope simply walks forward, slowly reaching a hand up and lightly brushing her thumb between my nose and eye, smearing something wet.

Oh yeah.

I'm still crying.

Much of what happens after that is a blur. I find myself pouring tears into the front of Penelope's shirt, clutching the rich fabric desperately when someone finally pries the corpse from my arms. My team arrives at some point, Norah, Bently and Orville all there to witness me at my lowest. I vaguely recognize the sound of someone singing ring out through the infirmary, Claretta taking over healing duties from a wheelchair to her obvious dismay. Penelope shuffles myself and my team out of the room, holding my sister's corpse in her arms. I want her to give it back. It's mine. It's my failure. ...Though, didn't I come here to give it to her in the first place?

It's so hard to look anyone in the eyes. Penelope's pity, Orville's horror, Bently's shock and despair, Norah's quiet grief… I hate all of it. I don't want to see the look on anyone's faces, or worse, feel those emotions deep within their souls. I feel crowded. I need space. ...Not that there's anywhere in the city like that. I retreat upstairs instead, collapsing in a ball on my bed as I curl around Rosco. Where did I even get this damn bird, anyway? I love him so much. The first friend I could rely on. The first thing that was ever mine. I'll fuck up and break him too, someday. I suppose I already did once, when the Mistwatcher killed him.

I squeeze my stuffed animal tight, trying to shut off my senses by sheer force of will. Even if I can close my tear-filled eyes, however, the eye of my soul remains eternally open, gazing about the inside of my room with its mostly-monochrome sight. Only the souls of Penelope's rats have color to my inner eye, and it's them I find myself focusing on. Her past subjects all died, but she gathered a new batch from somewhere and has been experimenting on them since well before our last mission. Penelope has apparently gotten quite good at lobotomizing things, and all four of her test subjects successfully had the "useless" parts of their brain removed without issue.

Something about them… annoys me now. Disturbs me, even. Something about them is so wrong, I want to kill them and take their souls immediately. I try to tear my inner eye away to look at something else, but my senses still feel them regardless. They're just not right. It's like the souls aren't moving as they should.

I think I finally see what it is, delving deep to view them at the most detailed level. They're not growing. Other than undead, I've never seen a soul that doesn't. Even the Nawra, who rapidly consume their souls outside of a body, just as rapidly increase their size within one. But these rats aren't losing soul size or gaining it. They're just… stagnant. This is probably big news. I should get off my bed and go tell her about it.

Of course, like the failure I am, I don't. I don't move the slightest inch until Norah knocks on the door and lets herself in.

"Hey, um, Vita? Sorry, uh… you doing okay?"

"No," I mumble.

"...Right, sorry. Of course not. Look, I hate to bother you, but um… First Lord Erebus is asking for you?"

"Tell him to fuck off," I snap.

There's a pause.

"...No," Norah answers eventually. "I, uh, will not do that."

Oh, right. First Lord Erebus is important. Also he's technically my employer. Somehow this manages to be enough of a push to get my ass out of bed and head downstairs. I'm not even remotely within Penelope's guidelines for how I should look when talking to a first lord, what with my messy hair, puffy eyes and borrowed clothes from a boy who, while not as tall as my other options, still has the better part of a foot on my height.

I'm also still clutching a stuffed crow, but I don't see how that could offend anybody.

"Miss Vita," Lord Erebus addresses politely when he sees me. "My condolences."

"What do you want?" I grumble bluntly.

I feel a flash of irritation from the man when he hears my words, but he lets it pass over him and continues as if nothing was ever amiss.

"If you would be so kind, I'd like you to lead me to the facility you've been working with Penelope in. I'm afraid my future wife has already left without me."

I almost, almost say "yeah, because she doesn't like you," but a small bit of survival instinct chokes that down into my throat. Whatever, I may as well. I need a distraction anyway.

"...Right, okay. Follow me."

I stomp out of the hunter's guild, Lord Erebus easily keeping pace with his much longer legs.

"Incidentally, I was wondering," the man says pleasantly, "have you ever heard the name 'Ars' before?"

What kind of random-ass question is that?

"No," I answer honestly. "It doesn't ring a bell."

"You sure? Didn't I ask you that the first time we met?"

Why would he ask me if I know some random guy at our interview?

"No, I'm pretty sure you didn't, Lord Erebus."

"Hmm. Alright. Never mind, then."

The man seems oddly smug about that entire interaction, but I just think he's a huge weirdo. Whatever. As long as he keeps the Templars off my back, I don't really care. I've got way bigger problems and I'm in no condition to be dealing with them now, but one in particular I don't have a choice in. Namely: how the hell am I going to keep this dude out of our blasphemy basement? I didn't expect this Erebus guy to be so hands-on, and we definitely don't want him sinking his teeth into our animancy pie. We're almost to the research building. How am I supposed to—

I stop walking for a second, the last thing I want to feel right now pinging on my senses. No, not now. I can't do this yet. Why does she have to be here? How did she find me?

What's Lyn doing heading my way?

Let Them Come

"Miss Vita?" a calm voice asks. "Miss Vita, you've stopped walking."

I glance up at Lord Erebus's face, blinking in shock. Right, yeah, I was leading him to… a place I don't want him to go, like some kind of fucking moron. Lyn is rapidly approaching us, but before she gets in sight she stops, waiting around a corner. She must know I know she's there. Maybe she wants to talk to me in private.

Which, y'know, I don't want, because I got her daughter fucking killed.

"Miss Vita?" Lord Erebus prompts again. "Are you quite alright?"

I feel my jaw open a bit, the haze over my mind roiling slightly at the frankly moronic audacity of the question.

"Why the fuck," I ask First Lord Johann Erebus, "would you think that I'm alright?"

He seems a bit shocked at that response. I do not care.

"Did you not just watch me carry my sister's corpse into the room with you? Are you a fucking idiot? Did that just like… not register?"

He narrows his eyes a little, less than amused by my insults.

"I must admit, I never expected someone personally recommended by my fiancée to be so… childish. I understand and sympathize with your grief, young lady, but that is no reason to take your hostilities out on me."

"Isn't it?" I snap, any wisdom in my head about not pissing off a first lord thorougly scrubbed away, "If people like you were halfway fucking competent, the people of this city, my family, wouldn't be surrounded by gangs and death and rot! You fucking said yourself you don't need me to lead you to this damn place, but you're making me do it anyway, while I'm grieving, just because you feel like you fucking can! I'm not the childish one here!"

"You are standing in the street and screaming at me while holding a stuffed animal," he calmly points out.

"Leave. Rosco. Out of this," I hiss, feeling my face scrunch up into a death glare. I can kill him too. I wonder if Penelope would prefer a Revenant husband over this fucking piece of work? I bet she probably would.

Erebus just stares at me like I'm some kind of frustrating puzzle for a moment before bowing his head with unexpected politeness.

"Apologies. I've imposed upon you during a time of extreme stress. I, personally, like to throw myself into work when I grieve, but this is clearly not your way. Out of respect for your situation, I will continue my business with you at another time."

Of course, I can tell he's actually fairly furious, but I'm currently incapable of giving a shit. He turns and departs without another word. Good riddance. The last thing Penelope and I need is someone poking their nose into our business. I'll deal with him later.

Right now, I still have to face my mom. She emerges soon after Lord Erebus walks off, worry in her features and yet there's a soft smile on her face. A smile. Looking at it claws my heart to shreds. I have to turn away. I can feel her pain, sharp and terrible, yet she's still smiling for me.

"Vita," Lyn greets softly.

"M… Lyn," I answer back. I don't deserve to call her mom.

"I heard what happened. From the kids."

She moves forward, arms opening to hug me. To hug me. I step backwards.

"...Sorry," I whisper. "I'm sorry."

"It wasn't your fault," Lyn answers. But she's wrong. I don't want to hear it.

"F-follow me," I manage to stutter. "Penelope has her."

Her eyes go wide, hope entering her soul.

"Your biomancer friend?"

I wince.

"...She's just preserving the body," I clarify, choking up a little. Damn it, don't cry again! "It's not… sorry. I'm sorry."

I step away, hurrying towards the facility. It's okay if Lyn visits, I've already told her about it anyway and she knows a thing or two about subtlety. And it's… well, it's where Angelien's body is. I couldn't bear to keep her out. Together we head inside, heading down into the basement as I feel the Revenants scattering to their hiding spots. Penelope is there as well, unperturbed by our arrival. I open the lower door, walking in past the metal-ink runes that block every magical sense but my own from detecting this place.

Penelope is there, casting her spells on a tiny, naked body. Angelien's shattered, twisted neck has been moved back into place, her body seeming almost peaceful. If not for the fact that I can tell it's a soulless husk, I may have thought her asleep. Penelope looks up at us as we enter, raising a slight eyebrow.

"Vita. And… Miss Lyn. Welcome. I… sorry, but I'm not quite done. You're welcome to watch, or not."

Lyn steps forward, the agony in her soul becoming apparent on her features for the first time. She can't keep her brave face in front of the body, tears starting to well in her eyes.

"Oh, Angelien," she whispers, holding the corpse by the hand. "My brave little Angelien. I'm so sorry. I should have been there. I should have seen it."

"Erm…" Penelope mutters, staring at my mother with an awkwardness beyond anything I've ever seen in the normally-composed woman. "I'm… terribly sorry, truly, but the work I'm doing is somewhat time-sensitive and I need you to, ah, let go of the body."

"O-oh. Of course." Lyn lets go and steps away, wiping her tears with a gloved hand. "What, um… are you doing, exactly?"

Penelope frowns, turning her attention back to the corpse.

"Well, that should be obvious, shouldn't it? Vita, I assume you have her soul?"

"I-I, um. Yeah, I do," I confirm. "Whole and intact."

Instinctively I move a hand up to my lower sternum, feeling at the skin over which Angelien's soul floats inside me, right above my own.

"Then we're going to bring her back, of course," Penelope finishes plainly. "Immortality research, remember?"

I take a step away.

"...Penelope, we can't do that yet."

"Sure we can," she answers nonchalantly. "You've done it three times already."

"No, I mean… I can bring her back as an undead, sure. But I'll have to fuck with her soul! She'll be forced to love me, and—"

"She's your sister," Lyn says softly. "She already loves you."

"She'll be dead!" I counter. "An undead servant! She won't ever grow up, she won't even be able to leave this stupid basement! We can do better. Penelope, weren't we going to learn to bring people back to life?"

"Hey now, being dead isn't so bad."

Vitamin drops down from her hiding place in the ceiling, grinning with satisfaction as Lyn and Penelope both jump a little at her sudden appearance.

"Hey mom. Hey grandma."

"...Vitamin?" Lyn guesses, quickly recovering from her shock.

"That would be me!" my zombie-clone-parasite-daughter confirms. "It does get a bit cramped down here in the basement, but the Doras and I are working on that. You two can come out, by the way. Grandma won't bite."

"I'm not a 'Dora' anymore," Margarete complains, strolling in from the fridge area. She points at Angelien's corpse. "Is that my new body? I'll take it, but I was hoping for something less small."

"It isn't, and you will not let anything bad happen to it," I growl at her. She snaps to attention and nods fervently. "What's Vitamin talking about? You're working on a way to leave here safely?"

"Since we have so much excess metal, we can adapt the same protections used on the building itself into tattoos," Theodora explains, also entering the room. "Hypothetically it should let us walk around safely right under a Templar's nose, as long as no one checks for a pulse."

"I was hoping for permission to test it out first, if that's okay, Mom," Vitamin continues. "I'm the only one that's not helping much by being cooped up in here, and I'm fast enough to run away and hide if things go badly."

"Okay, that's fine," I huff, "but Angelien is still dead, and I'd still prefer to wait until we can make her alive again rather then irrevocably fuck up her soul! Theodora, back me up on this."

I internally wince as I realize I worded that as an order, but the tattooed woman seems perfectly happy following it.

"Subjecting a child to mind-altering magic and forcing her into an eternity of servitude would be one of the most horrific breeches of human decency I can imagine."

"Rude," Vitamin comments, pulling a bug out of her ear and squishing it between her fingers.

"...The point is, I wholeheartedly agree with Vita. We should continue our research while she keeps the human souls inside her safe. I… recognize the desire to see the people you love again as soon as possible, but it would be better to wait. She may lose a few years in the interim, but she'll at least still be herself when she comes out the other side."

We digest that in silence for a while, Lyn nodding slowly as tears drip silently down her cheeks. I squeeze Rosco tighter, at least until Vitamin starts making grabby-hands at me. After a moment's hesitation, I give her my bird-friend and pick her up instead, letting me hug both of them at once. Her body is cold, but her soul is wonderful. So comforting. So safe. She'll never, ever hurt me.

"I disagree completely," Penelope says suddenly. "A few years? Really? You think we're going to figure out how to bring the dead back to life in a few years? Laughable. If we wait, Angelien will lose decades of her life, at the least! We've hit nothing but problems on this so far, and you know it. If we wait until we figure everything out, this girl would be coming back unchanged to a world where everyone she knows and loves is completely different, having moved on without her! That seems like a far crueler fate to me."

"Oh please," Theodora counters, rolling her eyes. "You just want another test subject."

"Theodora, I'm not that callous," Penelope snaps, genuinely offended. "My point stands regardless of my alleged motivations anyway."

I scowl.

"...What sort of problems have you been having?" I ask. "Can I help out here more?"

Penelope shakes her head.

"Ultimately, our problem is that while we can reverse-engineer some of what you do, we're still missing far, far too much. The biggest one is that your soul-sight isn't a spell, so we can't copy it to see what you see. So even if we learn how to modify souls, we'd have no way of determining whether anything we do is working. We're completely blind on the animancy front, and the biomancy front is… well, let's just say there are reasons no one on Verdantop has figured it out before. We need more information on animancy."

I nod, mind and emotions churning. The bubbling fury from before rises to the surface again as my gaze locks on Angelien's corpse.

"...Then we keep waiting for now, while we get more information on animancy," I say.

Penelope huffs.

"And how are we going to magically manifest a better understanding of animancy? You don't even know how your own talents work."

I scowl, eyes hard. It's so simple. Everything fits together now. My path to setting things right, my path to protecting my family, and my path to getting stronger… they're all the same.

"Easy. I'll murder Capita, bring her back as a Revenant, and make her tell us everything she knows."

There's a short second of silence as Lyn's breath catches, the rest of the room slowly picking up on the frank seriousness of my declaration.

"...Vita, if you go after Capita, the whole of the Broken Drakens will come after us," Lyn warns.

"Good," I growl, the sight of my sister's snapped neck flashing in my memory.

The Drakens got away with abuse only on the promise that my family would be safe. That was the deal. That was their one responsibility. Their one reason to be more than fucking food. But no, they can't even do that. They can't even keep people from beating the shit out of children. They're monsters, every last one, and I eat monsters.

"Let them come. I'm going to kill them too. All of them."

Another silence answers me, but I'm convinced. I'm fucking tired of letting myself and my family get walked over. I won't stand for it. Not a single second longer.

Lyn clears her throat.

"Um, Vita… you realize I'm technically a member of the Broken Drakens, right?"

I blink, my rage choking to a painful stop like half-vomited stomach acid.

"Well… I mean, obviously I didn't mean you? You're not a member because you want to be."

Lyn has the audacity to grin a little.

"So, are you going to ask every single member of the Drakens if they wanted to be one before killing them, or…?"

"Yes, this seems more than a little extreme," Penelope chimes in. "Where did that even come from? It makes for quite the dramatic declaration, but… perhaps, ah, lower the scope of your vengeance a tad?"

A blush blooms on my cheeks. Vitamin, the incorrigible rascal, starts to laugh.

"Well, I think it's a good idea!" she agrees happily. "Let's slaughter the bastards! It'll be feel-good fun!"

"Yes, I don't really know these 'Broken Drakens' at all, but they sound terrible," Margarete concurs. "I imagine the city would be better off without them."

Theodora opens her mouth to comment, then closes it, looking away. I sigh, almost emboldened by their support, but...

"No, Lyn and Penelope are right," I admit. "Most people in the Drakens aren't responsible for the nasty stuff. There's probably a bunch of victims like my family."

"Oh, I suppose that makes sense," Margarette agrees again, because of course she does.

Vitamin also shrugs, clearly fine with this too. Theodora relaxes, however, her soul no longer warring with itself on whether to agree with me. It's her that reminded me: the support is fake. Their opinions are fake, because I twisted them. I don't know what to do about it. Should I stop listening to them, since they'll just echo me? Or is ignoring their opinions because of that just going to dehumanize them even more?

"...We should at least kill Capita and Sky, though," I say. "They've been fucking us and everyone else, and we've just been sitting back and letting them."

"Screw that," Lyn says. "Vita, the reason I haven't killed the Drakens already is that Sky will fucking annihilate us if we try."

"Then I'll get stronger first," I counter. "It's not like we have to attack today. ...As much as I'd like to. What all can he do?"

"'He?' You mean Sky?" Lyn asks with confusion. "Um, the boss is a fucking crazy kineticist, I think. Talent, not learned. Really short range— at least I think so, don't quote me on that— but with like, stupid power and speed. Can grab and move things nearby. Attacks get veered away and just don't hit. And if you get close? Smash. Dead."

Ugh, sounds like a nightmare for me or Lyn to fight. Although… if I'm strong enough to yank his soul out, I doubt a kineticist can divert my tentacles. Considering his soul-size, though… I'll need to eat a lot.

In which case, I know exactly what to do.

We talk and plan for a while. The aching in my chest doesn't go away, not with Angelien's soul bobbing around inside, but Lyn… she seems so sure that I can help. That I can fix my horrible fuckup. She's not mad at me at all. It's horrible. Painful. Wrong. She shouldn't be blaming herself for my failure. But at the same time… I can't take her hope away from her. I have to live up to it. I have to make everything right.

When I leave, I immediately make my way back to the Hunter's guild. My armor and weapons have been returned, placed where I normally put them while I sleep. I gratefully don them, go downstairs to eat as much as I can manage, and then head for the gates. I leave Skyhope, on my own, without a word to anyone, and head straight for the forest.

I'm hungry, and I'm done holding back.

Sovereign Right

A barrier of tree and vine stands before me, a hundred feet tall. There's a certain beauty to it. I've lived in the city my whole life, a world of beige, tan, and dun. Hardly a beautiful or safe place, but they're colors I know and dangers I'm used to. Dark and vibrant greens, shady browns, dashes of red, yellow, blue and purple dotting the ground… these are colors I associate with danger beyond my understanding. This is the forest. This is not a land for humans, but a violent and murderous land of monsters and death.

No wonder I'm so excited. Not even the weight of my self-loathing can still the hammering heart in my chest, the mouth-watering anticipation of an unrestrained, unrestricted feast. This horrible, alien place could be my grave.

But if it's not, it will be my paradise.

Wide lines of toxins and stone stem the tide of green, separating the forest from the fields. Hunters are far from the first vanguard against humanity's fight with the forest: workers, often prisoners or slaves, survey the area around the fields day and night. Biomancers concoct deadly herbicides in a constant arms race against the plants that consume the poison, die from it, and feed their ever-stronger children with the sacrifice. We have to grow food somewhere, but anywhere we want to plant grain or vegetables is somewhere the forest wants to control instead. The moment I step over our desperate defenses against the encroaching green, I am in enemy territory. I don't have a biomancer with me. Even a single mistake could spell my death. I know this, yet I don't hesitate for a moment.

As soon as I sense them, I make my way towards a small pack of small, shivering, silver-colored souls. Blade deceivers, I recognize them as. Six-legged beasts that only come up just above my ankle, they're a common danger to newer hunter teams. When hiding or resting, they look just like simple stones, chunks of rock on the ground that often stay still long enough for plants to grow over and around them, sometimes covering them entirely. In less than a second, however, they can unfold into a brutal collection of limbs and spikes, jagged and fully capable of ripping through leather armor plus the skin underneath it. A colony of them can climb over and tear a human to shreds in moments, inflicting so many wounds so quickly that even a team with a biomancer has no hope of healing them in time.

Our team, of course, has never had a problem with them. Penelope can wipe them out at range with her talent, and even if it comes to a fight they have no chance of getting through Norah's armor.

Not to mention that I can simply reap them like wheat. I walk directly towards the monsters, and once I'm close all eight of them burst directly at me. They die without ever making contact. It's a wonderful, satisfying feeling.

Now, what to do with the souls? I could just eat them and leave, but even a monster as weak as these has a soul noticeably larger than the shard I'd use to raise them. I could eat the soul, then take out a shard from myself to turn the body into what Grig called a Dreg zombie, a lifetime ago. That way, I still have a net gain in personal power. Zombies created by nothing other than one of my shards are phenomenally stupid, though. I could instead use the soul and a shard to make a zombie, which would be a much stronger and more intelligent minion but a slight loss in terms of food. The process is identical to making a Revenant, but from what I remember of Grig's undead-type lessons, these ones would technically be Risen, not Revenants. Blade deceivers are far too simple and stupid to share a name with Revenants; an intelligent, weapon- or magic-wielding human zombie with all the power it had in life is nowhere near the same category of threat as a monster that simply retains its instincts rather than being entirely mindless.

I turn two of the blade deceivers into Risen and the other six into Dregs, just to get a handle on the difference. It's fairly obvious and immediate: the Dregs shamble along slowly, staggering about the forest floor with a slow, awkward gait. I order one to run and it just trips. The Risen, meanwhile, move just like they had in life, scuttling about with purpose and alacrity. Hmm… they're actually kind of cute now that I can look at them without worrying about getting my tendons slit. Their spiny bodies twist and shift in dazzling patterns, fitting together like a seamless puzzle when they curl up into their rocky camouflage. Beady little eyes stare around hungrily from underneath their round bodies, glancing about with a simplistic yet still-present intelligence. I pick one up in a gloved hand, petting a less-sharp part of its body with a single finger. The Risen deceiver squeaks happily.

I grin, and set off to slaughter a hundred more.

My horde swells, though most of it is not composed of blade deceivers. Whenever I sense souls small enough for me to rip out without a struggle, I head towards them, carving a trail of death through the forest. At this point in my hunt, I've amassed eighty-seven Dregs of various creatures and forty-nine Risen. It's not even that difficult to do. The only hard parts are remembering to be careful and knowing when to stop.

If I go too deep into the forest, I will die. It's one thing to have finally found my conviction to push myself, it's another thing entirely to be suicidal about it. Even fodder I can slay with a thought has a chance, no matter how small, of killing me horribly. Anywhere in the forest, I'm one poison dart or bad cut away from death. It almost happened, in fact, my armor barely saving me from the needle of a creature I didn't realize could shoot me from outside my range. I retreated instantly, sending zombies to do the job for me, but it had been startlingly close. The deeper I go, the more likely deaths like that become. Even with an army, I'm scared to fight something like the queen burrow hound.

...Or one of the Hiverock monsters. I'd bet they can still heal from eating zombies. It's meat and a soul, same as any living thing.

At the same time, however, I can't just stick to the safer parts of the forest. If I stay too shallow, I can't hide my undead horde from a threat just as big: humans. I'll be too worried about running into travelers or other hunters if I stick close to Skyhope or the road.

Eventually, I make my decision by putting the decision off for later. I'm just going to slowly head deeper until something spooks me out of my comfort zone, reaping delicious monster souls all along the way. I don't have any real strategy for turning them into Dregs or Risen or just food, and I don't care. It's just so freeing. I have no need to hold back, no need to pretend to grow at a steady pace. I am here to annihilate, consume, and conquer.

It's funny; hunter teams often have to make the difficult choice between hovering around the bodies of the things they kill and moving on; leave too fast, the common wisdom goes, and you risk having your recently-killed foes rise as zombies behind you. It's not common, but it happens. Stick around too long, however, and the meat can draw aggressive scavengers. Obviously, my team has never once had a problem with zombies, but we often stick around and waste time because I can't just fucking tell them that the monster souls can't create undead after being eaten.

Everything would be so much easier if not for the damn church. It's so annoying.

Hours pass, but I'm still going strong. I intend to keep fighting and feasting through the night, in fact. It's too soon to go back yet. I need to get stronger. I need to eat more. I need to. Each soul I consume restores my stamina, allowing me to keep fighting to the next one, and the next one, and the next and the next… it's exhilarating. I feel like I belong here. My sensory range swells yard by yard. Even from just a single fucking afternoon my tendrils have grown a foot in length.

I laugh, a smile splitting my face as my soul effortlessly rips through a congregation of little disciples, the betentacled monsters that nearly killed my whole team back on my first mission. I twist the lot of them into Risen. Little disciples are so much better as Risen; the Dregs slap monsters ineffectually with floppy limbs and can barely walk. The Risen climb up beasts three times their size and bite their fucking throats out.

Now made my slaves, the deadly tentacle beasts climb up me and I don't feel a drop of fear at their touch. The zombies preen and coo, their quickly-cooling bodies happily enjoying the scratches and pats I lavish them with as their reward for death. It's such a funny sound, I can't help it. I laugh some more.

...When was the last time I laughed? The question halts me for a moment, snapping my mind out of the high I've been drunk on for the past few hours. Why am I even laughing in the first place? I'm here because Angelien is dead. I'm here because I fucked up and I have to be strong enough to make it right. This isn't the time to be having fun. I should be training. Working.

I sigh to myself, gripping my spear and twirling a light drill with it. Right, yeah. I've been having fun slaughtering the smaller stuff, but what I really need is some way to deal with high magic resistance and souls out of my weight class. Rowan's words echo in my mind, way back from when I first started training. Technique is more important than raw power. I've been relying on brute force to face my problems, which is nice when it works, but generally a shitty plan in the long term. How I use my talent, how familiar I am with its workings, how creative I can be with its application… that's a vital part of strength. It's challenging to train that area of myself, however, since I'm always afraid of being detected. Out here, alone but for my pleasantly cuddly undead swarm, I'll have no such issues.

Thankfully, I have no shortage of ideas on where to start. Developing a way to deal with stronger, more resistant foes is certainly a difficult challenge, but I've recently gotten an excellent push in the right direction: the Hiverock monsters. Normally, damaging a person's physical body has no effect on their soul energy. Hiverock monster teeth shred bits of soul, however, cutting that energy which permeates around a person's body and trapping it in the bitten-off sections of flesh as they swallow. Normally, if you cut off a person's hand, the soul-energy in that hand just returns to the body almost instantly. If I can figure out how to trap and steal it in chunks like those monsters, however, I can start chipping away at my target's magic resistance every time I stab them with my spear, eventually leaving them vulnerable to a soul-yoink even if my strikes aren't otherwise deadly.

But how do I make an object capable of scooping up bits of souls? Souls can touch souls, Hiverock monster teeth, me, and... nothing else that I know of. Hmm… making a spearhead out of a hiverock monster's tooth might do the trick, but I don't have any of those. But I have plenty of me, and plenty of souls. I can put souls in inanimate objects. What if I put one in my spear? Can it really be that simple?

...It turns out to not be that simple. Surrounded by undead bodyguards I work through the night, eating one of them whenever I get tired. I eventually conclude that my theory is right; putting one of my soul shards in my spearhead is the way to go. But there's something wrong with the shard. When I put it in the spear, it tries to make a spear-zombie, extending tendrils through the shaft and finding a grand total of zero places it's capable of moving. I just end up with a normal spear that the Mistwatcher will likely reach up a tendril to and try to eat if I keep it around too long. I need a different kind of soul shard, one that will pull energy out from a body rather than push energy through one. I have to take my shard, take its magic… and reverse it.

I have absolutely no idea how to do this. Reverse it? A deep sensory dive into the nature of my shard reveals something frighteningly complex, yet on some level I can feel my intuition sparking, helping me start to understand. This, my talent insists, is something I am meant to do. My shards are mine. Mine to command, to shape into what I need them for. I am a manipulator not of the souls of the living, but souls beyond it. I am the queen of the broken and the dead, and it is my sovereign right to wrench my subjects into the form best suited to me.

Slowly, as night turns to day and starts to turn to night again, I start to see how my shard must shift. Now I just have to shift it. My tentacles aren't up to the task. They are thick and powerful, made for strength and murder. I need something smaller, more subtle. Something like Capita's threads, though I get the impression that's not the right track of thinking. I am not a being of subtlety. So as I hold my shard in my physical hand, I simply shove power through it. It flows into the shard, through its maze-like patterns and over its surface. It's like water filling a sponge. Or, I think with amusement, like a Nawra flowing into a brain. I hug Penta's soul lightly in one tendril, playing briefly with her inert soul-cilia before returning my full focus to the shard.

I flex my power, and it shifts. No longer a fragment of my capacity to create, it is now a shard of my skill at destruction. Good. I place it in my spear, feeling the shard grasp ravenously around the tip, eager to rip power out of flesh to add to its own. Perfect! Time to test it.

I stand up, noticing with a shock how horribly stiff my body is. I… guess I've been sitting here for over a day without moving. Whoops. My stomach burbles in protest as well, which settles it. After one test, I'm heading home. I need something too strong for me to simply soul-rip, but not so strong that I'll fucking die while fighting it. I start walking around the forest, carefully scoping out my options, and after a couple hours I detect something that I think might just be a prime target.

The soul is a jittery vibration, strong and sharp. The monster—and geez, I'm getting so used to feeling out souls I'm starting to emotion-read monsters—is nervous to the point of paranoid, and my guess as to why is pretty clear. Underneath it are about a half-dozen tiny souls, solid black like a newborn baby's. The monster is protecting its kids.

Common wisdom says that pissing off a monster mom is a one-way trip to meeting the Watcher, but holders of common wisdom generally don't have a hundred zombies to back them up. The problem with zombies is that, ultimately, they're not very strong; everything I've killed in the forest so far is weaker than I am. When I start hunting for things outside my weight class, there's a solid chance I'll encounter a monster that my zombies will struggle to hurt at all. The worst-case scenario is a monster that recognizes I'm the biggest threat and doesn't get distracted by my minions as I try to stab them. A mom protecting her babies has no such luxury, however.

My strongest zombies are probably the Risen little disciples, thanks to their speed, intelligence, and the remains of the anticoagulant venom they had in life, though that last one will eventually run out and their dead bodies won't be able to produce more. Everything else is weaker and significantly dumber, and even the little disciples can't understand instructions more complicated than a couple words. I want my army to circle around the mother monster's position before we move in, but I don't have any way to order them to do so other than bringing my whole horde around the circle and manually and ordering specific zombies to stay put. I'm not even sure why my zombies respond to verbal commands at all, but it's the only thing that seems to work. Something to look into later. For now, the monster has to know we're here, but as I predicted, it can't rush at us while protecting its nest.

Once I have my minions set up, I peek out of the brush behind it to look at its body for the first time. Given the power packed into the monster's soul, I'm surprised to find that it's not all that much larger than a normal human. Grey, gleaming chitin covers the creature's entire body. Two thin, blade-like back limbs and three dangerously sharp forelimbs mark the creature as a pentapede, specifically an ironshell pentapede. ...No relation to Penta herself, of course. I recognize it because it's one of the creatures we were taught to look out for; its chitin is absurdly tough, making it an exceptionally dangerous monster to fight… but also an exceptionally valuable one. I could get a nice chunk of money if I bring this back to Skyhope.

Unfortunately, I also have zero chance of damaging it unless I jab my spear into a joint or one of the thin, black bands running along the front of its body that act as eyes. The monster has no head at all, just a compact, single-segment body with a mouth facing the ground. Its middle front leg is a devastating weapon, capable of spearing through nearly anything. As such, I probably want to avoid going for an eyeshot and stick to attacking from behind.

Right then. Let's see if this works.

"Attack," I order my horde.

There's no thought and no subtlety from my zombies; they move as one, gleefully swarming towards a life to snuff out. The pentapede shrieks, standing up on its long legs in an attempt to intimidate my minions, but they of course are entirely unaffected. To my surprise, I see a huge nest underneath where the monster was laying, with many more eggs than I was expecting. Only some of them have souls. Now's not the time to wonder why, though.

The ironshell pentapede lashes out furiously, smashing one of my Risen to a pulp. The soul inside it shatters, scattering into hundreds of tiny pieces as the body is ripped apart beyond repair. That soul can never again make a Risen, and the body will never again house a workable zombie; they're simply too far gone. I wrinkle my nose in frustration. I'd hoped to be able to eat my horde when I'm done with them, but I won't get the chance if they die.

I suppose I'd better get out there and start attacking, then. I move slowly towards the monster, trying to convince it that I'm less of a threat than the swarm blindly jumping at it. The pentapede is forced to stay put, however, guarding its nest with its body where it would likely otherwise overwhelm my whole army with speed and strength. Carefully, ever so carefully, I double-check that the shard is in my spear, line up a jab, and strike.

My spearhead wedges into a crack in the monster's armor, yet barely even draws blood as the force of my attack is nowhere near enough to push further. That's not what I'm going for, however. The shard of soul in my spearhead reaches into the wound, drinking deep of my target's spirit before I pull the spear out and jump away from the furious Pentapede as it nearly kicks my head off. I feel it. The monster's core is just a little bit damaged, and the shard in my spear is just a tiny bit stronger. Yes!

Little by little, I strike from the giant bug's blind spots and damage its soul further and further. The hours spent picking an ideal target for my test were not wasted, and eventually the mother pentapede is poked enough by my soul-drinking spear that I can reach in a tentacle and kill it for good. Even forced to stand over its nest to shield its eggs, the damn monster slaughtered about three dozen zombies before ultimately succumbing. I happily eat its deliciously massive soul, along with the shard I put in my spear.

Now then… what to do with all these eggs?

I don't know if it's possible to domesticate an ironshell pentapede, but I bet a lot of people would pay a lot of money to try. Why do only some of them have souls, though? Are they not all fertilized? ...Well, even if I can't sell baby pentapedes, I bet pentapede eggs are delicious. I carefully pick up one of the soulless eggs, trying to decide how many of them I can reasonably carry along with the mother's carcass, when I feel something on the inside of the egg shake. A tap, a kick. It startles me so much that I drop the egg, jumping backwards as it splatters open on the ground.

Inside is a baby pentapede. Without warning, against the very instincts in my body, it starts to move. To my mounting horror and revulsion, the tiny, vulnerable creature uncurls itself, making wobbly, confused steps. It inhales, it coughs. It is, in every discernable way, very clearly alive… except, of course, to the screaming sense in my mind that tells me it does not have a soul. Why does it not have a soul!? How can it be alive without—

A tendril far larger than any of my own can even dream of being enters my senses, upon me before I can even push the scream from my lungs. It's one of the seemingly infinite strands of the Mistwatcher's will that steal the souls of the dead, pulling them down into the god's ravenous maw. As it wraps around me I am certain that somehow it will pluck my life away at that very moment. It curls and slides around my body, bringing back an infestation of nightmares upon my mind before ultimately letting go, ignoring me, and moving to the newborn five-legged beast.

It does not take a soul, for there are no free souls here to take. I have collected what I could of my fallen zombies, and returned the soul in my spear to my body. No, this tendril possesses the opposite purpose today. It reaches inside itself, snaps, and pulls.

The Mistwatcher creates a soul shard. Black, formless, it is nearly identical to the shards in the souled eggs, nearly identical to the shard in every unborn baby. The Church says the Mistwatcher grants souls to all creatures, and I witness now it is no overly zealous boast. Placing its shard inside the newborn pentapede, the creature twitches and spasms as its new soul pushes energy in and around its body, settling into place, entwining itself so intimately with the creature that removing it without causing death is impossible. As if by design. Soon, the twitching stops, the monster resumes its activities, and the horrible weight of the Mistwatcher's spiritual presence retreats back down through the island, intangible to all things other than souls and myself.

The Mistwatcher gave it a soul, yet the monster had been moving, acting, thinking without one. That thing had been taking its first steps, breathing its first breaths, without ever having a soul in the first place. The truth I'd thought I'd known for certain was nothing but a baseless assumption: in reality, souls are not necessary for life.

So, I'm left to wonder… what the fuck are they?

Feelings

"What is a festival?" I ask the August.

I've been living with the old man (it turns out that's why he's wrinkly, that means a human is old) for a few days now. I've been very careful about it, and I haven't bitten him even once.

After all, he's kept every promise that he's made. ...So far.

He doesn't try to touch me or see under my disguise. He doesn't order me around. He talks to me and teaches me things when I want to know, and he leaves me alone when I want him to. At the same time, however… he doesn't obey me. He only does what I tell him to if he feels like it, and often reprimands me for making demands at all. I can't force him to obey without revealing myself, either. It's a frustrating stalemate.

I still find myself coming back to this home with him, however. I even feel comfortable enough to risk letting on that I don't know things that humans should know. Hence, my question about festivals.

"Have you never been to a festival before, Lark?" the August asks.

"I have never heard of a festival," I grumble. "That's why I'm asking you what it is. You said this was a festival mask, right? The mask is the bit that covers my face. What is the festival part?"

The August chuckles, shaking his head a little. Then he stops suddenly, frowning to himself and appearing to think.

"A festival is when a lot of people get together to celebrate something," the August answers slowly. "It's a happy event where lots of people have fun together. We live here in New Talsi, but we still celebrate the upcoming festival about the founding of Skyhope, our capital. The sky itself bestowed on our island a great blessing of metal and glass, which made the crater that Skyhope was built in. We give the Mistwatcher our thanks with this celebration."

I frown, understanding most of the words but trying to figure out how they fit with the ones I don't.

"I don't understand what that has to do with my mask."

"It is tradition for people to wear those masks to the festival."

I sigh.

"What's 'tradition?'"

This goes on for quite some time, and I learn many more new words. Many of the words are stupid or nonsensical, but I learn them anyway. Currently, the August and I are at the place the August sleeps. I like to watch him sleep. I don't go onto his bed or get anywhere near him, but it is easy to open the door to his room and watch him in the night. At first, I was concerned that the August would go back on his word. I was afraid that he would try to do something against me while I was away. I don't know why I care. Ultimately, he is food. No matter what he does, he will end up in my belly. I do not have the Claretta anymore. When I start to bite someone, they will inevitably die. I suppose that is why I stay my teeth. The August is useful. Maybe even trustworthy. Maybe he won't betray me like the Claretta did.

I feel a spike of irritation for even thinking about this. He's food. I keep having to remind myself of that. The August and I walk towards town together, as we have every morning since I first decided to stay with him. Sometimes he asks me to help him sell things, and when I do he gives me weird stuff afterwards. He calls them 'toys,' which apparently means that I am supposed to 'play' with them. All of them are made out of wood and some have interesting aspects like moving parts or funny names. One of them, the 'pinwheel,' spins when the wind hits it.

I like to say its name. Pinwheel. Pinwheel. Pinwheeeeeel. The August says that it will also spin if I run fast enough, but I am afraid to run anywhere humans can see me. They might catch on if they see my true speed.

I do not want any of my prey catching on before I decide how best to hunt them.

I haven't eaten for days. The hunger inside me roils, clambering and screaming for a fractional, temporary relief. It is infuriating. I know that humans and almost every other potential meal eventually start to suffer and die if they do not eat. I have no idea if or when this will happen to me. I do know that the longer I go without eating, the more ravenous my urges become. I don't want to eat lesser meals, however. Maybe if I have to, or there is some other creature that catches my eye. I have been tempted in the past to catch and eat large numbers of birds, so that one day I can fly.

After learning the origin of my name, however, I don't really like thinking about birds. Humans it is.

The August sets up his shop as he does every day. I stick around for a short while asking more questions and learning more words. Soon, though, I depart, not interested in trading my time away for more strange wooden trinkets. Today I have worked up enough courage to believe that I will not be found out should I enter the city proper. Well, enough courage and enough hunger, anyway. I do not think I can spend many more days starving alone with the August.

The city is so much duller in color than the forest. The August says that this part of the island has so much salt in its soil that plants (trees and flowers and grass, which are somehow the same category of thing) cannot grow here. This makes it very difficult for the humans to get food, as they apparently eat plants somehow. The humans here trade the salt they pull out of the ground for plants that other humans pull out of the ground so that the humans here can eat and the humans and other places can… I don't know, have salt for some reason. The August bought some salty meat and said it tasted better that way, but to me it just smelled the same as every dead thing.

It still startles me how many humans are here. I used to think all humans looked exactly the same, except for the strange detachable skin they wear. I'm starting to learn that they change the skin almost every day, and I have to figure out which human is which by using differences in their faces. It is not going well at all. The August is very wrinkly, so that helps a lot, but it turns out there are lots of humans that are wrinkly. I have accidentally talked to the wrong human more than once, though thankfully they never chase me when I run away afterwards.

Hmm… I am letting my mind wander again. I should really stop thinking about humans and start thinking about how to eat humans. They really are very interesting, though. As my feet patter slowly into the nest of stone buildings, the sheer variety of these delicious creatures stuns me anew. How am I supposed to figure out a hunting strategy when every single human appears to be doing something completely different? I guess… I'll hunt the humans one at a time?

It seems obvious now that I'm thinking about it. It's not as though I'm going to catch a bunch of them at once. I am more than a little frustrated how slow it will go and how long I will probably have to wait between meals. But how am I supposed to pick one human out of hundreds? Or is it thousands? The August told me more words for numbers, but I haven't actually counted the humans here. It is not as though I'll be able to figure out which ones I've already counted anyway.

"What's that in your hand?"

A small voice interrupts my thoughts and I turn to meet face-to-face with one of the humans that are my size. I glance down at the wooden figure I've been fiddling with. As much as I love my pinwheel, The August gave me something new recently. I haven't let go of it since.

"It's a toy," I answer.

"It's neat! Where did you get it?"

The small human grins broadly, showcasing a missing front tooth. I feel a moment of discomfort, imagining how awful it would be if I'd lost a tooth too. I shudder a little, letting the feeling pass. I haven't lost any teeth, so who cares? Besides, human teeth are so wimpy and blunt that they can't be worth much of anything to the poor creatures anyway.

…Oh no. Eating humans isn't going to blunt my teeth, is it? No. No, surely not. None of my other kin that I've run into have ever had their teeth changed, no matter how much they ate other creatures, and my other kin seem to eat much more indiscriminately than I do.

"August made it for me."

"Who is that? It's cool! It looks like a bird!"

My fingers clench, and I almost crush the object right then and there. Almost.

"It's a lark," I answer, my voice carefully even. "August is a nice h— um, man. No, wait, that still sounds like…"

I swallow nothing but words, shutting up. Shutting up is really my only reliable skill when it comes to pretending to be human. Thankfully the small human laughs, which… I don't know what that means exactly, but it has never preceded something bad happening to me. So far.

"Can you introduce me? Do you think he would make me something too? What's your name? I'm Sharif! Does your toy move?"

"Um."

That was a lot of questions! I'm supposed to be the one asking questions! It would probably be weird not to answer, though.

"Yes, I can. I think he would make something if you paid or worked for him. My name is Lark. It does when I move it."

Reluctantly, I demonstrate. Lifting up the wooden bird, I wiggle a lever on its back, somehow causing it to flap its wings up and down. The next time the August makes something like this, I am absolutely going to watch. Despite my distaste for its form, I'm very curious to how it moves. Are there strings inside? I could make a trap that moves something to the left when you pull a string down, so I can sort of imagine how it would work, but I don't remember the August ever working with threads.

This Sharif human makes a bunch of strange noises, opening his eyes wide and putting his face up close to the bird.

"Can I play with it?"

"No," I say immediately. "It's mine."

The human's expression drops into one I'm much more familiar with. It's not exactly the same as the expression on Claretta, but she had always had her mouth twisted downwards like that.

"Come on! Didn't your mom ever teach you to share?"

"I don't have a mom."

The small human blinks, opening its mouth and then closing it again without any sound coming out. It looks away from me.

"Sorry," the Sharif mutters quietly. "U-um, you have a very cool mask."

"Yes." I am glad the small human recognizes my superior choice.

"So, um… why are you wearing it?"

I tilt my head slightly.

"Because I am hiding my face," I answer.

"Why are you hiding?" The small human gasps. "Are you wanted? Like an outlaw?"

I freeze, my heart almost skipping a beat. Something about that question puts an ache in my chest. I have no idea what an 'outlaw' is, but…

Are you wanted?

"I… I don't think so," I stammer. Not by the one person I want back, anyway.

"Well, okay! We should play together! You can keep your mask on and be an owl! Do you want to be friends?"

Do I want to be friends? I don't even know what that is. I have heard the word only once before.

"You made me choose between torturing my friend and watching her die."

My whole body shudders at the memory. I get an urge to scream myself raw just like I had that night, but I clamp down on it.

"I am going to take you to August now," I say, not sure how else to answer. I don't trust myself to have a human-like response. Thankfully the Sharif seems satisfied with that, practically bouncing along behind me as I turn and exit the stone-built section of the human colony. Maybe the August can help me figure out what I'm supposed to do in situations like this. I should probably be scoping out a human that I want to hunt instead, but… well, I soon find myself back at the August's stall anyway, the Sharif trailing closely behind. Whatever. The Sharif is too small and doesn't smell like a good target at all.

"This is August," I say pointing up at the wrinkly old man. "He is very good at answering questions."

The August is messing with… well, I guess the word is probably either 'whittling' or 'carving' a piece of wood, but there is apparently a difference and I have no idea what the difference is. He looks up at my words, peering down from behind his shop stall. The sides of his mouth turn upwards as he looks over myself and to the Sharif.

"Well, I have to be," the August says. "You certainly give me a lot of practice, Lark. Who's this?"

"This is named Sharif," I answer, pointing at the Sharif. That question is easy. I can answer that one.

"Oh, wow!" the Sharif exclaims. "Toys and festival stuff! This is super cool!"

"The August will give you things if you put on a mask and start yelling." I pause for a moment before amending that. "Well, you have to yell at the things he tells you to yell, specifically."

The August laughs and shakes his head.

"I don't need any advertising right now," the August says. "I appreciate it, Lark, but why don't you two go play? You should spend time with other people your age."

My age? Oh, maybe the human is small because it has not lived for very long and so it hasn't eaten enough yet. That kind of makes sense, although plenty of my siblings my age are much, much bigger than I am. Does age really matter?

"How old are you?" I demand, pointing at the Sharif.

"Six years old!" The Sharif exclaims with what might be a hint of pride. I recognize pride, I think. I was proud of a lot of things I had. I don't have any of them anymore.

"What's a year?" I ask.

"Um, ten months?" the Sharif answers hesitantly, after a brief period of thought.

"What's a month?"

"Thirty days!" It proclaims much more confidently.

I do some quick math in my head.

"Why are you so small?" I ask, scowling behind my mask. "You're way older than me, but we're the same size!"

The Sharif seems surprised, its confidence instantly shattered. I snort. Maybe humans are just really bad at eating.

"I-I'm not small!" it insists incorrectly.

"Yes," I correct. "You are."

"Now Lark, it's not nice to make fun of people for their height." The August insists, butting into our conversation. "Sharif is a perfectly normal size for someone his age."

I wrinkle my nose, not that anyone can see it. It's hard to believe that this tiny human has been alive for over ten times as long as I have! I suppose I should just accept it, however. Maybe this is common knowledge among humans.

"Okay," I answer simply.

"Now, apologize to Sharif."

I look up at the old man. Is this human trying to order me around? I guess… I don't actually know the answer to that question.

"What's an apologize?" I grumble, narrowing my eyes.

"It's where you say sorry to someone you hurt, and promise to try not to hurt them that way again."

What is this stupid human talking about?

"I haven't touched Sharif," I point out. "He isn't hurt."

"He's not hurt physically, Lark. You hurt his feelings. Look at him."

I look at 'him,' which I assume means the Sharif. Some humans are 'him' which means they are a 'man' and some are 'her' which means they are a 'woman' and I have no idea what decides that. Anyway, his face seems a bit weird, but he looks fine otherwise. He's not even crying. There must be something I'm missing.

"What's feelings?" I ask.

The pause from the August that comes afterwards almost makes me fear I've said something horribly wrong. However, the August simply stands up, exiting his stall and putting up a small sign. He waves to a human behind the stall next to his, asking if the other human can "watch over" his things. After an affirmation from the second human, he kneels down next to the Sharif and I and looks us over.

"Sharif," the August starts, "is your mother or father around?"

"No," Sharif answers. "I'm with Nana today. But I ditched her in town."

"How about the three of us go find her?" The August offers. "I'll show Lark how to apologize to you, and then you two can play."

We walk together for a while, back into the collection of stone structures where most of the humans reside. The August is quiet at the start, as he often is before starting an explanation that will end up taking a long time. I want to tell him to hurry up, but that never really helps so there's no point in trying. When he finally speaks, his words are slow and even, a carefulness to them that exceeds even his usual clarity.

"Feelings, which are also called emotions, are something that all people experience, all the time," he starts. "They are that hard-to-specify state of your mind that occurs as a reaction to your situation and the people around you. Words like 'happy' or 'sad,' 'angry' or 'jealous,' 'love' or 'hate…' those are feelings."

I frown, and this time I'm the one taking a long time to respond. My mind churns through meanings, associations, and guesses. I don't need to know every word to start understanding.

"Like the bubbly, shaky thing that makes water come out of eyes," I say, keeping my eyes on the road and trying my best not to think about the only time I cried. "Or when I want to hurt something that hurt me, even when I know I won't survive it."

There's a pause. The August is probably giving me a look, but I can't understand his expressions so I don't bother taking my eyes off the road.

"...You're describing sadness," the August explains. "And anger. Those emotions have their time and place. They can be helpful to feel. They can teach you, show others you need help, or push you to act when you might otherwise be frightened. But they are not good emotions, generally. Jealousy isn't good either, nor hate. Jealousy is when you feel bad because someone else has things that are good, things you want. Hate is… darker still. When the simple thought of someone makes you angry, when you want every success another person has to turn to failure, when you wish nothing but suffering on another. That is hate. No one but the very worst of us deserves to be hated, but plenty of weaker people hate for poor reasons, or no reason at all."

People are going to come for you, and they are going to kill you, and there is nothing in the entire world I want more than that. Claretta wants me to suffer and die. She hates me, then. Does that mean she is weak, or does it mean I'm… I'm...

"I don't think I like feelings," I choke out.

"Oh, ah, sorry Lark," the August says quickly. "There are bad feelings, yes, but there are positive feelings too. Happiness is the most fundamental of them all, the state where you just feel good. Happiness comes from things like… a warm bath, a hard-won victory, or the presence of a good friend. It's a beautiful feeling, something that all people ultimately strive for. Everyone wants to be happy. If you take someone's happiness away, that is a kind of pain. You don't want to be sad any more than you want to fall and skin your knee, do you Lark?"

Under my cloak, I claw at my chest with a hidden hand.

"...No," I confirm. "I do not."

"Then you should apologize to Sharif for making him sad."

I turn to the small human. I don't really want to apologize to him, because promising not to point out how small he is seems like a hassle. It's just true, it's not something to feel bad about. I apologize anyway, because the August tells me to and because the Sharif felt bad no matter what I thought he should have felt. That's how humans work, I guess, so that is what I will do.

"I'm sorry, Sharif," I mumble. "I won't call you small again."

The definitely-not-small-even-though-he-is human nods, apparently already back to his former energy.

"It's okay, Lark! I forgive you!"

I nod, deciding to assume that concludes this odd human ritual. I just have one more question.

"How do I be happy?" I ask the August.

He chuckles, showing his teeth at me. I'm fairly sure it's not a threat when humans do that. I find myself making the same expression under other circumstances, so I'm going to assume it's one of those.

"That is a question many people spend their whole lives trying to answer, Lark," the August tells me. "But I'm very old and I've had a long time to think about it, so I'll do my best to give you a head start. The most wonderful and beautiful part of being human, if we can harness it, is the fact that we can be happy by bringing happiness to others."

He kneels down, staring intently at both myself and the Sharif.

"The more you spread happiness, the happier you will be. And the happier you make those around you, the more they will return that happiness to you. Be kind, children. Think of others before yourself. It's not an easy thing to do. Start small, with those you love. But I promise you, there is no greater joy than from kindness. Trust in an old man who has tried everything else."

He stands back up and we start to walk again, leaving me with yet more questions. I'm not sure where to start asking them though. Soon, we arrive at an open area, and although I've made no progress on finding a human to eat, we do find the Sharif's 'Nana' and he and I start to play.

At first, the game is simple. I am supposed to touch him, and then once I do I am supposed to not get touched in return. It is a good game. Good training for survival, although the Sharif is exceptionally bad at it. He would be dead if he went into the forest. I suppose that's probably why most humans don't live there.

"This is—" the Sharif gasps for air, leaning over with his hands on his knees. "This is too hard. You're too fast! If you don't slow down, I can't catch you."

"Yes," I say blandly. "I'm not supposed to get caught, right?"

"It's not—it's not fun if I can't win."

I suppose this is kind of boring.

"Okay," I agree. "I won't use my legs."

"What!? That would be way too easy!"

"No it won't," I insist. "You're slow, but you're not that slow."

He doesn't say anything else, and just starts chasing me again with renewed vigor. I squat down and start scuttling around on my two visible arms, taking care to store and hold my wooden lark with one of the hands hidden inside my cloak. This is much more difficult, and I find myself grinning under my mask as the Sharif gets closer and closer to 'tagging' me. Before I know it, more and more of the small humans my size have arrived, joining the Sharif in an attempt to catch me. I experience a brief moment of panic as they surround me, moving in from all sides, their hands getting closer and closer until eventually…

…They tap me lightly. It doesn't hurt at all. Nothing bad happens to me. I stop moving, clamping down on the instinct to bite them in retaliation. I just sit there, doing nothing. I can't eat anyone with so many humans watching.

"You're supposed to tag us now!" The Sharif reminds me.

Oh, right. After a moment's hesitation, I scuttle after some nearby humans. They shriek with laughter, scattering every which way. After a little while, I feel something bubbling up in my chest, and without any conscious attempt from myself I start to laugh as well.

Oh. So that's what it means. This is what it feels like. A grin wider than any other blossoms under my mask. This is fun. It's like outwitting dangerous prey, or learning interesting things about humans.

I'm happy. That's what this is. Faraway islands pass lazily overhead as time flies away, my squeals of laughter joining that of the smaller humans. How am I supposed to eat them now? If they die, how will they play with me? Sometimes, a tall human comes and takes a member of the game away, which is… annoying. But it doesn't matter, as long as the game goes on.

"Sharif!"

A tall human I've never seen before stomps towards us. Most of the small humans stop running, staring at the newcomer with the wide-eyed look of prey realizing a predator has arrived.

"What are you doing here!?" the new human demands. "Look at you! You're filthy, there's a hole in your new pants, you're associating with this disgusting riffraff… I can't believe this. This is exactly what you promised not to do!"

"But mom—" the Sharif protests.

The tall human struts right up, grabbing the Sharif by the wrist and yanking him away from myself and the other small humans.

"No buts, young man. This is unacceptable." She turns to the human the Sharif calls 'Nana.' "This is your fault too. We pay you explicitly to prevent this."

I move forward as it drags the Sharif away from us, glowering behind my mask. How dare it take him away? Without that one I wouldn't have started playing at all! And now the other small ones are scattering!

"Hey!" I snap. "Leave him. We're having fun."

"Don't talk to us," the human orders. "Stay away from my son."

I watch them move away together, stewing in what I can now call rage. I suppose this solves my problem, at least.

I know exactly which human in this colony I'll eat first.

Center of Attention

I don't think that I'll ever get used to being the center of attention.

Whenever people look at me, my instinct is to assume that something is wrong. Growing up on the streets, you quickly learn that most attention is dangerous. Kids out here can get abused, kidnapped, or worse without provocation. Until I am very sure that someone doesn't mean me harm, I don't want them to even know I'm here. Years and years of that habit aren't going to go away, no matter how much I'm intellectually aware that I'm not in danger and that it is perfectly reasonable, at least currently, for everyone in the street to be staring at me with hanging jaws.

At least I don't need to ask anyone to get out of the way. I am given a wide, wide berth. I do my best to ignore all of the eyes on my back, finally reaching the hunter's guild and stepping inside with a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in the hunter's guild as well, more than usual, and the eyes of everyone inside just snap to me instead when I make my way to the front desk. I am exhausted. Dragging this giant corpse all the way back here was almost as much work as killing the damn thing in the first place.

"You have anyone here that knows how to skin one of these?" I ask.

The receptionist, whose name I haven't learned to this day, gives me an utterly dumbfounded look instead of responding. I scowl, not at all in the mood to have to deal with this sort of thing.

"It's an ironshell pentapede," I grumble. "These are valuable, right? I killed it, but I don't think any of my weapons can skin it. What should I do?"

"U-uh, well, we might have someone…? I'll ask around…?"

"I also have a dozen or so pentapede eggs. They're alive. I don't know if you can domesticate these or whatever, but do you think someone would buy them?"

"You brought live monster eggs into the city!?"

"Yes!" I snap. "I just said that. Don't freak out about it, they're not going to hatch yet. Can I sell them or not?"

The receptionist just pulls a string underneath her desk that I'm fairly sure connects to a bell in the branch leader's office. This is quickly confirmed when I feel him getting up and moving down the stairs towards us. Everyone present in the lobby continues to stare at me until I turn and glower in their directions. I must look like a nightmare. I couldn't fit all of the eggs in my backpack, so I ended up making a makeshift satchel out of little disciple skin. It took me quite a few tries to put it together successfully, so most of the front of my body looks like a storm rolled through a butcher's shop.

My boss finally shows up, the fat older man's eyes widening as he takes in my gruesome visage and even more gruesome cargo.

"Vita? Goodness, you… have you been in the forest?"

"No," I growl, "I just found this thing wandering around in the middle of the main thoroughfare and figured I was hungry for fresh meat."

He blinks, mind taking a while to catch up with the joke.

"I-I mean, your team has been here the entire time. How did you survive on your own?"

I just glower at the man for a few moments before eventually deciding that I am too damn hungry to continue this inane conversation for a second longer. I drop the section of the corpse I haven't been dragging along the ground, and set down the eggs as well.

"Look, I just brought these back because I thought they might be useful. Do what you want with them, I'm going to get some food. I haven't eaten anything for two days."

Other than souls, anyway, but they don't have to know that. I leave my confused guildmates behind, wasting no time before grabbing myself a bowl and filling it with as much stew as I'm able. Sitting down at the closest table, I start to devour it.

Soon I'm onto my second bowl, trying to slow down my consumption by sheer force of will so that I don't make myself sick. Now that I'm back in a familiar location, I can tell how much more range I've gotten on my soul sense just from this one outing. Another one hundred yards, at least. Why have I not been doing this the entire time? I could be getting so much stronger so much faster, but I've been… what, afraid? Of the Templars that will kill me the moment they have the opportunity anyway? I don't have anything to lose anymore. I should probably just head right back out when I'm done here.

Whispers flow around the mess hall as I continue to fill my belly, sounds that I would normally tune out without a thought. Today, however, it's a little more difficult to ignore since everyone seems to be talking about me.

"Seriously? That little girl?"

"The body is still in the lobby if you don't believe me."

"She must be insane. Even senior hunters don't go out alone!"

"Yeah, there's no way. I helped Remus train her just a few months ago. She could barely fight."

"Look man, I believe you, but if I felt something like her out on a job I would turn the entire team around. I don't know what else to tell you."

I keep to myself, trying to hide my face behind more stew. It doesn't feel like I'm that much stronger than when I first got here. I suppose I've been comparing myself more against Penelope than the average person, though, and she could probably kill everyone in Skyhope if she put her back into it. Even still, a lot of these people feel like they have bigger souls than I do. Am I missing something?

I push my senses into and around the souls of the few random hunters, comparing them to my own. There's definitely something different. I'm not sure how to describe it. Density? Structure? Whatever it is, I'm starting to suspect that directly comparing myself to humans might be somewhat of a misleading measurement. I'm not growing because I don't grow anymore. My tentacles are getting longer, but my core isn't getting bigger the way a human's soul would. It's just… changing.

Evolving.

The realization brings a smile to my face. It's exciting, in a way. Validating. Me, as I am… it's not enough. The little street rat who got a lucky talent isn't a person that can fix the messes I made. But if I can become something more, then maybe I have a chance.

Soon, my physical body can't take anymore food. Which… now that I think about it, is just a terrible design feature. I can eat as many souls as I want, but I can't have as much stew as I want? The human body sucks.

I exit the mess hall after cleaning my bowl with my tongue and putting my dishes away. Penelope had been called from the infirmary into the main room where I left my corpse and the eggs, where she is now arguing with the branch leader.

"No, don't destroy them. Hell, I'll buy them. Johann would be ecstatic to have these."

"If you want them, you can just have them, Penelope," I say.

"Vita!"

Something so utterly alien happens at that moment that I doubt I will ever be able to convince myself that it is real. Penelope, of all people, suddenly bolts towards me and gives me a hug.

"Watcher's eyes, Vita, thank goodness you're alive! You just left without a word and your mother and I couldn't find you anywhere and— holy shit you are absolutely disgusting, why did I touch you."

The moment ends just as suddenly as Penelope pushes me away and starts trying desperately to wipe the monster guts off of her dress. I'm left stunned, and it isn't until Penelope finishes casting a spell to clean herself that the world seems possible again.

"Hi?" I manage to say.

"Don't look at me like that. We were all worried about you. Did you… did you really kill this?"

I shrug.

"It had to protect its nest so it couldn't move very well. But yes. I did."

"By yourself?"

I raise an eyebrow.

"No, I assembled a small army. Didn't you see the levy?"

I keep my words thick with sarcasm so everyone else will misinterpret them, but by the pause in the song of Penelope's soul, I know she understands what I really mean.

"Mm-hmm. And where is your army now?" she answers playfully, not outwardly betraying a hint of anything other than a continuation of the joke.

"Disbanded," I reassure her. What, does she think I'm just going to leave an undead army outside the gates? I ate the lot of them. "Sorry I made you worry, I guess. I just needed to burn off some steam."

I admit, I do feel a lot better with a full belly and well over a hundred souls newly digested. However, while I can almost feel the raw grouchiness fading away in the aura of my food coma, my thoughts of relaxation are quickly dashed. Angelien's soul rubs up against mine, pressed tightly against me just like Penta's. I don't have the luxury of calm. I don't have time.

It's starting to get a bit tight inside my body, and with all the human souls I've been picking up whenever I come across one, I'm worried I'll run out of storage space. What am I going to do when I can't physically fit any more? Do I start turning them into Revenants? Or do I just start eating them, like the Mistwatcher would be doing anyway?

That's... a problem for future Vita. Present Vita has more than enough problems all on her own. The branch leader hurries over to me again, and thankfully it feels like he's calmed down quite a bit from the last time I saw him.

"Ah, Vita! So, we can certainly help you with managing quality materials like this, but I feel the need to remind you that the guild is currently understaffed and incredibly busy dealing with matters of security for the country. We've lost a lot of good hunters to the creatures that Hiverock dropped on us, so I would like to emphasize the importance of taking a structured, planned mission if you feel the need to venture out into the forest again. I am… certainly impressed by your performance, however. And surprised. I would've assumed your team working together would have struggled with an adult ironscale."

I frown at him, declining to answer the obvious question and instead asking my own.

"Do you have a specific job you need me for right now?"

"Er, no, we are waiting for another team to get back before we—"

"Okay, are there any smaller jobs I can do, or something? If you have work, I'll work. But if you don't, I'm going back out there."

He, Penelope, and the smattering of onlookers don't seem to have a response to that. I feel the rest of my team moving closer, perhaps alerted by someone that I'm here or maybe just noticing the general commotion I seem to be causing. They enter the room, each apparently relieved to see me but somewhat intimidated by the heavy atmosphere. It's the branch leader who breaks the silence again. The portly middle-aged man is clearly having a difficult time coming up with something to say, taking a high level of caution and care with his words like he thinks they could somehow injure me.

"Vita... I know you're having a difficult time right now. I'm aware of some of the events from the other day, but… I think at least for a little while, it will be better if you get rest."

"Waste of time," I dismiss.

"Well… I need hunters available. Moving in smaller groups has just led to casualties. We are withdrawing and doubling up teams to deal with these Hiverock threats from now on, and I need your team on standby for the moment your partners return from their mission. This is not a good time for haste. We have learned that the hard way."

"Every moment you waste is a moment those black-toothed monsters are getting stronger," I argue, "but whatever. You're the boss. I'll be sure to check back more often. Will that be enough?"

"Vita, quit being a fucking moron," Norah says, finally speaking up.

I glance her way.

"Honey, you're grieving," she continues. "You're not thinking straight. This…"

She motions at the pentapede corpse.

"...It's not you being efficient. It's you butting your head into a wall so you don't have to think about pain. It's a miracle you survived out there and you know it."

I smirk, which doesn't seem to be the reaction Norah was expecting. It's not a miracle. It's just what I can do when I don't have to worry about people selling me out to the church.

"Fuck, Vita," Orville grumbles, "if you could do this kind of shit the whole time and you've just been holding back, I'll be pissed."

"I've been holding back," I answer bluntly, "because you all hold me back."

Orville flinches.

"Hey," Norah growls, "we are your team. We are your friends. Don't give us a load of shit and push us away."

Penelope clears her throat.

"I… I don't think she means it that way. I think she's saying she's actually forced to limit her talent so she doesn't accidentally hit us with it. Isn't that right, Vita?"

I sigh. Right. Gotta keep the cover. At this point I almost feel like it would be worse for Penelope than for me if the truth got out. Maybe not. I'm just struggling to care. I'm tired of hiding this. I should be out fighting, not wasting my energy here.

"Yeah," I lie. "Sorry guys, it's nothing personal. It's just way easier to kill stuff when I'm by myself because I don't have to worry about collateral. If I let loose, all of you would die."

Shots of fear erupt in my senses all around me. It feels like just yesterday I wouldn't have had a chance in hell to pick up emotions from strangers. Now I'm not even trying and I still manage to do it. The lie does the trick, at least, and it's not even entirely a lie anyway. The rise in fear is accompanied by a drop in confusion, presumably from people putting together the incorrect picture of how I slew a powerful monster by myself.

Talents. So horribly, incredibly unfair.

Only Bently feels truly unfazed by what's going on. Penelope knows how I actually killed the monster, or at least a lot more of the truth than anyone else. I look forward to seeing how she reacts to my new kind of soul shard. Yet Bently believes the lie and it doesn't feel even a hint of fear at the revelation. In fact, he approaches me, towering over my head with the nearly two feet he has on my height.

"Um, I know you don't normally like it…" Bently begins, "but can I give you a hug?"

I blink. Well, at least he's asking this time.

"Sure," I allow, against my better judgment.

He doesn't pick me up like I expected, leaning down to wrap his arms around me and rest his chin on my shoulder. Bently has always been a happy guy, and in a lot of ways I tend to ignore him because of that. His optimism is often annoying, and I find myself struggling to respect anyone as stupid as he is. I consider Bently a friend, and have ever since the first day when he showed me the mess hall, but he's the sort of friend that I spend more time being frustrated with than actually appreciating the company of. I don't know if that's a common or normal sort of friend to have, but I certainly have had plenty of people like that in my life. People I call friends, but ignore.

Bently might not be the smartest, but he certainly never ignores anyone. I really shouldn't look down on him. Sometimes, he understands things a lot better than I do.

"Angelien would never want you to do this," he says.

My body goes rigid. My first instinct is to yell, to accuse him of barely knowing the girl for a couple hours, but really I know I can't say I spent much more time with her either. He continues to speak, driving the stake further.

"She loved you. When you love someone, you don't want them to be hurt. You don't want them to die. You don't want them to blame themselves for things that aren't their fault. Angelien is your sister, so she loves you. Please don't go back out alone."

"I didn't get hurt. I'm fine."

"But it's still dangerous. You don't have Penelope to heal you. You don't have Norah to protect you. You don't have Orville to back you up. All of us care about you too. Please don't go back out alone. Please don't blame yourself for what happened."

I swallow.

"I could have stopped it."

It's no longer about the forest and we both know it. But I could have stopped it. That's simply a fact. I messed up. I was too slow, too foolish. Nothing Bently can say will change that. I was there when she died. I could have stopped it. But Bently doesn't disagree with me.

"You are not who she would blame," is all he says.

He doesn't add anything after that, and neither do I. Everything still hurts. No amount of words will change that. I want to go out and get things done. I can't let myself stop moving again. I'm so scared that if I let myself rest I'll just devolve back into the lazy, passive nobody that never puts any work into anything, and this will all happen again.

Maybe some less deadly work wouldn't be remiss, though. I do lose everyone if I bite it.

"…Maybe there's some work I can do in the city?" I ask.

It's a long shot. Hunters are fundamentally people that operate outside the walls. But we're also more or less fancy mercenaries, and sometimes people will come with requests for problems within the city.

The branch leader clears his throat.

"Well, we have a few, actually. Some things that are nearby that you could do? If you're absolutely sure that you aren't tired?"

I haven't slept in days, but no, I'm not tired. I recently gorged myself on well over a hundred souls, many of which were quite powerful. My body is sore and slow, but my soul only wants to keep going.

"What are they?" I ask.

Only then does Bently release me from his hug, the branch leader handing me a folder which I immediately pass to Penelope.

"Read this for me," I demand.

She glowers at me.

"Don't you know how to read?"

"Yeah," I admit, "but I'm really slow. You're faster."

Grinding her teeth a little, she complies. The jobs are horrendously boring, most of which boil down to pest control. I may as well be spending my time hunting rats. I start to tune out a little, until one of the things Penelope says catches my ear.

"Say that one again," I order.

She sighs dramatically, but complies.

"Strange noises coming from sewage exflow channel four hundred and sixty-three," Penelope recites, enunciating dutifully. "Suspected to be squatters or monsters, intelligent enough to avoid detection. Scout requested."

"I'll take that one," I confirm, turning to leave immediately.

"Wait," Penelope calls.

I turn back towards her just to watch her finish casting a spell, pulling the majority of the blood and guts off of my face and armor.

"There, now you won't look like a tiny serial killer," she says. "Drop by our place soon, would you? I've collected quite a few tasks for you in the interim."

I nod. Good. The more progress we make, the better. That actually gives me an idea. I walk over to where I left the eggs on the floor, pointing to a bunch of them.

"Since you want them anyway, keep these six for us and bring them."

Penelope raises an eyebrow at me.

"Sorry, which six?"

I glance down with the eyes in my head, realizing that I've been pointing with one arm and five tentacles. I point out the other five with my finger, mumble an apology, and then head on out. Moving at a brisk walk for about a block, I break into a full sprint the moment I'm out of sight from the hunter's guild. The city has a lot of sewage, and therefore a lot of sewage exflow channels. I would have no hope of recognizing the majority of them by number, but I know a couple since they happen to be near where I live. For example, number four hundred and sixty-three would be the channel closest to the shack. It's probably unrelated, but if it's not…

Well, let's just say I'm in deep shit.

What He Deserves

I feel it before I reach the exflow tunnel, and my fists clench so hard I nearly bleed myself with my nails. The revenant I made out of Grig's son, that fucking murderer, is still functional after I told the damn thing to kill itself.

With tendril-strengthened arms I practically throw the cover to the sewer entrance open, jumping down with a wet splatter into a feces-filled tunnel, sinking knee deep. According to what I can feel, that asshole is down here, presumably having brought the other corpses and hidden them a few days ago like I ordered. He was supposed to kill himself, too, but his soul is barely cracked. His body must hardly be damaged at all! Did my order not take? No, this should be within my power. My shard seems to have integrated just fine, as well. What the fuck happened?

I walk right above where I feel the soul, reaching my hand down into the sewage. I grab hold of something, pulling the familiar corpse up out of the muck. The fucker is a disgusting mess, with chunks of skin peeling off his face and sewage seeping into the muscle to help it rot. Yet he is as alive as anything I can make, and when I pull him up he staggers to his feet under his own power, stammering like a fool.

"M-Miss Vita! I-I am so sorry, I tried to—"

"Why the fuck are you alive?" I snarl, grabbing the kid by his throat.

"I tried to do what you said!" The boy whines. "But I couldn't! I couldn't figure out how to die!"

"Oh, okay! Let me help you then!"

I toss him into the wall of the tunnel, striking out with a kick to his skull the moment he slumps over. I'm no pugilist, but my body is strong and reinforced by powerful tendrils and plenty of pent-up rage. My foot hits with a crunch, chitin-armored boots meant for stomping through the jungle connecting hard enough to pop him like a grapefruit.

Or at least what should have been hard enough, but it's actually my boot that shatters instead of his skull. The chitin breaks into pieces, cutting up my toes a little and leaving my murderous revenant seemingly unharmed. Well, I rip some more skin and muscle off, but that stuff isn't doing anything anyway. My eyes narrow.

"You have a durability talent," I immediately deduce.

"U-um, y-yes Miss Vita, I… I tried stabbing myself, drowning myself, and starving myself, but nothing seemed to work! I-I'm so sorry! I don't know how to follow your orders, Miss Vita!"

God damnit. Half of those things wouldn't kill a Revenant anyway, but if he can't break himself...

"You're about as good at dying as you are at baking bread," I seethe. "Are you sure your talent isn't just being worthless at whatever you're told to do? Stand up."

He gets to his feet, what's left of his lower lip trembling as I start to circle around him. I suppose this means his soul is anchored to his body's bones. His talent either reinforces bone or it reinforces all of him, and the rest of his non-bone body just isn't considered him anymore. Does he have two talents, or does he have one that encompasses both strong bones and blunt force child murder? In retrospect, I should have seen this coming. This kid got the shit kicked out of him by Grig hard enough for me to hear it through a brick wall and he barely got bruised. Grig probably would've killed a child without a talent like this. Fuck, for all I know he did.

It's a mercy that the family can't reproduce anymore.

"What's your name?" I ask. He doesn't really deserve a spot in my memory, but if I'm lucky I'll just forget it later. I need something to call him, for now.

"J-Jati, Miss Vita!"

"Jati," I say evenly, "you killed my sister."

The horror that washes over my Revenant's face is equal parts satisfying and infuriating. Does he care because he realizes he's a monster or does he only care because my shard is making him obsessed with me? I guess the end result is the same either way.

"I-I'm so sorry. I remember being so angry, I just wanted to… no. No, I'm so sorry. Please let me make it up to you."

"Make it up to me!?" I laugh. "You want to fucking make it up to me? You can't even die like you're supposed to, you're gonna make me do that for you too. There is nothing you can do for me other than ending your disgusting existence."

"I understand," the murderer answers. "I'm ready to be accepted by the Mistwatcher."

I blink, momentarily stunned by the absurdity of that line. He's religious? Of course he is. I've never really picked anyone's brain about that before. It might be funny.

"Accepted by the Mistwatcher?" I ask innocently. "What do you mean?"

"W-well, the Mistwatcher takes us back when we die," he explains. "He guards and shepherds the next world, escorting new souls to their bodies and old souls to heaven."

"Oh, wow. That sounds nice. Are you looking forward to it?"

"I suppose it'll be nice to see my dad again. He's dead, isn't he?"

I smile a little at that, tendrils squirming invisibly into the murderous kid's body.

"Oh yes, he's very dead, Jati. But you won't be seeing him again."

"What?"

I grab what's left of the boy's collar and pull downward, forcing him to meet me eye to eye.

"There is no afterlife in the Mistwatcher's jaws," I promise him coldly.

His eyes go wide. It's funny, I doubt a single sentence would convince any normal person that their religion is false. My Revenants, however, trust me completely. Jati knows the truth of my words because I'm the one speaking them. This is how I will make him hurt.

"Nothing awaits you. Even if the Mistwatcher had any interest in bringing you to some kind of reward after death, you'd never make it. I'm your god, not that thing. I am going to peel your soul apart, sliver by sliver, and crush it to dust until not a single aspect of the person you were remains."

His whole world comes apart in that moment. I see it on his face and I feel it in his core.

"I… but the Mistwatcher, he… he has to—"

His protests don't amount to anything, because of course I know he doesn't even believe them. I grab his soul, using a few tendrils to hold it in place while one begins to chip away at it. Still inside a body, Jati remains awake as I start to crack his very being. Judging by his reaction, I suspect it is excruciatingly painful.

"You killed my sister," I tell him again. "Apologize to me."

"I-I'm sorry!" the boy cries. "I didn't know!"

Fractures dance up his core, and a scream erupts from his lips as I grab hold of these new, jagged grooves, and rip a soul shard out of him in much the same way I'd pull one out of myself. Of course, as a simple human, his soul is not at all built for such things.

"You didn't know?" I press. "You broke a child's neck. What didn't you know? That you would be punished for it?"

"No, I—"

Whatever words he was going to say are cut off as I pull another shard out of him, eliciting another scream.

"Did you not know that the child you killed mattered? Did you just think she was some street rat? Do you think that means you can do what you want with her? Stop screaming."

His incessant noises cease immediately, becoming silent gasps as the pain of impending annihilation continues to overwhelm his mind.

"You killed my sister," I remind him a third time.

"Y-you killed my father!" he chokes out.

I scowl. What, did I break some actually important part of his undead soul, so now he can sass me? Or is the pain just so much that it's overwhelming the mind control? Doesn't matter, I suppose.

"I ate your father," I correct him, ripping off another shard and smashing it to dust. "You don't even deserve that."

"Fuck you!" Jati shouts.

"Careful," I hiss. "You'd better choose your last words carefully, or else I'll just make you change them. Into something like… ah, I know. Where's your mom?"

There it is. Despair, terror, hopelessness. Complete and all-consuming. I've killed people who've fucked with me, but this is much more than that. He tries to reach his arms up and cover his mouth, but all I have to do is repeat myself.

"Tell me where your mother is, Jati."

"Sh-she begs on Folsad Street!" His mouth barks, betraying him. "We sleep in some of the abandoned shacks by the defunct chitin farm!"

"See?" I sneer at him. "Now those are some good last words."

I shatter him, and then I shatter the pieces until nothing is left. I have no interest in making anything that was once him into part of me. Letting the corpse drop into the outflow channel, I let out a sigh of satisfaction. I don't know if that counts as justice, but it certainly was… cathartic.

My heart thunders, fingers clenching and unclenching. I did it. I thought he was dead before, but I know for certain now. I should have just done this the first time. With some deep breaths of foul sewer air, I'm slowly starting to calm down, minutes passing in silence.

Getting the knowledge out of him was fun and all, but I of course don't actually have any plans to kill his mother. As far as I know, she's never done anything to me. It might be a good idea to go find her and see if she's plotting some sort of inane revenge, but at this point a career widow with no apparent skills probably isn't any form of threat. The whole thing was worth it for the look on his rotten, fucking face, though. And I got the job done for the Hunter's guild! This didn't go too badly.

Now, I suppose, I should go to the next item on my agenda, which would be checking up on the Revenants I actually like. I guess I may as well make the entire trip via the sewers, since I would draw way too much attention being covered in shit. While I don't know the sewers anywhere near as well as I know the streets, I can tell more or less where we are by the collection of souls above me. Wherever large concentrations of people are in the line, I know that's a major street and I can figure out which street it is just from knowing the city. I hit more than a few dead ends along the way, but a few hours later I find what I suspect is going to be the closest sewer exit to Penelope's Revenant research facility. There are a couple people milling about, but they quickly leave when I emerge, smelling like death. I quickly run out, unlock the doors, and make my way downstairs.

"It's me!" I call out. As per tradition, Vitamin jumps onto me from her hiding spot above the door, though this time she swerves at the last second, kicking off the wall to avoid touching me. She lands a good distance away, skidding to a stop and turning to face me as the other two Revenants emerge from their hidey-holes.

"Whoa! Hey there, mom! You, uh, kind of look like shit!"

"And smell like it," Theodora comments.

Huh. Can Revenants smell? They can obviously see and hear, so I don't know why they wouldn't be able to. It just seems weird for some reason. Margarette and Theodora are both covering their noses, so... I guess they can smell. I'm personally not much bothered by the sewage, so maybe they can smell even better than I can.

"My bad," I say, shrugging. "Hunter job in the sewers. I had to kill a monster down there. So how have things been going? Sorry I dropped off the map for a couple days. I've been in the forest. Have you all held up okay?"

"Well enough," Theodora says slowly. "Margarette and I have had a breakthrough on figuring out soul sight, and we're slowly coming up with a workable spell."

I look over at Margarette because she starts squirming at that, like the smallest kid in a gang trying to work up the courage to ask for extra food.

"That's great news," I say honestly. "You got something else to say, Margarette?"

"Um, well, Penelope finally got her hands on a couple more bodies, and I was sort of hoping to get one of them…?"

"What's wrong with… oh, right, I remember. You want to be in a dead woman instead of a dead old man. Yeah, doesn't matter to me at all. Go grab the body and I'll swap you over."

Margarette beams, excitedly rushing off into another room. Honestly, I almost forgot that she's in an old man's body in the first place. She just feels like Margarette to me, and Margarette feels like a woman. That kind of thing is yet another aspect of souls that I didn't used to be able to determine very well, but now I find it pretty obvious even for people I've never met before. I guess it's not always obvious. Most people don't have a super strong impression one way or the other, and some people, like Seong, leave no impression whatsoever. Margarette, though, is unambiguously female, at least according to whatever the fuck my soul sense is using to determine that. I can't say I understand it, but it's never been wrong before.

It occurs to me, suddenly, that I have at some point entirely stopped recognizing people by their faces and started recognizing them by their souls instead. I don't think I even look at someone's face when I talk to them much anymore. I don't know when I started doing that.

Eh, souls are a much more convenient thing to pay attention to anyway.

Theodora casts a few spells to start cleaning the shit off of everything, myself included, while we wait. Soon enough, Margarette brings me her preferred corpse, so I rip her out of her current one and plop her into that. Now she looks like a dark-skinned older woman who seems as though she probably didn't work out very much in life. A mage or noble, perhaps, as though she's somewhat aged she doesn't look old enough to have died from it. She could likely either afford cosmetic biomancy treatments or perform them herself.

Well, back when she was alive, I mean. I don't really care what this body used to be anymore, because now it's Margarette. The Revenant soul spreads its web of fibers around the inside of the corpse, and soon enough Margarette is up and moving again.

"How does it feel?" I ask.

Margarette flexes her hands, gropes at her chest, and slaps a hand back and forth between the inside of her thighs.

"Way, way better!" she assures me, grinning and daring to give me a hug.

I let her, more out of apathy than any particular interest. Vitamin then hops up and decides she wants to hug as well, but from her I absolutely reciprocate. I grab her out of the air and give her a big squeeze.

"While I'm here," I say, "Would one of you check me to see if it's safe to start learning to channel mana? I think I've gotten pretty damn good at these cancel command thingies."

"Ooh! Sweet!" Vitamin cheers. "Magic mom!"

"I would be surprised if you figured it out this early, but I can test you, I suppose," Theodora offers.

I nod, happy it's her. She's less afraid of me, now, but should hopefully still be cautious enough to not consider falsely inflating how skilled I am at this. Not that it matters a whole lot, since I want Penelope to be around for the final bout of training either way. The odds of Penelope not being as blunt and critical as possible are pretty slim.

I start wiggling my fingers around and humming the vocal cancel at the same time. Theodora approaches me and shoves me backwards, causing me to stumble but not preventing me from continuing the symbols. My voice doesn't even waver.

"…That's actually not bad," Theodora says. "A lot of the other tests can be pretty painful. Do you want me to run through them on you?"

I nod. Theodora, for a moment, radiates an almost disturbing contentment as her natural soul and my added shard sit in harmony for a rare, glorious moment. ...I think that means she wants to hurt me.

Later, I conclude that is absolutely what it means, but at least I pass her magic tests. Next step: channeling.

Immune System

Agony dances through my entire body, a screaming pain reaching from scalp to toe. Pure and raw, there is nothing but me and the torture. Yet still, my body moves. My voice speaks clearly, and my hands continue their purpose. I do not flinch. Retreating within myself, I am simply content with the reassurance that the parts of me which actually matter are unaffected by the spell.

"You are… remarkably resistant to trauma," Penelope comments.

That line more than anything almost causes me to break my concentration. I look up at her and she shrugs, ending the spell she's been casting to metaphorically set my nerves on fire. At least, I assume it's metaphorical. I take the end of her spell as permission to stop repeating cancel commands and take a deep breath, wincing as my focus returns to my physical body. Penelope showed up at our little hidey-hole fairly shortly after Theodora finished torturing me while I practiced cancel commands, and promptly took over the agony herself. She is… even more effective at the job, although at least she doesn't seem to take gleeful satisfaction in inflicting pain on me.

"You know, Penta said the exact same thing, back when that monster attacked and she bit her own limbs off. You remember that?"

"With unfortunate clarity," Penelope sighs. "The similarities between myself and the monster that stole my mind aside, you absolutely pass. You are better at not being interrupted than most novice mages."

I nod, trying to shake off the lingering pins and needles from Penelope's horribly sadistic spell. Not that using it in this case was sadism, but rather her looking out for my future well-being. I'm about to learn something that can kill me if I lose focus, after all.

"So we can start then?" I ask.

"We may as well. I'm very curious as to what you want to use these eggs for, but you're just going to pester me about magic until we do this first aren't you?"

"Definitely, yes."

Penelope nods, having clearly expected this.

"Well, first things first. You'll be happy to know that I have officially gotten the permission necessary to train you. If you do learn some spells, you will be legally allowed to cast them. It's much easier to get this permission for hunters, so that was helpful. Now I have to give you the spiel, though. Channeling is secret. You are not to ever teach anyone about it, not even the slightest hint, because the practice is actually very easy. Unlike the months you spent figuring out your cancel commands, I fully expect you to channel your first chunk of mana in less than an hour. Therein lies the problem; if more people realize that anyone can do it, more idiots will try and you'll increase the number of people blowing themselves up. Hundreds of people die every year attempting to teach themselves these things, so don't go and give them any ideas."

"You mean like you did with me?"

"That," Penelope says coldly, "was not me. At the time I did not at all agree with that monster's insistence on teaching you. My opinion of your ability has since risen considerably, however, so here we are now."

"Here we are now," I agree, wincing at my second Penta-related faux pas in a row. Practicing cancel commands just makes me think of her, since it was one of the last things we did together. "So, how do I do this?"

"I'll show you shortly. Since you're most likely some sort of natural mage, the process will be somewhat instinctive, but there are a few things we can do to help you understand exactly what's happening. That's where we'll start. Theodora, if you would?"

The undead metamancer starts to cast on me and I let her. Suddenly, I start seeing glowing dust everywhere. It's like I just walked into a thin veil of fog, moving and blowing about the air in beautiful patterns.

"Is this mana sight?" I ask.

"Got it in one," Penelope confirms, seeming pleased. "Come over here, look at some of these metal runes."

I follow her, walking over towards one of the many metal-infused ink wards that Theodora and Margarette set up around the room. The glowing particles nearby get sucked into the wards and get immediately replaced, causing a constant stream flowing inward from all directions around them.

"Magical wards like these functionally use metal in place of a soul. Metal draws in mana, so when it is arranged or engraved with proper commands that mana automatically gets converted into a spell effect, changing into whatever sort of energy the spell requires. Even though mana is being consumed, you will never have to worry about running out. Mana is ubiquitous, it is everywhere. There is always more. The only thing you have to worry about is how much you can hold inside yourself. Watch me."

Penelope starts to channel, which feels much like it always feels to my soul sense. However, thanks to the mana sight spell, I can see the particles of magic swirling inside her soul and quickly changing. The moment it enters her, something about the magic energy alters. It starts moving faster, vibrating almost as if it's angry.

"This is about the limit of magic I can safely keep inside myself. If I go above this amount, I will start risking strain on my body and presumably on my soul. As such, I can cast a vast number of spells at or below this level of power, but there is a very stark limit to the amount I'm willing to risk going above this. I have done it, despite the danger, especially when we are out hunting. Channeling is very much something you have to learn to get a feel for, so it is common for even the most experienced of mages to strain themselves when in high stress situations. Your body will try to pull more mana when you are worked up. Which isn't always bad; in a dangerous enough situation you're much more likely to injure yourself by casting a spell that's too weak then you are by casting a spell so strong that you die. Although, minor internal damage is common."

I nod along. That all makes sense so far.

"So, about exploding… why does that happen, anyway?"

Penelope chuckles.

"By its very nature, mana is diffuse. You see it in the air now, but it is in fact everywhere. It permeates walls, the ground… it fills everything to almost exactly the same density. The only natural exceptions to this are elevation, as mana is thicker the lower you go, and metal, which draws more mana into an area. But the unnatural exception to this rule is of course that mana is condensed when channeled. When you squeeze it that tightly, it's constantly attempting to expand back to its normal density. A common misconception is that higher density areas are better for casting mana because there is more mana to use, but again, that doesn't matter. Mana never runs out. The reality is that denser mana zones mean that there's less of a difference between the ambient mana density and the density within your soul when you compress it. This makes it safer to channel more mana than normal. Anyway, you see where I'm going with this. If at any point during your channeling your capacity to hold the mana is less than the mana's capacity to escape, it will escape rather violently."

Goodness, Penelope can get wordy when she's explaining stuff. I haven't heard her talk this much since she explained politics. She seems to be having fun, though. Maybe she'd like being a teacher.

"Okay, so how do I actually channel it?"

She scoffs at me.

"Patience! You have no respect for the theory," she grumbles. "You have one more thing you need to watch."

She flicks her fingers around, and as she does so the mana in her soul twists around into strange and alien shapes. I've seen this sort of shape before, at least kind of. It reminds me very much of how souls themselves are shaped, somehow appearing to move in directions that don't seem like they should exist at all to my physical body.

When she completes the cancel command, the mana vanishes, collapsing in on itself like a sinkhole falling in every direction until only nothingness remains.

"That is what a successful cancel command looks like. If you start wiggling your fingers and that doesn't happen, you need to immediately restart and try again. If you royally fuck up and can't get it to work, try to let the mana out in as small of bursts as possible so that you don't blow your own kidneys out."

I frown, thinking about that.

"Should I also move my soul into my hand or something? That might blow my hand off but I could survive that with you here, right?"

Penelope blinks incredulously.

"Is that… something you can do? Well, I genuinely don't know how that would affect things, but if things start looking terrible enough that experimentation is our best option, experiment away. I don't expect you will have many problems, though. Now, here's how we're going to do this. Theodora is going to push a very, very small amount of mana inside of you. Keep your soul where it would rest normally for now, and focus on what it feels like to have that mana within you. It should be nearly identical to how it feels right as you start to activate your talent."

I nod, sitting still as Theodora walks up and puts a hand on my belly. I watch her soul as she starts to channel, flicking her fingers around and soon starting to push the vibrating mana inside her soul through her arm and into my body.

Then the mana enters my soul and I seize, collapsing to the ground as a scream tears itself free from my throat.

Just a few minutes earlier, Penelope had been aggravating every nerve in my body, but this is different. This feels like standing next to Galdra again, but a thousand times worse, the mana burning inside me like fire. Theodora takes her hand off me immediately, shock on her face as Penelope starts to yell.

"Cancel! Cancel command!"

I start to move my hands automatically, but within my body something entirely different also starts to happen. I feel my soul clench, power churning as it starts to smother the mana inside it. I keel over, holding my stomach as, before I even complete the cancel command, the mana inside me gets overwhelmed and destroyed. No sound other than my ragged breaths fills the room for some time afterwards, the Revenants all crowding worriedly around me.

"What the fuck was that?" Penelope snaps, breaking the silence.

"I don't have the faintest idea," Theodora answers, glancing at me with genuine concern. "She didn't cast anything, but the mana got destroyed."

I grimace, slowly sitting up.

"I-I take it that this isn't normal, then?"

Theodora shakes her head, eyes sharp. Behind them she is clearly thinking a mile a minute.

"With the amount of mana I channeled into you, even if you catastrophically failed a spell it wouldn't have done more than a minuscule amount of internal damage. There simply wasn't enough magic for anything else. It shouldn't have even been painful if you let it burst, let alone simply having it within you. But you didn't even release the mana as a chaos effect, you destroyed it somehow."

More silence descends on the room, Vitamin crawling up on my lap to give me a reassuring squeeze. This sucks. It's almost sad how a spell explicitly designed to cause pain doesn't faze me enough to make an impact, but a tiny bit of mana in my soul knocks my ass to the floor. Am I not going to be able to learn magic?

"Vita has mentioned before that her soul isn't human," Penelope mutters. "Here I thought she was just being dramatic. You had the same reaction around Galdra, and that woman called it a sensitivity to channeled mana. I've never heard of such a thing, however."

"She said in a private talk that it implies animancy involvement," I croak. "But how does that work?"

"I don't know. My guess would be that they don't know either, and that they've simply witnessed animancers or people affected by animancy suffer a similar problem."

"But Theodora channels magic just fine," I point out. "And so does Capita. So other people affected by animancy and other people who are animancers both seem to not scream and die because of this. Although…I guess I've only ever seen Capita use a talent. I don't know if she's a learned mage."

"Part of the reason this is so confusing is because that shouldn't make a single bit of difference," Penelope insists, shaking her head. "Watch me use my talent, Vita."

I glance at her, mana sight still active from before. She takes a deep breath and I feel the stirring in her soul, mana flowing inside and getting aggravated in exactly the same way that she was showing me before. The only difference is that instead of using her fingers to shape the mana, she pulls it through a series of complicated channels inside her soul, which act like a mold that forces the mana into the desired shape. She completes the spell, and while nothing seems to happen I am probably now inhaling some sort of hopefully-harmless disease.

"You see?" Penelope says.

"You're still pulling in and channeling mana even when you just use a talent," I confirm, and she nods.

"Remove someone's soul, Vita," Penelope orders. "Not mine, obviously. Vitamin or Margarette. Theodora, you said your talent could detect Vita doing that, right?"

"Absolutely," Theodora says. "It just seems like a normal spell to me, albeit a complicated and interesting one. So you're right, Vita should have mana in her soul whenever she does that."

I shrug, bouncing Vitamin on my lap a little. She grins happily at me, and I murder her again. My daughter's body, still squeezing me tight in a hug, goes limp.

"Did you see that?" Penelope mutters.

Theodora nods slowly.

"I have no idea what that is. Something the mana sight spell isn't designed for at all."

"I didn't see anything," I say. There hadn't been any mana particles flying around in my soul during that, at least as far as I could tell.

Theodora and Penelope look at each other, some sort of nonverbal communication exclusive to huge nerds occurring between them.

"You know what, how about we do this," Penelope starts. "Vita, I'm going to teach you a very, very simple spell. It just converts magical energy into a weak light. It's about the shortest and one of the most useless spells there is, since it lacks any of the focusing elements that would normally make a light spell worthwhile. Still, if we make it dark enough in here it should be a good measurement to figure out if you can even cast at all."

"What the hell do you mean 'even cast at all?'" I demand. "I thought you said I definitely use a spell to soul-steal."

"I'm not sure of anything right now, Vita. Just watch my hand and do what I do."

It really is a simple spell, and about ten minutes later Penelope confirms that I have it down.

"Right, so this time I just want you to imagine that you are trying to pull someone's soul out. But rather than complete that spell, take the feeling of the absolute start, the instant where you start to feel the magic take hold, and just pause. Hold it, push it into your hands, and perform the spell I showed you."

"That sounds like a lot of steps for something I've never done before," I complain.

"It is, but if you're a natural mage of… some sort, you should pick it up fairly quickly."

I scowl, closing my eyes and trying to do as she says. The feeling of pulling out a soul… it's empowering. Something from deep within surges outward whenever I grasp someone's being and pull. It's part of what I am, whatever that may be. Mana is all around me, it's within everything, but I noticed that in its natural state it is never within a person's soul. It only enters when being channeled, and then it's not quite in its natural state anymore. It's more energized, more volatile. Yet to some extent it is still where it belongs. It matches its temporary home. Mana in Penelope's soul is like a square peg in a square hole. But my soul…

"…It reminded me of an immune system," Penelope mutters quietly to Theodora. "The mana you put in her attacked like a virus and was destroyed like one."

I don't know what that means, but I feel the power building inside me so I focus on it instead. The strength to kill and shape and shatter. I already know how to push it into my hands, I did that many times before my tentacles were freed from my shell. I move how I was taught, and the power starts to wane away. I open my eyes.

"Holy shit," Margarette whispers.

It's dark in the room, except for a low, almost useless glow on the edges of my fingers. But there is undoubtedly a glow. I've casted a spell. Everyone in the room, except for Vitamin's corpse, obviously, stares at me with an open jaw.

"So, what does this mean?" I ask.

"Well, it means you can cast spells," Penelope says carefully. "So that's good."

"I feel like there's a 'but' coming."

"But you can more or less toss out every single thing they just taught you, because you don't seem to be doing it by channeling," Margarette explains.

"I didn't realize there was an alternative," I say slowly.

"Yes, well…" Penelope answers, a deeply confused scowl on her face. "There isn't."

I stare blankly at everyone, waiting for them to explain.

"Don't look at me," Penelope says tiredly. "Literally everything casts magic the same way. Mana goes in soul, soul shapes mana, mana transforms into spell effects. That's it, that's magic. Doing it without mana at all, which is what you seem to be doing, makes absolutely zero sense. You're not just breaking the laws of magic at this point, you're breaking conservation of energy."

"I don't know what that is," I say.

Penelope massages her forehead.

"Theodora? Any ideas?"

"By all appearances, and according to my talent, she is using mana," Theodora insists. "We just can't see it for some reason."

"It doesn't make any sense for her to just be turning mana invisible," Penelope grumbles. "Well, more invisible. Margarette?"

The slime-Revenant shrugs.

"She's gotta be using mana. Maybe she just uses a different kind of mana. Like, I don't know, the whole rest of the world uses vanilla mana and she can only use chocolate."

"But there aren't 'kinds' of mana, there's just mana," Penelope insists.

"What if there is though? Like, yeah, I would have agreed with that statement literally one minute ago, but something is happening here that we don't understand. Some of our prior conceptions might just be wrong."

"But if there's such a thing as 'chocolate mana' how has no one in the history of the world ever detected or used it for anything? Surely we would have noticed by now if some creatures existed that used a kind of mana that we can't see with standard spells. And surely if this mana existed in nature, it would be causing some sort of effects that we could observe and notice. Someone would say 'there's this magical effect happening but we don't see the mana causing it,' but that has never happened. This mana can't be natural, yet if it doesn't exist in nature, where would Vita be getting it?"

No one has an answer to that, so the nerds get back to thinking. I join them, trying to figure out the answers to those questions as well. Where am I getting the mana? I close my eyes, taking a deep breath and trying to draw on that power again. I look as far inward as I can, paying attention to the minute moments when I first start to feel the strength that flows through me. It's a comforting, exciting feeling. From somewhere, I draw out strength, pulling it from one of the many impossible directions into which souls reach. But of course, since my soul reaches there, wherever I pull from… isn't that still me?

"I'm making it," I realize.

All eyes turn to me. Except Vitamin's, I guess, so I put her soul back in her body.

"Eh? What'd I miss?" she asks, blinking blearily.

Margarette clears her throat, answering awkwardly.

"Well I'm not entirely sure what the implications of that would be, but uhh… I think your mom just claimed to be a god."

"Oh. Yeah," Vitamin nods matter-of-factly. "That checks out."

Divinity

"Wait, what?" I ask, staring incredulously. "A god?"

"Mana comes from the Mistwatcher," Margarette clarifies. "And only the Mistwatcher. Creating mana isn't possible for mortals like us."

"Superstitious bullshit," Penelope argues, looking irritated. "It's true that no one knows any method of creating mana, but that's because there is almost no research in the subject. No one has tried. Why would anyone want or need to create more mana? We have a limitless supply of it!"

"Penelope, you know that mana creation is theoretically impossible," Theodora argues. "Mana is consumed during the casting of a spell. You can't cast a spell that consumes heat or light to create mana, that's the opposite of what a spell is. You'd need a spell that converts… well, mana into mana, which would be pointless. Creating mana is not possible."

"Except that it obviously is, because it comes from somewhere," Penelope snaps. "Even if that somewhere is the Mistwatcher itself, which may I remind you we have no compelling evidence to suggest other than basic proximity, it is created somehow. Therefore, creating it is possible."

"Sure, by something that defies our physical understanding of the world," Margarette drawls. "Like, say, a god."

My tendrils curl and uncurl as I listen to the debate on my apparent divinity. I want to say something, but I have absolutely no idea what. This isn't exactly the sort of conversation I ever expected someone to have about me. A god? I sure don't feel like a god. Pretty much my entire life I've spent getting rolled over, ignored, and abused. What kind of god is that supposed to be?

"I certainly hesitate to call Vita a god," Theodora says, mirroring my thoughts, "but I agree on the other points. We have stepped into the Mistwatcher's domain. We've always toed the line, what with defying death and all. But mana? Mana is the very substance that causes the world to function. Mana is why the islands fly. If Vita is a source of that substance, even a new kind of that substance, that… well, I can't even begin to guess the implications of that."

"Well, here's my take on the 'implications,'" Penelope answers derisively. "She's going to have a bitch of a time using any magic since she has to make all of the mana she's using. Otherwise, not much else. As exciting and interesting as this is— and don't get me wrong, from a research perspective, Vita, you are a wet dream— from a practical perspective this seems terrible for her future prospects."

I frown, nodding a little. I can't use the mana the rest of the world uses. Something about that is extra surreal, even for a tentacle monster masquerading as a girl. It's one thing to not be human, but this is completely different from every other living creature. Penelope was just talking about how mana couldn't run out, but maybe mine can. That would be a huge pain in the ass.

"Hey, we don't know that yet," Vitamin insists, valiantly coming to my defense. "Nobody knows how this really works, right? Don't just assume it's going to be bad. It sounds super awesome!"

"...Personally," I say slowly, "I just don't like all the similarities between me and it that are cropping up."

"It?" Penelope asks.

"The Mistwatcher," I clarify. "Even if it doesn't produce mana, it's said to. And now I have soul tentacles, a big eyeball core, the ability to consume souls or store them inside me, and now I produce mana. You have to admit, god or not, it's like I'm a baby Mistwatcher or something. I even recently hatched from an egg."

"A baby, hmm?" Penelope says thoughtfully. "Well, as an orphan, it would be rather poetic for you to figure out that one or both of your parents are some kind of divine entity, but I greatly question the practicality of such a birth. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Physically, you are human. Until you start growing tentacles made of flesh, I'll have to stay suspicious about any such relationship."

"Well, it's the Mistwatcher. What if just my soul is whatever the Mistwatcher is? And my body is just… wrong for some reason."

"Look, Vita, as interesting as this line of thought is, I don't think it makes a lot of sense. There are plenty of other reasons you could have the similarities. Besides, if you are the child of the insanely massive creature below us, why did it try to kill you?"

That gets me thinking, and it gets everyone else staring at me and abject horror.

"The Mistwatcher did what?" Margarette all but shrieks.

"Oh, right. You remember that perception event that happened a few days before we met?" I ask. "Yeah, I caused that just by making eye contact. Bastard attacked me out of nowhere."

"Though not in any legal or provable manner," Penelope insists.

"Yeah, yeah," I wave her off. "But still. This shit is adding up, Penelope."

She scowls at that, but nods slowly.

"I concede that you are more than just some girl with an obscure talent. But you're hardly some sort of nascent goddess. You're just Vita. Nothing more."

"Wow," I say, putting a hand over my heart in mock pain like Lyn does when I call her old. "'Just Vita?' You sure know how to make a friend feel appreciated."

She jolts with surprise, looking away with a tinge of embarrassment.

"…I didn't say that was a bad thing," she mumbles. "You are one of the few people actually worth the time it takes to have a conversation with. So, I appreciate you."

Aw, that's sweet. Look at how uncomfortable she is! I wonder if she's ever said that to anyone before.

"Am I your first friend, Penelope?" I ask, smirking.

She glowers furiously at me.

"…Let's just get back to the research," she grumbles. "You're going to cast that light spell and you're going to cast it as powerfully and as constantly as you can. Theodora, Margarette, you two are going to cycle through mana sight spells and modify as much as you can on the fly to try and get an eye on what she's doing."

"What about me, boss?" Vitamin asks, saluting.

"I do not care," Penelope answers bluntly.

"More hugging it is, then!"

I peel off a shard of myself and smash it, feeding my most adorable daughter some crushed soul dust as a reward for her cuteness. She vibrates a little, giggling as it settles into her being.

"Amassing heretical power is pleasantly tingly!" she says.

"I know, right?" I agree.

"Quit being cute and start casting," Penelope orders.

I roll my eyes, but do as she says. It takes quite a bit of focus to start pulling out the energy again, but soon enough I have a steady stream going into the light spell.

"More," Penelope says.

Scowling, I focus harder. At least Penelope wasn't kidding about this sort of thing being instinctive. It really is just like the feeling of gathering power to pull someone's soul out, I simply move the energy into my hands before sending it through any other bits within me that would shape it. The shaping is manual and not instinctive at all, but the light spell only takes a couple of simple flicks to activate and I can do it over and over without difficulty. The more mana I pour into it, the brighter it glows.

"More," Penelope demands again.

I glare at her but do my best to comply. It's easier said than done. The more power I try to pull in at once, the harder it is to pull it all. Exhaustion quickly starts to set in, a strange sort of pain and weight plaguing my tentacles rather than my physical body.

"…I see something," Theodora suddenly announces. "It looks like mana, all right. I can't tell where it's coming from, though. It just seems to be appearing inside her."

"I told you!" I grumble. "This is getting really hard, by the way."

"Well, don't blow yourself up," Penelope says. "But if you're anywhere before that point, push harder."

I scowl.

"I don't feel like I'm going to blow myself up," I say. "I use this magic in the light spell faster than I can pull it out of my soul. It's just trying to pull it any faster that's difficult."

"Hmm… right, that makes sense," Penelope mutters. "It's not a problem for the rest of us, but it would be for you. Stop casting, then. Let's see how much chocolate mana you can hold."

"Please don't call it that."

I do as instructed, however, because as bossy as my friends are they probably know what they're doing. I stop converting mana into light and just let the power build up in my core. More than anything, it just makes me feel bloated. I don't feel under pressure any more than that. It's uncomfortable, but there's no apparent fervor in my mana to violently escape my soul, even as I build the density up further and further. At some point, I simply can't seem to pull anymore energy out of wherever the fuck I'm pulling it from. I'm just too clogged; the pathway from where I would draw the mana is so stuffed with it that I lack the strength to condense it any further.

"Okay, ugh," I grunt. "That's it, that's all I can hold. I literally can't pull in anymore."

"It's not really that much," Theodora comments.

I'm weirdly offended by that.

"Okay, well if it's not going to hurt her, see if you can release a small amount out into the atmosphere," Penelope says. "If you damage yourself, I'll patch you right up."

I nod, and almost gratefully let some of the mana stream out. I wince, expecting it to blast through parts of my body, but that doesn't happen. It just exits, calmly and without fanfare.

"It's getting destroyed," Theodora reports. "So that explains why we don't see any of this in nature, I suppose."

Just to see if I can, I let all of the mana out at once. Theodora jumps back a bit, and a terrible screeching sound erupts for a brief moment where I assume my mana and the world's mana collide and fight each other. The world no doubt wins, and Penelope and I rub our ears to try and massage some of the pain out.

"Well, at least I don't have to worry about blowing myself up," I say.

"I don't even know where to start with this," Penelope says, "but overall, as incredibly interesting as it is, I don't think we really should be focusing on researching this. Vita is strange. Everyone here knew that. But I can show you spells, and you can apparently still use the spells, and that's really what matters. Once we're immortal we'll have all the time we need to figure out what the fuck is up with her."

I nod. As interested as I am in what this means, I suppose she has a point.

"Well, to that end I think those eggs might be of use. When I was out in the forest, I accidentally broke one of them. Inside was a baby monster, but it didn't have a soul. Yet it could still move around and stuff like that. Once it started to, the Mistwatcher reached up and gave it a soul, but it was just fine beforehand."

Penelope's eyebrows raise.

"So you think things can live before even having a soul in the first place?"

"Yep," I nod. "It freaked me the fuck out. I think losing your soul kills you because of how the soul attaches to the body, not because they're essential to life. But I have no idea what a body without a soul would be or how it would work. The whole idea freaks me out. But now I'm thinking: what if I do what the Mistwatcher does and put a soul into a living thing rather than a dead one? What would happen?"

Penelope shrugs, but I know if there's one thing I can always rely on Penelope for, it is not missing an opportunity for blasphemy.

"Let's find out," she says.

"Wait, wait, wait," Margarette says, holding up her hands. "How can souls not be the most important element of life? The three of us are nothing but souls at this point! Our bodies aren't doing anything other than keeping us inside and for some reason preventing us from getting grabbed by the Mistwatcher."

None of us have any idea why the hell the Mistwatcher only grabs souls if they're not in bodies, but we've confirmed that is absolutely what's happening. When I put a soul into a corpse, it pretty much stays in there for as long as I want. But if I leave a soul lying around or put it in an object like my spear or the beautiful and perfect Rosco, it's only a matter of time before a tentacle reaches up and eats it. Sometimes the tentacle shows up within a few minutes, and sometimes it takes upwards of several hours. There doesn't seem to be any particular connection between things that cause it to take longer, it appears to be random. Still, never once has the Mistwatcher grabbed a soul from a body.

At least not with one of its spiritual tendrils. The physical one certainly tried to separate my soul from my body.

"That's a valid point," Penelope says. "I think the only way we're going to be able to answer that is if we figure out a method of getting a living being in here without a soul and keeping it that way long enough to research. You said that the Mistwatcher placed a soul in the monster as soon as you broke the egg?"

"Yes, that's right," I confirm. "So let's beat it to the punch!"

"Well, do it already."

I do exactly that, making a soul shard and walking over to the pile of unhatched eggs. Placing it inside one of them, I feel it take hold into the unborn monster. However, it doesn't at all feel like what happened when the Mistwatcher did the same thing. My shard is doing exactly what it would do to a corpse, an object, or any other inanimate thing I would place it in. It spreads out those net-like veins around the inside of the body, giving it motion where in a corpse there would be none. Of course, this body is alive, so it should be perfectly capable of moving itself without the assistance of my shard.

"Well, I think I've fucked it up somehow," I say. "This doesn't feel right at all. Get out of that egg!"

All of my Revenants flinch at the order, but since none of them are currently inside an egg they quickly realize I'm not talking to them. The baby pentapede, however, recognizes me immediately. Or more accurately, the baby is fully unconscious, but my shard acknowledges me and forces it to move. My soul shard strains inside the tiny monster, causing its legs to jerk out and smash against the inside of the shell. Soon, the beast is free from its prison, but now it is also awake.

It doesn't seem to appreciate having something control its body from the inside.

There is no seamless transition, no unity between soul and flesh. My shard puppets the creature, ignoring its muscles, but the muscles are still fully functional. The baby strains and fights and screams as its first experience in the world is a horrific internal agony, a foreign will trying to wrest control of its body, counter to all of its instincts and desires.

"…Yeah, this is kind of creepy," Vitamin opines.

"This isn't at all what it looked like when the Mistwatcher put souls in these things," I confirm. "It's neat how it's actually kind of working, though. We gotta wait and see if the Mistwatcher tries to replace the soul even though I kinda fucked it up."

I point at the struggling, terrified baby monster.

"Don't move."

Its muscles struggle to disobey me, but my soul shard locks its joints and keeps it in line. I grin, pleased that such a tiny fraction of myself can dominate a living creature. It is interesting how much the baby is fighting, however. I mean, it literally just hatched. I suppose monsters and many animals start out much more developed than humans do, capable of walking almost as soon as they're born. They must be born with instincts to attempt to walk as well, and to either fear or attack creatures like us. Humans aren't like that, though. I wonder how a baby human would develop with a shard like this inside them. Would they just never know how strange it is? Would they even be able to function without a Mistwatcher soul inside them?

While we wait for a Mistwatcher tendril to possibly pop up, I get to practicing on the other soulless eggs. The next one I do the same thing, just for consistency's sake, and we get the same sort of creature. After that, I try to do what I did in the forest and modify my soul shards to get more of the result I want. I don't feel any guiding instinct, though. It is as if the idea is there, but just out of reach. It's something I almost understand, something that won't fully enter my mind until I'm up late at night, unable to sleep. It feels like struggling to remember a word and having it just at the tip of my tongue, but it is ultimately forgotten.

After another hour, a Mistwatcher tendril does raise up from the ground, but notably it does not bother either of my sharded monsters. It places a soul inside one of the eggs instead, and departs. I try to examine the Mistwatcher's shard as closely as I can, but it's just too complex, and while I still struggle to decipher it, yet another tendril puts a fresh soul in one of the five remaining eggs.

"It looks like I have a time limit on this," I grumble, "but I just can't seem to figure it out."

"Is the Mistwatcher still not bothering the ones you modified, at least?" Theodora asks.

"No, they're still untouched," I confirm.

"Can you remove your current soul shard from one of the monsters without killing it?" Penelope asks.

I raise an eyebrow.

"I think so, actually. It doesn't damage a corpse when I remove a Revenant soul from it, so…"

Penelope looks at Theodora, her soul suddenly alight with excitement.

"Well then… Hypothetically, would it be possible to move a Revenant soul between living bodies that have no other souls in them?" Penelope presses.

"I don't see why not," I say. "I could stick Vitamin in one of the eggs just as easily as I could put her in any other body."

"Aw, man!" Vitamin complains. "But mom, I just upgraded from rat!"

I ruffle her hair, but not too hard because I don't want it to fall out.

"It was just an example, honey," I assure her.

"That's our in, then!" Penelope says excitedly. "Rather than trying to de-age a body, we could make new bodies, and keep one of Vita's souls in them so that they don't gain one of their own. Then, with the right magic, we could simply move older people into the younger bodies! Making the body older is substantially easier than making it younger, so if we just figure out how to clone…"

"…Then you still run into the problem of my Revenants not actually controlling the body's muscles, but instead just pulling the body around with soul force," I point out.

"Then figure out how to fix that," Penelope orders, pointing at me. "It will take us plenty of time to figure out how to make the clones anyway, but I already have a few ideas for artificial wombs, so we should see…"

She starts babbling stuff I don't understand, but she seems very happy about it so I take that as a good sign. I smile, starting to zone out a little as she prattles on. Penelope is a weird friend. She is a friend though, I think. As snippy and arrogant as she can be, something about the way she gets so animated when talking about her interests has me grinning every time. It's such a treat to see, with how grumpy she normally is. We've been through a lot of ups and downs, but listening to the beautiful and joyful song in her soul right now, it feels very worth it to have met her. I'm glad to have the break. I haven't had a rest since before Angelien died.

Of course, as soon as I think that, the next thing I know I'm waking up the next day.

Calm Before the Storm

Someone's hand is in my hair.

It's an oddly nostalgic sensation. When weather gets bad, especially rain, sometimes all you can do is huddle up close to everyone you even kind of trust and hope that the collective pile of body heat will stop you from dying of cold through the night. In the mornings after, sometimes you get all sorts of body parts flopped over your head or your face or your everything else… it's usually not a super great time, but it's better than freezing to death.

This is different. There's no uncomfortable feeling of contact with an acquaintance. This is careful, deliberate, soft and loving. Fingers run through my hair slowly, massaging against my scalp and bringing a pleasant comfort to my now-ending rest. Of course, I can tell who it is immediately. I will never forget a soul this bright and warm.

"Hi, Lyn," I mumble groggily, opening my eyes.

My mother has my head in her lap, grinning that goofy grin of hers as she stares down at me. If the proximity of my Revenants and Penelope are any indication, we're still in the immortality research lab. To my surprise, however, Rowan is also here.

"Good morning, kiddo," Lyn greets softly.

"M'not a kiddo," I grumble. "I'm a goddess. Maybe."

"Of course you are, honey," Lyn answers agreeably, returning to stroking my hair.

I glance around the room, trying in vain to figure out how long I've been unconscious without being able to see the sky. I catch Rowan's eye, and he gives me a nod and smile of greeting while Vitamin laughs on his shoulders, enjoying a piggyback ride. I wave at them both, but decline to get up since I am exhausted and also incredibly comfortable.

"What are you two doing here?" I ask.

"We're here looking for you, you ridiculous dork," Lyn answers, flicking my nose. "You ran off by yourself and we were terrified you were dead!"

"Oh," I blink. "Right. Sorry, it's been a rough few days."

She leans over and wraps her arms around me, squeezing me tight.

"I know," she says. "I'm glad you're safe."

I hug her back, and when she leans back away from me I start to stand up. My body is incredibly sore, so it takes quite a bit of stretching before I really feel awake. Rowan is listening intently to Penelope and Theodora as they exchange heated nerd talk, Margarette backing up Theodora on almost every point. Vitamin just seems happy to be included, mostly because Rowan is doing an impeccable job of not letting how much he's freaked out by having a zombie on his shoulders show on his face. I'm a little disappointed that he has a problem with Vitamin, but I'm definitely happy that he's not letting it impact her day.

"So," Lyn starts, strutting up to me and resting her elbow on my head, "are you going to tell me why you suddenly feel like you could eat half the city?"

I reach out a tentacle and poke her in the soul, causing her to yelp and jump off of me.

"I probably could, if everybody got close enough. Do I really feel that dangerous?"

"Honey, if you weren't mine I'd probably turn and run the other way the moment I could feel you," Lyn answers bluntly. "Honestly, you're not as strong as a lot of people I've been close to, but there's something about you that just oozes danger. What have you been doing this whole time? Your friend mentioned the forest?"

Penelope glances my way for a brief moment.

"Yes, hello Penelope, you are my friend," I taunt her again. She ignores me. "But yeah, I was in the forest. I made a cute little zombie army, ate over a hundred souls, collected some eggs, and hopefully sold some high quality chitin. You know, stress relief I guess."

"Holy shit," Lyn responds, blinking in surprise. "That's where you went alone? You're quite the little powerhouse now, huh? Well, I'm glad you're safe."

"Speaking of safe," I say, changing the subject, "where are all the kids? If you and Rowan are both here, who's protecting them?"

"Er… well, Rowan and I actually ran straight here when we heard you were back, so…"

Shit! I quickly glance around the room and grab my spear from the floor.

"Well, we gotta go then!" I insist, rushing to the stairs. "You realize I killed like six gang members, right? The rest of them are going to come after us if they haven't already. The Drakens clearly aren't protecting us anymore, so we have to do it ourselves!"

Lyn and Rowan jolt in alarm before glancing at each other with embarrassed expressions.

"You're right," Lyn admits. "We haven't had any problems since you left, though. I mean, other than the panic of you being gone."

"I'll go home with Vita," Rowan volunteers, extracting Vitamin from his shoulders and sitting her on a nearby table. "You can go get that thing Penelope was asking for, Lyn."

Lyn nods and gives a thumbs-up while I raise an eyebrow.

"What thing?" I ask.

"I didn't stop working while you were unconscious," Penelope mutters, and considering how exhausted she looks it's easy to believe her. "I need more than raw magical talent if we're going to start growing bodies from nothing. I need your mother to pick me up some materials for a few helpful tools."

I nod. Makes sense to me, though I don't have the faintest idea what sort of tools Penelope is talking about. It mostly doesn't matter right now, though.

"Sounds good," I grunt. "Now let's go already, dad."

I quickly start heading up the stairs and Rowan jogs after me. Surprise, awkwardness, and confusion well up inside him for a while before he speaks up.

"Wait, so I am dad now?" he asks. "I thought you were mad at me about all the debt."

"Of course I am," I grumble. "But all your dumb shit doesn't mean you didn't do the good stuff, too. Compared to some of the other dads I know, you're pretty alright."

He smirks, ruffling the top of my head as he walks.

"We'll figure this all out," he promises. "The stuff with the Drakens, the stuff with Angelien, all of this. Your friend offered to set us up with a new place to live."

I stare at him with eyes wide, locking the door behind us out of habit.

"Penelope did? That's amazing!"

"She's an amazing young woman," Rowan answers, casually weaving a silence bubble around us. "You really lucked out befriending someone like that. Though she definitely has the whole megalomaniacal noble thing going on. Nobles tend to be raised fairly… ambitious."

I laugh at that.

"What tipped you off? My first hint was when she got legitimately disappointed at not being able to kill every single monster in the forest all by herself."

"Well, I had a few suspicions from how she acted around you back when you told her about your talent," Rowan sighs, "but the secret immortality research lab definitely clinched it for me."

"It's pretty cool, though, right? I mostly just like having a place where my Revenants won't get caught."

"About that…" Rowan says slowly, "did you really adopt one of your own undead?"

"Of course!" I answer defiantly. "Why shouldn't I? Adopting random monster children is what my parents taught me to do, after all."

He snorts, which slowly evolves into full laughter. When his chuckles are over, he reaches an arm over and squeezes me around the shoulder.

"Lyn and I love you, Vita," he says firmly. "You've been such a big help to us, but that's not why. It's just something she and I decided together. We would take in other people who had nothing, who had no one, and we would give them ourselves. You're taking that in somewhat of an odd direction, but we are incredibly proud of you for it."

I lean into his side hug, wrapping my own arm around his waist.

"I can tell you're kind of nervous around her, though," I bring up. "Vitamin, I mean."

He scratches the back of his head, frowning.

"Sorry," he answers bluntly. "It's not her, it's just… well, her body is dead. It feels like I'm touching a dead child. That's something I have already had far too much experience with to last a lifetime."

I shrug. That's valid, I've brushed up with my fair share of corpses and I think I recall it being a bit less comfortable back before the whole necromancy thing kicked in. Now I rather like the sight and feel of dead flesh, but I shouldn't expect anyone else to.

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense. It doesn't really bother me, but I guess death is my whole thing. Learning to undo it feels weird to me, but I think I can still help a lot. So I will."

Slowly but surely, we make our way closer to our part of town. Houses get more and more dilapidated, people get more and more broken.

"Speaking of your whole thing," Rowan says, changing the subject, "I heard something about how your body produces its own mana?"

"Oh yeah, that," I mumble, scratching my cheek with mild embarrassment. "So, apparently there's some debate on whether I'm just a monster or if I'm a divine monster somehow. I guess it's a pretty big deal?"

"It is a big deal," Rowan agrees, "but more importantly, Vita, I don't want to hear you call yourself a monster."

"Dad, my soul is an eyeball with tentacles and I have constant urges to fucking eat people. Even if I'm physically human—"

"Vita, it's not about your body or your soul or any of that," Rowan insists, cutting me off. "It's about your perception."

He taps his forehead with a finger, looking at me intently.

"Perception is everything. People find whatever truths about themselves that they set out to look for, because everyone has a little bit of everything inside. The grandest saint has dark temptations. The cruelest torturer can still love his family. If you tell yourself you're a monster, those are the only parts of yourself that you will see. And if that's all you see, at some point you'll stop looking for anything else. So don't forget where you come from, Vita. Don't forget your kindness."

I grunt in acknowledgment, nodding my head slowly. I'm not totally sure I understand this power of positive thinking garbage, but I'll think about it.

"Anyway," Rowan continues, "I was wondering, since Penelope mentioned your casting is very safe but very low capacity, if you wanted to learn kynamancy?"

I blink at him in surprise. Learning from Rowan?

"I mean, yeah, sure! Also, what do you mean by low capacity?"

He chuckles.

"That's just what she said. But if that's true, kynamancy would be perfect for you. It's not a very good school of magic for offense, at least not until you get incredibly skilled at it. But some of its best tricks, at least in my opinion, require very low magical output. Besides, my understanding is that you have offense pretty well in hand with your natural talents."

That's true. Adding something tricky to my repertoire might be the best way to start with magic. I'm definitely interested in learning biomancy, but it seems redundant with Penelope and, more importantly, it's apparently a phenomenally difficult school of magic to understand.

"Yeah, that would be awesome actually!" I agree. "I'd love that. This still doesn't mean you're getting any of my money, th—"

I shut myself up, tensing as I feel an all-too-familiar soul enter my range. It's Capita, in all her ramshackle glory. The tri-talented bitch is much, much closer to our home than I'm comfortable with. And with her, she has a half-dozen goons as well.

"Something the matter?" Rowan asks.

"Yeah," I confirm, drawing my spear and wrapping tendrils around my limbs. "Trouble. I'm going on ahead."

I dash forward, legs pumping against the ground and kicking up dirt as I blast down an alleyway towards my enemies. I swore to destroy the Drakens in a moment of fury, but I do genuinely believe that it's what I should do. Capita is the only other animancer I know, and while her knowledge could therefore be invaluable to getting Angelien and Penta back from the grave as non-slaves, I don't trust the woman in the slightest. Not unless she's a Revenant. The rest of the gang is small potatoes, especially if my family is getting moved… but maybe it will help out some other people to evict them anyway. Or maybe it's just revenge. I guess we'll see when they're gone.

I tear around the corner, glaring furiously at my targets as they all turn to face me.

"Work of art!" Capita says excitedly. "Our quest takes us in search of you! 'Tis fortunate we have—"

"The last time I said this," I growl, cutting her off, "I made the mistake of not really meaning it. I assure you, this time this is your one and only warning."

I approach at a walking pace, ensuring my spear is at the ready.

"Fuck off or die," I demand.

Somewhat predictably, no one immediately fucks off. The various goons Capita brought draw weapons instead, mostly wooden knives or the occasional spear of their own. I don't slow my approach.

"You chase a bear from its den," Capita argues in her singsong way. "Her cubs sleep within, so you'd best—"

I get in range of her idiots and whip a tentacle into each one. In a single motion, they all fall to the ground dead. Capita is further back, unfortunately, and I doubt I can instantly kill her with a tendril anyway. I continue to approach, stepping over the bodies.

"I don't care how many of you have pissed on the walls, this is not your territory anymore," I inform her. "You're too close to me and mine, and we all quit."

She has no response but surprise, her jaw open wide. I pull out a soul shard, pushing power into it to convert it to one of my leaching weapons. Placing it inside my spear head, I point the tip towards her heart, still walking forward. I want to get closer before she attacks, to try and end it in one blow. I probably don't have to worry about her cognimancy, but her teleportation is a pain in the ass.

"You dropped your part of the deal the moment my sister died," I continue. "You're going to lament it when you work for me."

Her eyes narrow at that, power flowing through the pathways of her soul as she readies her talents to fight.

"Should I be added to your canvas, the wrath of a storm will descend upon you."

I sneer, tentacles writhing with furious energy. The instant I think I'm close enough, I lunge at her.

Her teleportation talent activates, but this time I'm faster.

Skyfall

I manage to land my attack before Capita can teleport away, but she doesn't just stand there and take it. She dodges and I miss her heart, instead planting my spear into her shoulder. Glancing off bone, it carves the blood and muscle above her left arm. The shard in my spear drinks deep, pulling pieces from her poorly-cobbled soul and empowering itself with her waning strength. Unfortunately, her talent then activates. I swear internally, expecting her to teleport away, yet for some reason I find my hands unexpectedly empty instead.

With a clatter behind me, I realize that instead of retreating, she teleported my spear right after it hit her. Kind of an odd move, but not one that I'll complain about. I push a second hungry shard into my leather glove and punch her in the face. Unfortunately, without piercing her skin the strike is far less capable of pulling out bits of soul. With no intention of letting up, I grab one of my knives with my other hand while she's still reeling, putting a shard in that as well.

Capita glowers at my weapon, and with another flash of her talent, it's suddenly in her hand. I'm in the middle of trying to stab her with it when the transfer occurs, leaving me to smack her impotently while she uses the opening to stab me with my own blade. My soul shard knows better than to drink from me, but the rest of my knife is not so loyal, carving a shallow gouge through my cheek.

"Shit!" I swear, jumping back to the edge of my tentacle range.

I send four of my tendrils into her body, grasping and pulling at each half of her soul. I find purchase on the crack in her center, letting me grab and try to yank the damn thing in half. Capita screams, but as I feared I'm not quite strong enough to kill her outright. The other half of her soul flares with power, the one that holds a talent she threatened me with but never used until now. Whatever it is, I feel the pressure of mana gathering around me. I leap away, trying to make it back to my spear as I feel the spell start to complete inside of her.

Something goes wrong. As mana fills the pathways of her soul, it reaches the broken edge of its half as if it expects to find more there but instead simply bursts through to her core's center. The mana is still gathered, the spell still activates, but it comes out horribly wrong. Capita attacks with only half of a talent, and it works about as well as a bomb with only half the casing.

In the spot where I was standing a mere second prior, a screeching roar that nearly bursts my eardrums accompanies a rapid influx of air. Leaves and dirt particles suck upward into the center of the effect, spiraling closer and closer together before colliding together and crushing down to the size of a grain of sand. A wave of pressure vibrates my body for a silent instant, tiny explosions of lightning and flame and sparks of light dancing around the area before a thunderous clap ends it all, knocking me sprawling as I try to make my way back to my weapon.

"'Tis a crime to shatter such a priceless piece!" Capita shrieks, scrambling to her feet. No wonder I've never seen her use the talent before; she's just as endangered by it. "Don't make me, work of art!"

I ignore her threats, already leaping back in the cognimancer's direction with spear in hand. A tendril empowers my backup knife with a shard as well. She'll probably teleport the spear again, so the knife will be my true attack. Of course, she's still holding my first knife, so I have to worry about not getting stabbed again, but… I'll figure it out.

Sure enough, power gathers in her soul, specifically the half that teleports. I lunge with my spear, but rather than feeling it vanish from my hand, Capita ducks the strike, stepping in closer with a knife. I start to dodge, and in an instant I realize that's a fatal mistake. The knife is just a feint, and the way I fell for it combined with the failed strike on my end gives Capita the perfect opportunity to plant the palm of her free hand square on my chest.

A spell surges, incredible amounts of mana passing into me. It's not the painful kind that rages when caught inside my soul, but simply a spell being cast on my physical body. That doesn't mean that it's any less dangerous, of course. It feels like when Penelope casts a spell to heal me... and I know full well whenever one of those spells enters me Penelope can just as easily rip my insides apart. I suspect that Capita is not about to be as kind as my ornery biomancer.

Thankfully, I know how to resist spells. I can cut off Penelope's attempts at healing, and I just as easily cut off Capita's attempt at teleporting me. With a flex of my soul's power, I fight the energy Capita pours into me and win. The look on her face as I fail to be budged is priceless.

Unfortunately, my spell resistance doesn't seem to extend to my stuff. A sudden chill encompasses my entire body as everything within an inch or two of my person is fully affected by the spell and removed. Only my spear is large enough to be outside this radius, and I'm much closer to Capita than I'd like to be in terms of using the polearm.

Noticing the new location of my teleported shards as I jump away, I track the distant fluttering of my outfit and gear as it starts its fall from hundreds of feet in the air. A fall that, should I be subject to it, I doubt I'll be surviving. Not that I like my prospects of fighting without armor or even clothes much better.

"Oh, my! A work of art without its finishing coat of paint!" Capita chuckles, also taking the opportunity to jump away and create more distance. "Unexpected but not unwanted!"

Oh good, she's being fucking creepy about it. I grit my teeth, trying not to let my shiver of discomfort slow me down. If she's cracking jokes while I'm trying to murder her, she's a lot less worried than I'd like her to be. Capita has her free hand on her wounded shoulder, trying to slow the flow of blood with pressure. It's not a mortal wound as far as I can tell. Blood from my own cut trickles down the side of my face, and though it's not as severe of an injury as hers, I'm now devoid of protection against someone that can steal my weapons at will. Things aren't going well.

"Surrender, please?" Capita asks hopefully.

I respond by throwing my spear at her. I suspect if I don't, she's just going to teleport it out of my hands anyway. Unfortunately, she not only dodges it but strikes it mid-flight, forcing me to leap out of the way as the flying projectile is suddenly behind me, nearly skewering me through the kidney. The moment I start to move, Capita aims her terrifying second talent at me, starting an implosion in the area I'm about to end up.

Thankfully, I know something she doesn't. Before she can complete her partially-broken innate spell, an invisible Rowan blasts a gout of fire at the back of her head. Capita's talent sputters and fails as the woman shrieks in agony, diving out of the way as best she can while attempting to stab Rowan in the gut. Of course, she misses catastrophically, Rowan not actually standing anywhere near where the flames originate from. Hair on fire, she immediately drops the dagger and sets to try and extinguish her head, smacking at the flames as she rolls along the ground. I sprint forward, retrieving my spear again as I try and figure out a way to stop it from being teleported out of my hands again. Is there some way to extend magic resistance to nearby objects, perhaps? I rush towards Capita as I try to think, unwilling to give her an opportunity to do the same. A massive amount of power starts gathering into her soul, however. Again, it's the half that makes explosions, not the half that teleports. Why doesn't she just teleport away?

"Stop!" Capita orders, finally putting out the flames on her head. Her hair is burnt to smithereens, horrible red blisters reminding me of Remus's scars. "If I die I shall not die alone!"

The air all around us gets horribly thick, the threat of a massive amount of destruction hanging openly above our heads. For once, Capita declines to speak in singsong riddles. She's obviously threatening to kill us all, and unfortunately it looks like she can do it. I halt my approach, staying very still. Maybe Rowan can kill her before… no, it's not worth the risk. Rowan isn't the most skilled thermomancer around, and if he could kill her that quickly he probably would have done it on the first blow. Either that or he purposefully spared her life out of his sense of morality, in which case I can't rely on him anyway. Sure enough, he's making no moves towards her, keeping invisible. I scowl. This is going far worse than I had hoped. I didn't think to plan for Capita teleporting everything except herself.

...Not that I had a particularly detailed plan coming into this. I just felt her near my home and kind of flipped out.

"Why?" Capita cries, staring at me. Quite literally, too; tears start to form in her eyes. "Why? I wanted to be friends with you."

The sincerity of those words, combined with just how unexpected they are, has me reeling a little. What? That's so damn ludicrous I've half a mind to assume my senses aren't working.

"You brought a bunch of goons to my house after my sister recently died because you wanted to be friends with me?" I ask, shocked at the sheer audacious stupidity of the idea.

"I feared the wrath of the artist's work," Capita chokes, "though it would seem my entourage was more gift than guard. I must say, since you have clearly not accepted the gifts as a peace offering, it's rather rude to eat them anyway."

"I haven't fucking eaten them," I correct, though I'm certainly tempted to. Time to stall, I suppose. "Well, you have us in a stalemate. What now?"

"Now?" the woman asks, seeming genuinely miserable. "Now I think I rather wish to forget all of this. Let us start over, oh work of art. When you see me again, kindly do not inform me how utterly I failed."

What? Was she going to cognimancy herself into forgetting this entire thing? Is that why she's so nutso? I'm certainly not going to fucking forget, so what would it even accomplish?

I don't get much time to be dumbfounded by that for the mana in the air surges even higher. Holy shit, she's actually going to kill us all! I rush straight at her as fast as I'm able, desperately hoping I can stab her through the head or heart before all that power can be unleashed. Yet I'm too slow, I know I am. This was reckless. I should have never fought her before I can rip her to shreds with one tendril. Rowan and I together almost beat her, but I never guessed her other talent could just smash us into dust. I got arrogant. Again.

Yet at the last moment, everything shifts. Power from one side of her soul shunts itself into the other, and Capita grins madly at me as my magic resistance is overwhelmed and everything suddenly vanishes.

My ears pop painfully and I'm instantly overcome with a sense of vertigo, my vision flashing yellow. Yellow! The sky is everywhere, without any city walls or trees or even tall people to hamper my view of it. Islands are in every direction, not just up. One droops with verdant greens, massive vines likely the size of entire forests hanging from its sides, swaying in the breeze. Another made of deep red stone, curved spires jutting out of its top and bottom, like claws grasping at the clouds. I can even see the edge of my own island from here, and beyond it, far below, I see hints of the mists that I'm quite thankful to notice are thick today.

I get to appreciate this for only the barest instant before I realize I am falling.

My body twists and tumbles in the air, a scream escaping my lips as I try and fail to orient myself somehow. There has to be a way to improve my odds of survival. Yet I have nothing, not even a shirt to try and fashion into a shitty parachute. Although I have to wonder as I struggle to stop spinning, will it even matter? I'm above the city, I can tell that much. A city made of stone and clay, sitting in a crater. There's not exactly going to be a soft place to land. As panic fills me, a familiar soul suddenly pops into my range… though with something subtly wrong with it.

"Is the work of art falling into a spot of trouble?" Capita asks cheerfully.

Her hand grabs my shoulder, stabilizing me so that I am merely dropping through the air rather than tumbling through it. We're horrifyingly high up, much further than my gear had been teleported. I don't have the faintest idea when we'll actually hit the ground, although I suspect that will start to become increasingly more apparent the closer I get. Yet with all the terror and anger and peril, one question snaps to my mind first.

"Where's Rowan!?" I demand.

I can't feel my father anywhere within my soul sense, though for that matter I can't feel the ground either. If he was teleported up here with me, I can't imagine he has a trick to save himself. Not that I do either. Capita merely tilts her head at the question, however.

"She questions about the gambler? This one knows not, and knows not why you know not. I must admit I feel somewhat chagrined. When I requested you meet with Sky, it seems I should have added clarifications."

"What!?" I shriek.

"The work of art has dressed for success, at least," she murmurs, tapping her chin. "Though while the sky enjoys gazing down at bare mountains of fresh earth each morning, this painting seems less sultry and more terrified… may this simple palette ask what happened?"

"You did this!" I snap indignantly, wind rushing around us.

"I did?" she asks. "We weren't fighting, were we?"

I grab onto her shoulders, very nearly thrusting tentacles through her belly to try and rip her soul asunder again, before I realize something.

Her shoulders aren't damaged.

The wound I gave her is gone. She has no burns, and all her hair is exactly as it was when the fight started. And she's genuinely ignorant of everything that just occurred. Now I think I rather wish to forget all of this. Let us start over, oh work of art. Did she actually make herself forget? But how did that heal her? How did that repair her clothing? What the fuck is going on? I swear, if this maniac has four talents, I'm going to lose it. What kind of talent would even do this? Rewinding time for herself? I've never even heard of magic like that!

Yet I don't know what else it could be. Her soul is the same, I can confirm that. There are a few subtle differences, particularly along the giant crack, but they're the kind of differences that could very much be accounted for by a slight alteration in memory. There's something bugging me, something else that I know is wrong, but I don't really have time to look into it while falling to my death.

In fact, it's about time I ditch my entire half-baked plan to murder Capita. At least for now. I'm unarmed, unclothed, and against someone somehow unharmed. I need to figure out quite a few counters before I'm ready to get revenge for Angelien... but I seem to have the opportunity being handed to me, so I may as well take it.

"No," I lie. "You said you would catch me."

She brightens immediately, apparently quite worried that I was about to say yes.

"I did? I mean, I did! It would be my pleasure to cradle such a beautiful work of art all the way to the ground."

She moves to grab me, and for a moment I almost consider not letting her. I'm fucking naked, after all, and Capita has been more than a little unnerving about it. Which really isn't a joke. I've seen shit happen to other people growing up. But what am I going to do, push her away and die splattered on the stone below?

Fortunately, she just loops one arm under my knees and uses the other to support my back, neither her eyes nor fingers wandering as I feel her talent start to activate. Unfortunately, that only replaces my prior worry with a new one. It's the wrong talent! She's not teleporting, she's activating another implosion! What's going on, have I been tricked? Does Capita know how to send false emotions to my soul sense? I have to—

A powerful force suddenly pushes against us from below, slowing the fall. Rather than a chaotic implosion of devastating energy, Capita's talent creates outward explosive force. I look down, watching with surprise as her feet and her back exude a purpleish, chaotic torrent that seems barely directed enough to not kill us both. Capita winces as she maintains the spell, but after a tense few minutes we land on a roof. Specifically, one of the many roofs my weapons and armor ended up on, which were fairly easy to find as thankfully the Mistwatcher hasn't eaten the shards I put in them yet. My armor even all landed mostly in the same spot, since the straps were still done up and interconnected when it vanished off of my body. It's fortunate only a few bits and pieces made it to the alleyways below. If anything valuable fell all the way down there, I doubt I would be seeing it again. Capita sits and pants with exhaustion as I briefly appreciate solid ground before quickly gathering what I can and putting the armor back on.

"Hey, Capita," I say once I'm mostly decent, "did you want to be friends?"

For a moment, her face reminds me of Bently receiving a compliment. It's so pure and joyful that I nearly regret trying to murder her.

"Like a pauper wishes to befriend a princess!" She insists. "I desire it more than with any other, bar the sky!"

"Sky's gang let my sister die," I remind her. "You know that, right?"

That sobers her real fast.

"I… it was not his fault. The man assigned to watch your family took a bribe. We have him in custody, and I will happily arrange transferring further punishment to you."

I frown.

"I think I'd like that, but fault or not my family worked for you, bled for you, got beaten by you all in the name of a protection you failed to deliver. Sky fucked it up by having a shitty guard put in charge of upholding it. So our deals are off. I hated him before, and now I don't trust him either."

"I… but you should," Capita all but whines. "He will fix this city. He will save our home. He will make a place safe for us to live. You have to trust him. I want you both."

"Why?" I ask. "Because I'm your 'work of art?' You barely know me, Capita. We've had a handful of interactions and most of them involve threats or mind control. Usually both."

She has no apparent response to that, so I continue.

"What is Sky doing with all the metal he had Lyn steal?" I ask.

Her eyes go wide.

"I-I cannot tell you that," she stutters.

"Not even if we're friends?" I ask, my own eyes narrowing.

She hugs her knees.

"…You won't like it," she mumbles.

"You won't know until you try," I press, although I expect she's quite right. The woman is insane, and I doubt Sky is much less so. It turns my stomach a little to pretend to be friendly in order to try to abuse that insanity, at least until I remember how she mindfucked my parents. Seemingly permanently, in Lyn's case. ...Which I guess I fully intend to do right back to her, but that's different. Kind of.

Anyway, my prodding seems to do the trick, though the answer I get is one of her asinine riddles.

"The sky's wrath comes from above. The sky's justice comes from below. The rich only get richer until they are made as poor as everything else. He with the soul of a crown will be the only king left to rule."

I scowl. That sounds to me like they're going to use the metal to assassinate the King. With that much power it might even be possible. Fortunately, I don't actually give a shit about the King, so whatever.

"I'm not going to join your gang, and my family is leaving it," I insist. "But if you hand over the guy that was supposed to protect us and leave us alone afterwards, I'll consider staying out of your way."

Until I'm strong enough to end it in one blow, that is. Capita nods glumly.

"I just don't want to be apart from you," she mutters. "I finally found you after all this time."

I raise an eyebrow at that.

"Found me? Were you looking for me?"

"Well, I didn't think so. Not until I found you, anyway. But now I have, and I know that I was."

I scowl. I have no idea where to start poking that.

"Well, if you quit the gang you can hang out with me as much as you want," I answer, though mostly because I know she won't.

"I could never!" she gasps predictably. "Please, please join us. I need you and I need Sky."

"Why?" I ask. "Why do you need either of us?"

"I love him," she answers simply. "And as for you… to see the work of art that my sketch was for, it shows me my suffering had meaning. That I was not built for nothing. You are the reason! If you help him, then... then all of me is helping him! Even my pain!"

I sigh, putting the last of my armor on, securing my weapons, and standing back up.

"Everyone is built for nothing, Capita," I say simply. "We're food on a farm. Don't try to find meaning in the goals of whatever fucked up bastard split two souls in half and glued them to each other. Besides, you've seen me. You really think whoever did your cobbled job also made something like me? Who exactly do you think it is, anyway?"

She tilts her head.

"Who would make a work of art, if not an Artist?" she asks, standing up as well.

I snort derisively.

"Thanks, very helpful."

Capita shrugs.

"I cannot tell you more of something you cannot remember. Perhaps later, we can be friends. I will beseech the sky to follow your demands. He will not be happy, but I believe we have almost finished gathering what we need regardless. I will do all I can to ensure your family is left alone."

And with that, power builds up in her soul and she teleports herself away. I snort. All that, and now she teleports herself? I start to wonder what she meant by not being able to tell me more of something I can't remember, but quickly dismiss the thought. I have much more important things to worry about, now that this conversation slash battle to the death is over with.

Namely: how the fuck am I going to get off of this roof?

Family Feast

"I thought you weren't supposed to play with me."

For a couple days, the Sharif avoided me. Not on purpose, I don't think. The larger human with him, known as 'Nana' would always pull him away. Not a huge problem, I suppose. Playing is fun but I have other things that I need to do as well. Stuff like learning human facial expressions, and asking August questions.

"Well, um, I think maybe as long as I don't get dirty it should be okay?" The Sharif answers. "My mom doesn't get done with work until the Sand Flower gets here."

"What's the Sand Flower?"

"Oh, um, it's that island up there," the Sharif explains, pointing. "Have you not learned all the days yet? That's okay. There's hundreds of them! It's a lot! The Sand Flower is tonight."

I look up, seeing a tan sky-ground surrounded by swirling particles that makes it seem as though the island is constantly disintegrating. Interesting. Every single sky-ground has a name?

"So you are just going to hide from this 'mom?'"

"Well, not hide, but… anyway, let's play a game! How about hunters versus monsters?"

I tense. Hunters? Monsters? What does he know? The Sharif just keeps talking, though, seemingly oblivious to my discomfort.

"One of us pretends to be the evil monster, and the other is the hunter! We get to make up our cool talents or monster powers and then we pretend to fight! But don't actually fight, it's not good to hurt people. We just pretend to, like… Boom! Pew pew bam kaplowie!"

The small human jumps around, making hand motions as if he was casting a spell, though no actual magic comes out and I feel no telltale pinprick of danger. Pretend, huh? As in, plotting for a potential future event? Learning to combat opponents of arbitrary ability? That does sound like a useful game, but…

"If the fight is pretend, how do we know who wins?"

The Sharif stops hopping around for a moment to look at me with what I'm pretty sure is a confused expression.

"Well… the hunter always wins. They're the hero! They kill the monster and they save everybody."

I take a step backwards, second set of hands clenching the inside of my cloak hard enough to hurt.

"I don't think I like this game," I breathe.

"W-why not?" the Sharif asks.

"I don't want to play a game where I always die," I answer.

Once again, the Sharif gives me that funny, confused look.

"You don't have to play the monster every time, silly. You can be the hero, too! Do you want to start as the hunter?"

I blink. Me?

"Come on, Lark! What is your cool hunter talent?"

I frown, but after a moment's thought I pantomime the motion that death slayer used to draw her bow. I turned my body sideways, imagining pulling the string back, creating the force and tension necessary to carve a hole through any enemy. The weapon I fear and respect more than any other.

"I'll use a bow," I answer. "It's super awesome and it never misses and it can smash trees."

"Oh yeah, well… I'm a huge monster bigger and stronger than even the tallest trees! Your bow can't hurt me!"

"Yes it can!"

And so we begin. We fight without actually fighting. It is a complicated system of imagined backdrops and exaggerated movements, where the rules change constantly. Yet the animated descriptions of the Sharif and the fascinating puzzle of fighting a creature that can apparently make up new abilities whenever it wants captivates my attention. I like the Sharif. I like that the Sharif sought me out when he thought he was able, despite possibly risking trouble for doing so. That means he actually likes me, right? He's not just pretending.

I look forward to ensuring he won't have to worry about getting in trouble anymore.

The Sand Flower is upon us before I know it, time passing by so fast I could have assumed I've been in torpor. The 'Nana' soon collects the Sharif—or, I guess it's just 'Sharif,' technically—and it won't be long before darkness falls. I remove myself from the stone-structure part of the human colony, returning to where I know August waits. He is where he is every day, getting ready to pack up his stall and return home. I don't say any words, simply moving in to assist. He smiles down at me, and together we finish converting the cart. I ride on top of it as August pulls the entire contraption out towards the forest. I suspect I am a lot stronger than August is, but I am not tall enough to reach the handles that would allow me to help. I have considered using webbing to help pull, but I am still afraid. Humans don't have webbing.

"Thank you, Lark. How was your day?" August asks kindly.

"It was fun," I answer. "Sharif came back. We played hunters and monsters."

"Did he? That's great news! I'm glad you and your friend can keep being together."

"Yes. I like Sharif. He never tries to grab my cloak or take off my mask. The other kids always bother me about it, especially when we play tag."

"Oh no, I'm sorry, Lark. They shouldn't be touching you like that."

"It's fine. They don't actually touch me. They're way too slow."

August chuckles.

"So I've heard! You must have quite the powerful talent. You're very, very young to have one so developed. I'm sure you'll grow up strong."

I frown under my mask. I have mostly picked up from context what a 'talent' is. Fancy, special powers that make some humans more dangerous than others. It's little wonder that fighting humans is always so different. I stay silent at the comment, not at all wanting to get into a conversation about what I can do. I doubt any of my abilities are talents at all. August, as usual, doesn't press the point. He lets me be quiet when I don't want to talk. The degree to which he is comfortable not knowing concerns me. I, after all, am dangerous. If he displays such a lack of curiosity to all dangerous things, he will be killed! Stupid human.

…Though I suppose if he was more curious, I wouldn't be staying with him in the first place. Now I'm conflicted.

"Are you hungry, Lark?" August asks after we finish putting his stall-cart away.

He asks this every day, which is frustrating because I cannot answer. I am hungry, obviously. But when I say so, he gets human food for me, which I cannot eat. Then he starts asking why I'm not eating and so on and so forth, all of which delves into topics I have no interest in speaking of to a human. Today, however, he presses the issue.

"Lark, you need to eat something. Please? It's not good for you not to eat."

I suppose he's probably right. I've been getting more and more sluggish as I go longer without food. I'm confident I have the information I need to complete my hunt. There's little sense delaying it past nightfall.

"Okay. I will eat something."

I turn and start walking away from August's home.

"Lark, wait. I have plenty of food. You don't have to go. I can go somewhere else while you eat if you're worried about taking off your mask."

"I will get my own food. I promise I will eat tonight."

I turn and start to leave, but August approaches me. He seems… afraid. But if he's afraid, why is he approaching me? Oh. He's not afraid I'll hurt him, he's afraid of something else.

"Lark. It's safe here. You don't need to go get food somewhere else. Please stay and eat something."

I stare up at the human from behind my mask.

"Am I allowed to leave whenever I want, or aren't I?"

The old man sags a little, nodding his head slowly.

"You are allowed to leave. Of course you are."

I turn and do just that without another word. Uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. I don't like these questions that I feel I should not answer. They make me unhappy. They make August unhappy. I wish I could just tell him everything. I wish I could show him what I look like and cry to him about Claretta. But even though I know nothing he can do can injure me, I am afraid of being hurt.

Night quickly falls as I make my way back to the town of New Talsi. Over the past few days, I have learned that humans greatly struggle to see things at night. Why this is, I don't know, but I am thankful my diet has not cursed me with a similar weakness like it did when it replaced my warm, safe chitin with this terrible, floppy skin. I am not overly bothered by the change in lighting, but I suppose even if I was I have the route to my destination memorized.

The being known by Sharif as 'mom' sleeps, like most humans, in one of the stone structures that litter New Talsi. Unlike most humans, this particular stone structure dwarfs the others of its kind, like half a dozen different human dens smooshed together and stacked. Walls surround the structure from quite a ways away, a significant portion of empty space between it and any other human den.

As interesting as this is, however, it impacts my objective today very little. The 'mom' sleeps near the top of the structure and near the back, a hole in the stone leading directly into the room from the outside. It doesn't seem like a very safe place to me if predators can just walk right up the outside walls and get into the sleeping areas, but as a predator myself I'm not going to complain.

Hidden in a nook by the outer walls, I stash my disguise. I spend a short moment stretching, reveling in the freedom of motion I now have with my lower arms. Then, it's time for the hunt. Getting in close is easy. Climbing is easy. I could shoot a web all the way to the top of the structure and hoist myself up that way, but instead I opt to use tiny spurts of web from each finger like an adhesive, scaling up the side of the wall on my fingertips. As expected, the mom is sleeping within the room. To my surprise, however, another human is sleeping next to her. How fortuitous! More food.

I slip in through the window, creeping silently closer to my prey. Humans are like katzels in that if you capture one they'll start to make all sorts of noises. I should probably bind them by the head first, force their jaw closed, and finish trapping them afterwards. There are way too many humans nearby for me to want to risk them calling for more.

I weave some simple gags, leaping onto the pair of humans and binding them down by the face before they know what's going on. This wakes both humans, but I have a few brief seconds to finish my work before they're aware enough to retaliate. Tearing the covers off the bed, I repeat the process with their legs. One of them, who I'm fairly certain is a man, is lucid enough to attempt to kick me, but he's far too slow to make a difference. The screams start, but not in time to make a difference. They should be muffled enough, and with just a few more threads, the humans are bound tight.

I crawl over the bed and my prey, holding them steady as I layer more and more webs to ensure I am not bothered during my upcoming feast. They squirm and struggle, horrified, muffled noises accompanying the creaks and shakes of the bed as I finish my preparations. Once ready, however, I make the mistake of looking into their eyes.

I have been working a lot over these past few days to learn human expressions and tell the difference between human faces. The latter is still more than a little difficult for me, but I'm figuring out other ways to tell humans apart which help me compensate for that. Smell is a big one. Everyone smells differently when I pay attention to the subtle distinctions, and I almost always know if I'm meeting someone I've seen before or not as long as I get close enough to them to tell their smell apart from the countless other humans around. Expressions, however, don't require me to understand the difference between human faces. I only have to compare memories of other expressions which seem to be the same among almost everyone. A smile is a smile. A scowl is a scowl. And the wide-eyed look of mortal terror on these two humans is especially recognizable to me.

I just didn't care before.

The eyes of the 'mom' flick randomly around, pupils dilated in terror as she struggles almost randomly to find an escape. I think it's a she, anyway. I'm kind of starting to figure out the difference, and she has many more of the female traits then her sleeping partner seems to. He struggles with much more purpose, eyes locked furiously in my direction, looking away only to glance for anything nearby he could use to his advantage. With each and every attempt, each failed idea for potential escape, I watch the hope and anger drain from his face, to be replaced with increasing horror and despair. I remember something similar to it on the face of the Fulvia. Or just Fulvia, I suppose. She went through the same thing, albeit much more slowly. I remember her expressions clearly. They started with fury and wrath, devolving more and more into fear before finally resting on almost nothing at all. Expressionless despair, lacking the energy to even hate me anymore.

I shake my head. These people aren't anyone I care about. They hold back a friend of mine. I'm helping him. This is nothing like Claretta and Fulvia. These two will be dead before morning.

So to that end, I start to eat. The woman is first, starting with her foot and working quickly up. I've no time to savor my bites, as without Claretta my meal will quickly die and become worthless. The faster I eat, the better.

The man makes this difficult. Emboldened by some newfound strength, his screams and struggles double in intensity, bloodshot eyes locked on me as I sever bite after bite of meat, juice, and bone from the woman next to him. Not that I have any more compunctions about his distress, as I'm far too busy enjoying glorious, glorious food after too long without. I greedily chew my way up one leg, drinking down blood before moving onto the next in a gleeful frenzy.

There's a thump on the door. Human voices from the other side. Annoying. I look up long enough only to make a quick layer of webs in front of the door, then return to my bloody feast. Right about when I feel my first victim die, the door is busted open and two men holding swords and wearing armor charge into the room, only to immediately get tangled in my trap. Good. More food. Unfortunately, they shout before I can bind their mouths, but after closing the door and layering some webs to hold it shut, I'm confident I at least have enough time to eat what I have available. The two new humans smell even better than the ones in the bed! Since the 'mom' has bled out already, I move to them next.

The armor is chewy and tasteless, but it doesn't serve as much of an obstacle to my teeth. These humans struggle more, being much stronger and also tied up standing instead of bound to a bed, but they're dead in less than half a minute as well. Humans can be frustratingly frail, and it's so very difficult to get a full, satisfying meal out of them as a result. I'm used to it, of course, every meal of my life having always left me wanting more. I hear more pounding outside the door to the room, but I ignore it and move on to what will probably be my final prey of the night.

I devour the man on the bed. It is only after my feast is done and my desire to retreat to safety wins out against the haze of hunger that I think about how the man's face held perhaps the most striking representation of unbridled hatred that I have ever seen. Tears are in his eyes as well. How many different emotions can the damn eye-water signify?

Another slam hits the door, and the wood splinters. I suppose I'll take that as my cue to leave. I leap out the window, scrambling across the yard and over the outer wall before any more humans see me. Unfortunately, I'm a bit covered in blood, so I'll have to sprint to a nearby well and wash myself off before recovering my things. That doesn't take very long, however, and soon enough I get my disguise back on, returning to August's house.

The old man is asleep, as he tends to be every night. I feel a lot more inclined to rest than usual as well. Something about eating a significant percentage of four different humans after such a long fast has me feeling quite relaxed. I'm still hungry, since I'm always hungry, but I no longer feel debilitated. The hunger is now merely an urge, not an encroaching threat. The humans are no doubt looking for me. I had to avoid no small number of them rushing about the town near the home of my prey. Yet here, in August's home, I can rest. Here I am safe, and for the first time since arriving I truly feel that. I make my way into the room in which August sleeps, curl up on the floor, and descend into torpor for the rest of the night.

Morning arrives too soon. August nearly steps on me when he gets out of bed, no doubt surprised to find me since I normally sleep in the other room. I have no interest in moving yet, however, still enjoying my rest, so I let him think I'm asleep and start his day without me. He goes through the same routine he does every morning, washing himself and making food and leaving out a plate of things that he never says are for me but always are. Not that I can eat the food I'm offered here. Then he spends the morning carving or whittling or both for a while until the sky is completely clear from the island overhead. It is only then that I rise, ready to follow him now that I know he will be setting up his shop.

"Good morning, Lark," August says.

I nod at him.

"Good morning, August. Did you sleep well?"

"I did, yes," he answers, smiling. August is the one who taught me that I'm supposed to answer 'good morning' with 'good morning,' so perhaps he's pleased that I've started doing so. "Yourself?"

"No, I did not. But I found food. I feel much better now."

"I'm happy to hear that," he says.

I nod again, smiling under my mask. I made him happy, and that makes me happy. It really does work. The two of us prepare his cart and walk it to his usual spot. I'm looking forward to spending the entire day with Sharif without having to worry about that 'mom' person, but it might be fun to spend some of the morning with August. I suppose we'll see.

As we reach the smattering of carts and stalls that August works by today, a human I recognize but don't know the name of runs up to us. I've seen them buy things from August before, and sometimes just drop by to chat with him.

"August! Did you hear what happened last night?"

"No? What happened?" August asks, looking up from his work. The other human seems worried, and that immediately makes August worried too.

"The Lord and Lady Taftan are dead!"

August drops what he's doing, face twisting to shock.

"What? Truly? How? What of their son?"

"Third Lord Sharif is unharmed, thankfully. But nobody knows what happened! Some say it was a monster attack, others say assassination! I hear they died in their bedchambers... anyway, they're holding a public funeral at the church! I just thought you should know, in case you wanted to pay your respects."

August nods.

"Yes, yes of course. Give me a few moments to lock everything up, then I'll join you. Lark, would you like to come?"

"Will Sharif be there?" I ask. They mentioned his name just now.

"Almost certainly, yes," August confirms. "The poor thing. Since you two are friends, I'm sure it will be good for him to see you."

I'm not entirely sure I understand, but I nod.

"I'll come with you, then."

August, the unnamed human, and I walk together to a place that most of the other humans on the street also seem to be headed. Soon, I see our destination: a massive building, not as tall as the place I hunted in last night but much, much wider. Columns of stone carved to look like tentacles curling around each other adorn the entryway, and inside is a single room so massive that I bet every human in the marketplace could fit inside at once. Apparently, they seem to be trying.

The overwhelming density of humans here makes me a bit uncomfortable, but not one of them is looking at me. They all look solemn, many of them crying but most simply staring with blank expressions. We're all gathered in a huge, clumpy line, slowly moving forward as people in front of us leave and people behind us enter. We all seem to be heading towards the front of the room, in which a small candle burns in front of a portrait of two humans, whom I recognize as the two humans in the bed I ate last night.

Oh. This is all my fault. …It's probably not that bad, right?

Eventually, we make it to the front of the room. Rows and rows of benches line either side of the clump of people moving forward, and sitting in the final row of benches is Sharif and his Nana. Tears pour down Sharif's face, soaking his collar and chin as surely as if he fell in a puddle. He looks… sad. But why is he sad? It's not like he'll be yelled at for falling in puddles anymore. Or anything else! I walk up to him, ready to remind him of this fact, but something about his endless tears makes my steps slow and my heartbeat heavy.

"Um… Sharif?" I say hesitantly, approaching the bench. "Hi. It's me. Lark."

He looks up at me, clearly seeing me, but his tears prevent him from making a response. I really, really hate tears. They're still difficult for me to understand. Everybody else seems sad, but... maybe he's crying tears of joy?

"Are you happy, Sharif?" I ask. "You don't have to worry about your mom taking you home ever again. She'll never yell at you. We can play, and play, and play. As much as we want."

His breath catches, halting the tears for a moment as he stares and abject horror, only to have them start anew with far greater intensity. His Nana stares at me in a mix of anger and... something else. Something not quite fear. In fact, many people nearby are now staring at me, and none of them look pleased.

"Lark!" August snaps, even his voice carrying that disturbed tone.

I freeze, filled with the terror I don't understand. He kneels down next to me, glaring in a way I almost wish was aggressive, but it clearly isn't and that's somehow worse.

"Apologize to Sharif," he demands.

"S-sorry," I say automatically, not even thinking to chastise the human for giving me an order.

"That's not an appropriate thing to say at a funeral," August tells me. "Do you understand?"

I swallow.

"No," I squeak softly.

His face softens, but only a little. Apologizing again on my behalf, he leads me back out of the large building before speaking again.

"Do you know what we were all doing in there?" he asks.

"You said it was a funeral," I answer slowly. "…What's a funeral?"

He sighs, kneeling down again.

"Sharif's mother and father both died last night," he says.

I nod. I knew that already.

"A funeral is where people gather to grieve those that have passed on back to the Mistwatcher. When people die, they are gone from this world forever. We celebrate their lives, but we also mourn their passing. Death is a sad and solemn event, Lark. You can't treat it like a fortunate occurrence."

"But… it is!" I protest, scowling. "Sharif has never talked about his mom without complaining about her! Why is he sad that she's gone?"

August looks at me in a very strange way, one I still can't fully interpret. It's sort of like sadness, but... different. Like he's sad because of something I say or do because he thinks it hurts me, or because he thinks I still don't understand something.

"I'm sure that Sharif loved his family," August insists. "Maybe he didn't always agree with his mother, and maybe he wasn't always happy with her, but you can love someone and still be frustrated with them. His mother loved him very much, and he loved her. Now she is gone forever, and no matter how many play dates she won't interrupt now, that is a person he can never get back again. He will always, for the rest of his life, have an aching pain where his mother should be. And while that grief might heal and lessen with time, it never goes away. The people in our lives are special, and all people are special in someone's life. That is why every death is a tragedy. That is why every death must be treated with respect and reverence."

He stands up, and holds his hand out to me. Hesitantly, I take it, and together we return to his shop. More and more, I think of Claretta. I still don't think I understand, but as with all things, I will remember his words with perfect clarity from now until perhaps forever.

The next day, I learn that Sharif has left town to live with family in another city. I'll probably never see him again.

Atrophy

"Rowan?" I call out. "Hey, Rowan?"

I scowl, looking over the battlefield where I recently fought Capita. Six corpses lie in the road, a shallow crater behind them where Capita's implosion spell annihilated part of the ground. There's no sign of Rowan around, but that means I don't feel his soul hanging around either so he's probably not dead. He didn't run after me to help with Capita anymore, so there's only one other place he'd have gone: the shack. Unless he's an idiot, but when it doesn't come to gambling the guy is super smart. I assume that's where I'll end up finding him.

In the meantime, I suppose it would be a waste not to see what these bodies have on them. I kneel down, hands quickly rifling through the pockets of the dead. First come, first serve. That's just how it is around here.

"Excuse me, miss, but you wouldn't happen to know what occurred here, would you?"

After just the first few words I'm jumping to my feet, drawing my spear and swearing up a storm as my heart beats a mile a minute. What the fuck? Where is that voice coming from? There's no one here but me! Turning around, however, my eyes disagree with my soul sense. A figure in pristine white scale-forged armor with red trim stands a respectful distance behind me. The armor of a High Templar.

They don't seem to have a soul at all.

All three of my eyes look around wildly, panic filling me. How long have they been here? Why can't I feel them? Am I going to die? If I can't affect their soul, I don't stand a chance! But how do they not have one? I've never—

"Ah, my apologies, miss. I didn't mean to startle you. I am High Templar Braum. I'm here to ask a few questions."

Hearing the voice is just weird to me. Everything feels wrong, my mind reeling to find answers to basic questions. Are they a man or a woman? What type of person are they? How are they feeling? It fills me with unreasonable panic, and it shouldn't. I know how to do this shit. It's not like I've always had a soul sense. Old skills churn slowly to the surface of my mind, interpreting for my lesser senses. The voice sounds deep and masculine. His posture is relaxed and nonthreatening. This person is not attacking or moving to attack. I don't need a soul sense to guess that, as much as I would really like a read on this person.

"U-uh, it's fine," I say, swallowing as much of my discomfort as I can. "You startled me."

I put away my spear, fairly certain it won't help me very much if he decides to attack anyway. I may as well encourage him to not do so. First Capita, now this guy? What the fuck is going on with my luck today? The High Templar chuckles, though I have no idea if it's in good humor, malice, or straight up insanity. When did I start relying on my soul sense this much?

"Apologies again!" he says. "You're far from the first person I've accidentally frightened, much to my chagrin. I tend to appear wherever I'm needed, usually without warning. To that end, I was just getting back to town when I heard an explosion. So again, I feel it is my duty to ask: do you know what happened here?"

I shrug, trying to channel all my experience running cons with Rowan to keep as straight a face as possible.

"By the looks of it, I'm going to guess a turf war," I answer. It's a very believable answer for this part of town, and it's technically not even a lie.

"I… see. And what, may I ask, are you doing with the bodies?"

"Checking them for valuables," I shrug again, entirely unashamed. "You've gotta get what you can to survive around here. Speaking of, it's really weird to see a High Templar in this part of town."

"Well, most of us have been assigned abroad. With the Hiverock situation, it was deemed necessary to recall us. …Although it would seem things have gotten much worse than I expected during my absence. I must admit, I find it odd to see someone so well armed and armored resorting to petty thievery of the dead to get by."

I blink.

"I guess that's a good point," I mutter thoughtfully. "I suppose I don't need this stuff. Collecting it is just kind of a habit. I should probably let some other urchins have it."

Especially if my family is getting moved to a better part of town, with Penelope footting some of the bill. In that sense, I suppose my family has made it. They're pretty much living the dream of every kid here, to be rescued by some rich hero with a heart of gold. Penelope is not normally someone I would call altruistic, but she definitely has her moments.

"You need to let the guard have it," the High Templar corrects. "These people need to be identified and their belongings returned to their families."

Families? Oh shit, I hope they don't have families. It would be just my luck to create another vengeful pseudo-orphan right after I finished getting rid of the last one. I should have considered that. Still…

"You're absolutely bonkers if you think the guard would do anything with the valuables on these bodies other than pocket them," I say bluntly. "Just leave it all here. Or better yet, give it to the first street kid you see. It could save their life."

I wish I could at least see the man's expression, though his face remains stubbornly behind a helmet.

"Have we truly fallen so far?" he mutters to himself.

I shrug once more, for it is an expression that serves me well when hiding my heart-smashing panic. I decide to take that small monologue as my permission to leave, but unfortunately, he calls out to me as I go.

"What is your name, Miss?"

I grimace. They probably have my face plastered somewhere in the Templar headquarters, so as much as I want to lie it's probably a bad idea.

"Vita," I answer. "I'm a hunter. …And I guess a slave of House Erebus, technically."

I don't want to add the last part, but it does mean he can't legally stab me through the face on a whim so it seems prudent to include. Besides, maybe I'll be lucky and he won't recognize me. He implied that he just made it back to town after a long time abroad, after all.

"Oh, you're that girl," he hums thoughtfully, crushing all of my hopes. "You're accused of some quite heinous crimes."

I narrow my eyes. Figures.

"You may direct any allegations against me towards First Lord Erebus. And for the record, I believe I was promised a reward for wiping out the Nawra and retrieving Remus and his sword unharmed. I've yet to receive it. Unless you intend to deliver that, may I go?"

"Yes," he says immediately, much to my relief. "Between you and me, I find the report rather suspect. But the higher-ups will be going through with the investigation regardless. I regret to inform you you will most likely have to deal with Inquisitors bothering you in the future. I do apologize. I assure you, the Inquisitors are an honorable sort, with no compunctions against prosecuting a High Templar should… someone be framing you like your master claims. We have learned the dangers of letting rot fester in our organization."

Not trusting myself to respond to that can of worms, I simply shrug one last time, keeping my face steady as I turn and walk away. High Templars are returning and Inquisitors are apparently coming, whatever those are. They sure don't sound good. If they have some way of actually detecting animancy, I'm kind of fucked… and if I had a secret animancy-detecting branch of Templars, I'd probably name them Inquisitors. Just another problem to add to the pile, I suppose. It's interesting that Galdra is apparently not well-liked or trusted by one of her fellow High Templars, however. If I'm to get out of this mess, that might be my angle to do it.

Only after walking around several corners do I dare to turn my head to check if I'm being followed. Braum isn't there, thankfully. I pick up the pace, sprinting all the way back home. An unfathomable amount of relief washes over me when I feel the souls of Rowan and the children, safe and sound where they should be. Thank goodness.

"Rowan!" I shout, waving as I approach the shack.

He peeks his head door, giving a relieved sigh of his own as he sees me approach.

"Vita!" he calls back, scooping me into a hug as I rush into him. "Thank the Watcher you're alright! After you vanished, I ran off to look for you, but… well, I couldn't leave the kids alone and I had to trust you would be okay. I'm glad I was right."

"Yeah, good call," I nod. "Capita and I are under a truce, I guess. Hopefully, she'll convince Sky to leave you and mom alone. If not… well, you and the kids should be out of here by then, right?"

He nods.

"According to your friend, that's right." he rubs his thumb across the cut on my face. "...Speaking of which, you should go see her. I see you've gotten your things back, but you should get yourself healed up too. You took a bit of a beating, there."

I sigh, lacking the energy to argue that. I didn't really get that injured, just a few cuts and scrapes, but I definitely bit off more than I can chew again. Not much more, though. Next time, I'll be ready. In some regards, I'm pretty darn lucky that Capita was so willing to forgive me. Maybe there won't be a next time, and I'll be able to trust her to help with our animancy research of her own volition. I don't know if she'll have much time while she's still working for Sky, though, and we need her sooner rather than later.

As nice as she is to me, I have zero compunctions about killing the woman that permanently scarred my mother's soul. Capita is insane, and she's a danger to everyone no matter how nice she happens to be to me personally.

"By the way, Rowan, have you heard of a High Templar Braum?" I ask.

He raises an eyebrow.

"Braum the Ubiquitous? Yeah, of course. He's a kynamancer, although a drastically more powerful one than I am. They say if you're speaking with him, you're almost always speaking with an illusion. He can see and hear through them somehow, and create them over vast distances. I believe he can even cast spells through them, although that gets more into speculation. He's one of the more esoteric High Templars, and they keep his exact abilities secret for national security reasons. Why do you ask?"

An illusion! Of course! No wonder the dude didn't have a soul.

"I saw him on the way here. Apparently, he just got back in town and heard our fight. Thankfully, I guess he didn't see it."

"Oh, shit. You're not in any trouble, are you Vita?" Rowan asks.

I snort.

"Not any more than before I met him. He was polite, I think?"

"You think?"

I don't know what to say to that, so I just shrug. I think he was polite, but I'm really not sure.

"Well, please don't run off and start a fight with him," Rowan sighs. "I don't think I'll ever get the smell of burning hair out of my nostrils. Honestly, you shouldn't be starting fights with people in general."

"Yeah. Sorry. I was afraid she was marching a bunch of goons to take the kids," I shrug.

He grimaces.

"You think, again? Please tell me I didn't just burn a woman alive over a misunderstanding."

"She's fine anyway," I dismiss, waving him off. "She doesn't even seem hurt. We talked it out, nobody even died."

"Vita, you killed six people," Rowan says slowly, giving me a weird look.

"Okay, nobody except those guys," I admit. "That's my bad. But their souls are kind of gross so they were probably assholes anyway."

"Vita!"

The chastisement in Rowan's voice is obvious. Although... maybe it's only obvious since I can feel it in his soul, too.

"Hey, I gave them a warning," I answer, standing my ground. "I warned them, and then they drew weapons on me. So yeah, I killed them. What do you want me to do, stand around and get stabbed? I made the mistake of not following through on ultimatums before, and I'm not gonna make it again."

"Have you considered simply not making ultimatums?" Rowan counters, prodding me in the collarbone. "If you're going to insist on following through with threats, then threaten people less."

I scowl, but I suppose he's not entirely wrong.

"It's just been a stressful few days, okay?" I mumble.

He sighs, nodding slowly.

"Yeah. It has. We're relying on you, Vita. You never met them, but… Angelien is far from the first one we lost. But this time, you're keeping the grief away. Delaying it. Our hope in you… Lyn and I need it to keep going, right now. So stay safe, okay?"

He hugs me again, resting his chin on my head. Grabbing him back, I squeeze, tendril-enhanced strength going into the embrace. Everyone is counting on me. I can't let them down again.

"I should head back to the hunter's guild," I announce after a long period of silence. "I'm supposed to check in every day. One last thing, though. Is there a way to extend magic resistance to my stuff?"

Rowan shakes his head glumly.

"Unfortunately, no. I've seen plenty of people have their clothes blasted off like yours were because of exactly that. Well, not exactly like yours, but… it happens due to all sorts of magic. The best and usually only way to protect your stuff is to dodge the spell. Only living things can have magic resistance, so…"

He trails off, thinking for a moment.

"…Actually, for you there's probably a way."

"If it's putting souls into my stuff, that didn't seem to work." I say. "I had that going on in a bunch of my weapons during the fight. Even if my shards grant magic resistance, they're probably way too small and weak to resist any spells that matter. If I have to give a fucking massive soul to each individual object..."

"Huh. Well, that's interesting but not what I was thinking actually," Rowan says, cutting me off. "Your friend mentioned that the mana you produce destroys naturally-occurring mana on contact, right? And you can push it outside your body safely?"

My eyes go wide, a grin creeping up my mouth.

"You think I can just destroy the spells?" I ask. That would be amazing!

"You'd have to overpower the raw mana being used, but hypothetically? The idea has potential. If you put a soul into an object, you might be able to pump your mana into that soul as well, which should let it store some? Maybe? I'm definitely guessing at this point, but it's something worth experimenting with."

I give him another quick squeeze.

"Thanks, Rowan! That could be just what I need!"

He ruffles my hair.

"Happy to help. Go knock 'em dead, kiddo. Er, figuratively."

I groan, stepping away from him and shooting him a playful scowl.

"When are you and mom gonna stop with that 'kiddo' stuff?" I complain.

He shrugs, flashing me a shit-eating grin.

"When you stop being tiny and adorable, so probably never."

"Whatever, grandpa!" I taunt, turning and running off towards the guildhouse.

"That won't work on me like it does with Lyn!" Rowan calls after me. "I've always been an old man at heart!"

"We know, Mr. Mutton Chops!" I quip back.

That one gets a reaction, and I glance backwards with a laugh, seeing him pat the sides of his face. Then, I'm around a corner, heading away from my family and back to work. I feel better now. Something about getting teleported thousands of feet up really gave my mood a hard reset, earlier. I messed up, sure. There's a lot of problems in just about every direction. But it's okay, I don't have to spend all day every day beating myself up about it, because no matter how bad it is, nothing so far is unfixable.

Not even death.

Blue Ocean

Breathe in, breathe out. I've heard it before, as a mantra to assist focus. There is apparently something about breathing that really seems to help people with that. Perhaps it's the intentional stepping away from the distractions of the world to focus entirely on one's self, particularly the aspects which are so commonly taken for granted. Something like that, anyway. I can only speculate, because I find the practice horribly distracting.

I seem to focus far better when I don't breathe at all.

After all, pulling mana out from myself doesn't involve my body in the slightest. I don't know if I can exercise my soul in the same way I exercise my body, but it stands to reason that the more I practice pulling out that inner energy, the better I'll become at it. This is much more exciting, much more natural than most training I have to do. Training my 'talent' has always been a pain in the ass because I'm usually afraid messing with animancy will be detectable by the wrong people. Theodora can certainly see when I'm using more complicated forms of animancy, even moving souls in or out of a body, so it just doesn't feel safe to use in this city. This, however, she can't see. This isn't even animancy, but it's still part of me and what I am, something that feels right to use freely.

Filling my soul with power, then expelling it so that it annihilates that stupid all-pervasive mana that I can't even use just puts a smile on my face. I want to bring more of my mana into the world. I pull the power inward, then I push it outward. In and out. Ha, maybe I can use this to help focus instead of breathing.

If nothing else, it's a great way to make efficient use of my time as I walk back to the hunter's guild. I can more or less navigate the city without even thinking at this point, so a bit of meditation shouldn't be a problem. I look inside myself, watching power move as I pull it through the channels in my soul, letting it fill and soothe me. One channel and one channel alone pulls the mana in from beyond my immediate self, going further than any other part of me in the direction with no name. I trace it slowly backwards, pushing my senses against the current, looking for where all my power comes from.

Thump-thump.

The line of power is long and narrow. Too long, impossibly long. I realize that if I try to observe it by sliding my vision across the entire expanse of its presence, I will never, ever reach the end. Like a ring wrapped around my body, I can never see all of it simply by rotating my head. I cannot travel to the end of something which goes forever. But I am not limited to such paltry ways of sensing.

Thump-thump.

Every single soul in my range is known to me. Their positions, their movements, their songs and colors and vibrations and feelings… I ignore as much as I can, because it tends to be too much. For the first time in a long time, however, I no longer feel that. Here, everything is simply me. There's no overload of information, even when I view the entirety of an infinite distance. Some part of me already knows everything there is to see here.

Thump… thump.

So just like that, I behold the end. The source of everything I am. A vast and beautiful sea of power and potential. Formless, yet seeking form, the torrent deep within scrambles desperately through the minuscule channel, a mass of incomprehensible power paradoxically too weak to send any more of itself through.

Thump.

How laughable that I consider myself hatched. I'm free from one prison yet still struggling with the bars of another. I tug at this vast blue ocean of my trapped self, pulling and shaping it. It moves to my will as naturally as can be, because of course it does. This is what I've always been, part of myself I've always had. I move it with the same instinct that moves my tendrils, I see it as easily as I see with my eye. But even with all of it here, able to be shaped however I choose, I don't have the slightest idea of what to do with it. Like a giant mound of clay, sitting untouched in front of an uninspired artist, I feel the fullness of myself yet I fail to know what any of it should be.

Thump.

That thought is more than a little frustrating. I really don't know what this means, do I?

Thump.

It's beautiful, I know that much, but what am I supposed to do with it all? I suppose I can use it to cast spells, and hopefully to disrupt the spells of others, but so what?

Th...

Perhaps things will be clearer when I am more fully myself. This pathetic channel through which I pull mana feels more like a wall. It can be wider. It needs to be. I need to pull myself into the wor—

Thwack!

My attention is smashed back into the physical as I find myself suddenly face first in the solid dirt of the road. My lungs gasp desperately for a breath, inhaling dust and detritus only to cough it all back out again and try again. A sharp pain and wet feeling in my nose indicates that it's damaged, possibly broken. I roll over onto my back, clutching my face and rapidly attempting to sit up and try and figure out what just attacked me. Immediately, an unrelenting wave of lightheadedness forces me back to the dirt. I finally get some air into my lungs, checking for threats with my soul sense only to find the people around me all seem more worried than hostile.

"Hey, um, are you all right?" one of the people around me asks.

A few deep breaths later, I find myself able to answer.

"What happened?" I ask, hand slowly letting go of my spear.

"Um, I don't know. You were just walking around and then you suddenly fell over. Did you trip?"

Did I trip? No, I don't think I did. Actually, given the burning feeling in my lungs, I might have taken my focus a little bit too seriously. I think... I forgot to breathe.

"I'm fine, thank you," I mumble, embarrassed.

Waiting a short while to catch my breath, I slowly stand up and resume my walk to the guild, face red. Okay, maybe that's a little too much focus. How long had I been walking without breathing? The rest of all that… I don't have any idea how to process that. I'm some kind of big, blue mana mass in addition to… everything else. I look down at my tiny hands, clenching and unclenching them. I hate this stupid body. How did I end up in such a pathetic vessel? Whatever. No sense dwelling on what I can't change. I'll just focus on drawing that mana for now, I think. And breathing. Best not to pass out again.

At least my walk is almost over. The guild pops into my senses, a cacophony of familiar and powerful souls that always whets my appetite a little. Not that I have any intention of eating my comrades, but it is what it is. The feeling puts me in a better mood. It's… refreshing. The ache of Angelien's death still pulses inside me, but I no longer feel so helpless, so angry. I can do this. I have friends and family and a way forward.

The receptionist looks up and waves to me when I enter the guild.

"Vita, there you are," she says. "You're needed for a mission. Have you seen Penelope?"

Ugh, that figures. Well, I guess I can't complain. There's no better way to get stronger than the forest.

"Yeah, I have," I answer. "Want me to go get her? I don't know when she'll drop by on her own."

She gives me a once-over.

"How about you drop by the medical ward real fast? You look like you just lost a fight with a runaway wagon."

I blink. Oh, right. Between the cut side of my face and my possibly-broken nose, I'm probably a bit of a bloody mess. I just kinda forgot about the pain, but getting it healed is probably a good idea. I nod and make my way towards the healers as instructed.

Claretta and the guy who feels like roots in soil are both in the room, along with the broken-souled Fulvia and a myriad of other patients. Soil-soul is asleep, but Claretta sings clearly and crisply, a wordless and beautiful tune that starts sealing up the cut in the side of my face as soon as I enter the room. My nose, however, just starts hurting more.

"Ow!" I yelp, holding my face.

Claretta glances at me and stops singing, her slow exhalations betraying a deep and full-bodied exhaustion.

"Vita, right? If that hurt you probably have something broken. The spell is complex enough to try to set it, but it's faster to do so manually. May I see your nose?"

I nod, approaching and bending down a little so the wheelchair-bound Claretta can get a closer look. The deeply tanned-skinned and dark-haired woman stares at my face with complete dispassion, arm moving up as if to do something for a moment before she grimaces and returns it to her side. She still has no hands or feet, though the beginning of wrists and ankles seem to be starting to form. Hopefully she'll finish healing soon.

"Jeremy!" Claretta snaps. "Wake up for a second, I need someone with fingers!"

A comically large pile of blankets in the corner starts to move, the soil-souled man emerging and blearily blinking the sleep out of his eyes.

"M'up, m'up..." he mumbles, yawning as he makes his way over to me. "Geez. What wall did you piss off?"

Do I seriously look that bad?

"Can you just fix it or whatever?" I grumble awkwardly. "I need to go grab Penelope."

He shrugs, grabbing my forehead with one hand and snapping my nose back into place with the other. Another gout of blood gushes out for a moment before he stops it with a spell, the pain quickly vanishing.

"There you go," he yawns. "Tell Penelope I said hi. You need anything else, Claretta?"

"No," she answers blandly. "Rest well, Jeremy."

He nods, waves, and returns to collapse inside his fortress of fluff. The biomancers here must be getting run pretty ragged, still. I should probably head out and let them work, but I can't help but find my attention drawn to Fulvia's damaged soul. I stop by her bed before departing, trying to determine how fast she's been healing. …It's really not much. If I couldn't look at the soul down at a ridiculously detailed level, it wouldn't look like she was healing at all. I check around with my soul sense, trying to determine if anyone is paying much attention to me. Only Claretta seems to care, she's not currently looking at me so I pull out a shard of myself and crush it, sprinkling the raw soul energy over Fulvia's spirit.

The reaction is immediate. Her soul pulls in the power almost exactly like my Revenants do. Fulvia doesn't feel dead, though. Perhaps this is just how damaged souls react? Either way, the shard dust heals her considerably. I can probably just fix her.

"...It feels like a wretched joke to be put in charge of her," Claretta says, causing me to jump a little.

A series of bars jutting out the sides of her wheelchair allow her to move around a bit even without hands, and she's managed to sneak up on me with them. I was just looking out for her… bah, souls are distracting. Unknowing or uncaring about my surprise, Claretta simply continues to talk.

"She's certainly not going to want to see my face if she wakes up," the crippled biomancer says, an utterly humorless smile on her lips. "Yet they commended me. Can you believe it? I just about had to threaten the higher-ups to stop them from giving me a fucking medal."

I barely know this woman, and I don't know why she's talking to me about this. Maybe because I helped rescue her. It's odd to be in a position where others respect me. It's one thing to be respected because of mind control, it's a very different and very strange feeling to have done something to earn it.

"Why's that?" I ask.

She laughs, a sound full of despair. Her musical soul still tears at itself, roiling in unceasing hatred.

"Well, they said it's unprecedented for a team to survive in the forest for months on end. They're just so fucking proud of me for keeping her alive against all odds. 'Heroic,' I think was the word used. What a fucking joke."

I glance down at her, trying to decide if I should respond to that. I've been told I'm not exactly the best person for sympathy or advice in situations like these. It doesn't look like I need to say anything, thankfully. She's not looking at me, eyes locked on the unconscious face of her teammate.

"She ate us," Claretta continues. "Over and over. Because I let her, I enabled her. I knew that she knew I was the reason her meals never went away. So she ate Fulvia instead of me. She would bite my friend's arms off, and I would regrow them because if I did, maybe she wouldn't come for me next."

"It's not your intentions being deemed as heroic, it's your results," I say. "That's how it works. You did save her, in the end."

"I did," Claretta agrees. "Even though she begged me to let her die. But a hero? I was a coward. I was afraid of death and afraid of being alone. That's the only reason why she's alive. Maybe she'll recover, maybe she can live a normal life after all this. But I don't get to take credit for that. I shouldn't even get to see it."

I say nothing, once again unsure how to respond.

"Some nobles in a mining town got their arms and legs bitten off," Claretta says suddenly. "Probably a monster, they say. But nobody can find it, so I hear your team is getting sent out."

I shrug. Makes sense to me. I knew I was going on a mission already.

"It's her," Claretta insists, eyes wide in my direction but not seeing me at all. "It's that child. That thing. I know it is. You have to kill her this time. Please. She's going to be even more dangerous than last time. She'll keep getting smarter, keep getting stronger. You have to kill it now."

"She's not the only one getting more dangerous," I say. "We'll be ready this time."

Claretta nods firmly. With a tendril, I pull out another two shards, judging them to likely be enough. I'm a bit leery of using my soul like this, considering how much work I go through to get this power in the first place, but I smash them anyway and sprinkle them on Fulvia's shattered soul. They'll just grow back when I eat. A tense thirty seconds or so pass, and then the woman finally starts to stir. Her soul is still a total mess, but it doesn't need to be fully intact to function and I don't want to waste any more shards than I have to on this.

A look of absolute horror creeps up Claretta's face as she watches her former teammate squirm slightly on the cot. She doesn't quite wake up yet, but she probably will soon. It's enough to enrapture the biomancer. Taking advantage of her distraction, I quickly excuse myself from the medical ward and more importantly, the conversation.

I quickly head back to the immortality lab, practicing my mana control on the way. Strolling downstairs, I'm disappointed to find that Vitamin does not jump into my arms from above as she usually does. Instead, she's lying on a table, Margarette standing over her and drawing tattoos on her skin.

"Hey, guys!" I say.

"Hi mom!" Vitamin chirps back happily.

"Don't move," Margarette snaps at her. "Hello, Vita."

"I'm afraid I've got to steal Penelope," I announce. "We've got a guild job."

"Ugh, what terrible timing," Penelope complains, emerging from one of the side rooms. "Nothing for it, I suppose. Let's..."

Her words cut off as she looks at me, said look quickly turning into a glare. After a moment she rushes forward and grabs my face by the chin, pulling me closer.

"Uhwuh?" I grunt in surprise.

Her stare is intense and unblinking, and behind her gaze I feel her thoughts moving a mile a minute.

"Your eyes…" Penelope mutters. "They didn't use to be blue."

Being Known

My eyes… are blue?

"How are the pupils?" I ask immediately.

"Pupils?" Penelope mutters, pulling my face in closer. "They seem normal… perhaps slightly vertically ovoid, but not enough that anyone will notice. Why? What do you know about this?"

"My soul is a big blue eye with a vertical slit pupil," I explain. "So if my real eyes are becoming blue too... that's my first guess as to what's happening. My eyes used to be green, right? Do you think people will notice?"

"Yes and yes," Penelope grumbles. "Probably not most people, but the team will. Your family too, but you can just tell them the truth."

"I mean, I don't know the truth. I've been practicing pulling mana out a lot, and my mana is blue. Sort of. It feels blue in the same way souls feel like they have colors, anyway. That's about the only super relevant thing I did since you last saw me, unless getting into a fight to the death counts."

Penelope blinks incredulously at me, then sighs.

"Of course you mention that as an afterthought. Explains the blood on your face, I suppose. Who was your unlucky victim?"

"Nah, don't worry. That's all my blood."

"How reassuring," Penelope answers flatly. "I shall sleep soundly tonight. Anyway, if the team asks you can blame it on me. It's not like they can get any more insufferable about the modifications you told them I was making."

"Ugh, I'm sorry. Are they bothering you about that? I genuinely did not realize they would make such a big deal about it."

"It's fine," Penelope sighs, waving me off. "...And not something I ever expected an apology for. Still, I am an expert at ignoring stupid, ignorant opinions. It isn't a major issue. Now, other than your recent death battle, are there any other shocking revelations you'd like to unveil before you forget?"

I think for a moment. Is there anything I've been meaning to tell Penelope but forgot about?

"The souls inside your lobotomized rats are all wrong. They don't grow anymore. They still function like souls, and they still seem to be involved in controlling the body, but they've become stagnant."

Penelope's eyes go wide.

"Oh! Oh, my goodness. So there is a link? Soul growth…"

"Yeah," I confirm. "I've been thinking about it for a while. The Mistwatcher puts souls in us, but we don't need them to live. They grow bigger as we grow, and it just eats them when we die. We're like a fucking farm."

Penelope frowns, tapping her chin.

"That checks out, I suppose. All the more reason to never die. Though to be fair, it's not as if we don't get anything out of the deal. I'm not sure how one would channel mana without a soul."

I guess that makes sense, but 'ol Misty still seems like an asshole to me. Hmm… what else? There are some other things I haven't told her, right?

"Oh yeah, also when I focused really hard on channeling mana I entered a seemingly infinite expanse from where I apparently pull it all, and then I fell over because I forgot to breathe."

"Wh—"

"And after nearly killing me Capita heavily implied that her gang is trying to assassinate the King."

"The King!? Wait, your fight was with—"

"Also, a High Templar walked up to me and said that the Inquisitors are coming."

Penelope stares at me. I stare back.

"Is that all?" she asks. "Are you done?"

I think about that for a moment, sucking on the inside of my cheek. Penelope crosses her arms, tapping her foot.

"Yes," I conclude. "I'm pretty sure that's all of it, at least for now."

She lets out a huff.

"Okay, then we—"

"Oh, right!" I interrupt. "I fixed Fulvia's soul! Well, mostly. Heavily damaged souls seem to absorb raw spirit dust the same way that Revenants do!"

Penelope takes a deep breath in, letting it out slowly.

"Okay!" she says, doing her best to sound only slightly exasperated. "Well, that's all very interesting, but we should probably be getting back to the guild. The Inquisition is going to be bad news."

"I was afraid of that," I grumble, following after her as she walks towards the exit.

"Bye, mom!" Vitamin calls out.

"I said quit moving!" Margarette snaps.

"Bye, you guys. Good luck while I'm gone!" I respond, waving at them both. "So what's the Inquisition's deal?"

"While you shouldn't go around saying this to anyone, it's an open secret that the Inquisition is the church's animancy branch. Not, ostensibly, for any sort of nefarious purposes, however. As you may know, at least a small modicum of animancy is necessary for detecting animancy. It's an amusing conundrum: animancy is against the law, but in order to be even remotely capable of enforcing the law, animancy must be used."

I scowl.

"So at the very least, these guys are going to have the ability to see souls?" I ask.

"At the very least," Penelope agrees. "They're not supposed to be capable of much else, but I wouldn't be overly surprised if they are. Power like yours is a bit too tempting. You are going to need to avoid them entirely either way, that much is certain. Thankfully, there are exceptionally few Inquisitors. A bit over a decade and a half ago, that entire branch of the Templars was gutted when the High Inquisitor at the time was found guilty of… shall we say loosely interpreting the doctrine on animancy. Over half the organization was compromised, and the loss of personnel and reputation is something they've yet to recover from."

"And how am I going to avoid them? They're looking for me, aren't they?" I ask.

"You're the scout," Penelope dismisses. "You manage to avoid half the monsters in the forest, so you figure it out. They have no official capacity to investigate yet, which means if the Inquisitors are being sent it's because they're hoping to catch you in the act. They may not be able to run an official inquiry, but they can bypass most of the bureaucracy we're tying them up with if an Inquisitor personally witnesses you performing animancy. You have more than just your own soul in your body, and that probably counts, so you need to make sure you are never seen."

I nod glumly. This... this might make saving all the souls inside me a little more difficult.

"Let's try to hurry up on this immortality thing," I sigh.

Penelope chuckles dryly, locking up the lab as we exit.

"Well, it's a good thing you said so, because before now I was planning on taking things as slow as—"

A beeping noise suddenly cuts her off, causing her to scowl and fish around her collarbone.

"Penelope?" Lord Erebus's voice asks from the necklace when she pulls it out.

"Johann," Penelope grumbles in answer, weaving a silence bubble around us. "What do you need?"

"Penelope! There you are! You weren't answering! I've been horribly worried!"

"I told you already, Johann, my experiments are too delicate to be letting rogue mana signatures invade my lab. I won't get calls when I'm working. What do you need?"

"Well, would you believe that one of my highest-profile suppliers has invited us to have a meal with—"

"No, Johann," Penelope snaps immediately. "You know I hate those things."

"I know, but he's quite the family man and I feel it would be somewhat of a faux pas for me to show up without my fiancée. I'm sorry Penelope, but you know how delicate these things are."

"I'm being called to the hunter's guild, Johann. I won't even be in the city. I'm sure your supplier will understand."

"A mission!? Penelope, but your hand isn't healed yet! And the hunters lately have been dying by the dozens, you can't—"

"I. Can't. What?" Penelope hisses into her necklace. "What I can't do is sit around and eat fancy dinners with rich old fools while my city is in shambles and my country is under siege! I am a Vesuvius! I slaughter Valka's enemies and uplift its kings. Do not presume to tell me that parading around as your accessory is more important than how I choose to use my time!"

Penelope is red in the face by the end of her tirade, hand clenched like she would crush the metal bead at the end of the necklace if she was able. Lord Erebus is silent for a good while after that, to the point I almost think he's ended the communication.

"Is that… is that what you think I've been doing?" he answers eventually. "Penelope, I… you've barely spoken to me since you got that research lab. You got injured on your last mission and you didn't tell me!"

"And who says I have to tell you?" she demands.

"No one, Penelope. But why aren't you? Is it not reasonable for me to be worried about that? I love you, Penelope! I just want to see you from time to time!"

She sighs, some of the anger deflating out of her.

"I'm sorry, Johann. I know you do. Now just... isn't a good time. But I will work on keeping you better informed. Okay?"

A sigh is heard from the other end.

"All right. Be safe."

"Of course I will, Johann. I can't be going and getting myself killed before I'm immune to it. Oh, and you may wish to know that the Broken Drakens have implied plans to usurp the King while attempting to recruit a certain member of my team. You think you can use that to our advantage?"

"That's… hmm. Yes, probably. I'll see what I can find. Thank you, Penelope."

"Goodbye, Johann."

She tucks the necklace back into her shirt and sighs, seeming suddenly exhausted.

"Um, you okay?" I ask.

Penelope chuckles, shaking her head as we resume our journey back to the hunter's guild.

"You're a lot like him, you know," she says. "Very… focused. Though while Johann sees people as a series of tasks to accomplish, you tend to not see people at all."

I scowl, confused and offended.

"That's a weird way to respond to me asking if you're okay," I grumble. "I'm trying my best."

She smiles, squeezing my shoulder with a still-growing hand.

"Thank you," she says. "Somehow, I like being one of the people you try for. You joke about it, but... it feels like you're the only person who understands me and still actually wants to be around."

I tilt my head.

"Um, you're welcome?" I hedge. "Why wouldn't I want to be around you?"

"In addition to... all of the prior reasons I have given you, Johann and I are using you in a scheme that will hopefully corrode the political power of the Templars enough to loosen their control on the metal trade," Penelope says. "It's been going on more or less since you met him, but I... declined to mention anything until now."

I nod. Less power for Templars sounds good to me.

"Okay," I say. "Neat."

Penelope laughs.

"You're not even surprised, are you? Or angry? You made me promise to tell you things like this and I kept it a secret and you're not even angry?"

I shrug.

"You told me now. So, that's progress. Why would I be angry? You're not gonna hurt me or my family, so anything you do is fine."

She laughs some more, shaking her head.

"See? This is what I mean. You seem like a fool, but you just have... your own personal logic. And it's beautiful! I don't have to worry about what you'll think of me. I really can just tell you anything. I can speak my mind."

"So why don't you?" I ask.

She stops walking, staring towards me for a moment. Then she shudders.

"Habit, I suppose. Do you ever…"

Another pause as she gathers her thoughts. I let her, saying nothing.

"When I was young, I would kill things for fun," Penelope manages eventually. "My talent developed quite early, and… well, I was like a child with a new toy. Insects, at first. But it escalated. Rapidly. The sight of watching something fall apart from the inside out was— is— beautiful to me. But when I showed that to my parents, well… they were disgusted. Of course they were, really. They thought they were raising a Watcher-damned serial killer. They said they loved me, of course, but… even if that was true, even though they did everything they could for me, it was in service to what they wanted me to be. Not what I was, because they hated that. Feared it. Even a child could tell they did. My grandfather was… different, but not much better. He saw opportunity in me, the chance to continue the True Lords of Vesuvius. I was more or less raised by biomancy tutors from then on, and… well, my parents never complained about me being too busy to be around."

She huffs, pulling at one of the loopy swirls of hair on the side of her head.

"You don't really understand any of this, do you?" she asks. "Parents, social pressure, obligations… your life never had these things."

"No," I agree honestly. "I don't really get it. But I can tell it hurts you."

She swallows, nodding slowly.

"R-right. Well, most of that doesn't really matter anyway. I was taught to be a healer and a proper lady. I admit to liking some of that. Magic is beautiful. Solving problems, discovering new spells, advancing knowledge… I am glad I was taught those things. But every single other aspect of myself I have to hide. I knew, at the hunter's guild, that I would be found out. That I would be hated. That my guise as the beautiful and intelligent Third Lady Vesuvius would collapse and reveal the person underneath that just wants to watch a creature's skin boil and pop as it screams in agony. But you found out, and you don't care. Worse, this is the part you understand. Even if my whole background is nonsense to you... this you get, don't you?"

A grin forms on my lips.

"The only thing more satisfying than watching Revenants scramble to fulfill my orders is the feeling of a life sliding down my throat and dissolving into raw power," I tell her. "And it is so horribly infuriating that I know I'll end up regretting it if I just do that to everyone we meet."

She grins back, slightly at first but growing wider and wider as she speaks.

"Right!?" she agrees. "Why can't I just kidnap everyone I don't like and use them to figure out how many plagues I can incubate in a single person before they ultimately expire?"

"Yeah, so, it turns out people get whiny about human experimentation," I say shrugging. "Who knew?"

"Ugh, but why?" Penelope groans. "How am I supposed to figure out how a spell affects a human without using humans? Rats only go so far! We could skip so much wasted time and effort by skipping to human trials."

"Yeah, well, I bet I could solve our animancy problems really easily if I could just bring an army of Revenants to deal with Capita and the Inquisition. We're trying to cure death! Why is that bad?"

"It turns out people get whiny when you try to cure death, too," Penelope complains. "Be it immortality or undeath or… anything, massive swathes of morons will cry 'no, you can't, death is a part of life for all these reasons I made up! It's wrong to prevent death, and definitely not the ultimate goal of all medicine! You overstep your bounds, wah wah wah!'"

We both burst into laughter, a comfortable and joyful moment of shared frustration finally let out. I don't know if I've ever felt her this relaxed before.

"Things sure would be easier if we could just kill the people who thought like that," Penelope sighs. "But alas, that would be wrong."

"Yep," I agree, nodding glumly. "That would be wrong. Fun to think about, but… really, it would make me feel like shit."

"Indeed," Penelope confirms. "I often wonder if I'm a psychopath, so it's nice to remind myself once in a while that I probably would feel terrible if I did that."

"Probably?" I ask, raising an eyebrow.

She shrugs.

"Probably."

We both giggle a little at that, recognizing it for both the joke and the fear it is.

"And so we go to slay monsters," Penelope intones, "lest we become monsters ourselves."

"And also because they are delicious," I add.

"And also that," Penelope snorts, "assuming you are an uncouth gremlin whose appetite defies all reason and sense. I need to teach you the meat-treating spell, if only so you'll stop bothering me about it."

I gasp, jumping in front of her.

"Would you!? Oh, that would be amazing!"

"Of course I will," she scoffs. "We can start… well, actually, you don't suffer mana backlash so I suppose we can start today. I'll teach you on the trip."

I jump forward and hug her tightly.

"Best! Friend! Ever!" I cheer. Meat-treating spell! Yes! I will never be hungry again! Never!

"Erm… yes," Penelope mumbles, squirming uncomfortably under my iron grip. Her soul starts playing all sorts of rapid, chaotic notes, so I give it a hug too.

"Eep!" she squeaks, in one of the most amazingly un-Penelope-like sounds I have ever heard. "W-what are you doing?"

"Soul hug," I inform her simply, looking up at her amusingly red face.

I'm not normally much of a hugger, but for some people I have to make an exception. Penelope is one of those people, now. Still, I have mercy on her, eventually giving my friend one last squeeze before releasing her so we can restart our trip to the guild. To my endless amusement, Penelope's face stays a bit red the entire way.

...I have no idea how to handle the things she's currently feeling, though. Maybe the hug wasn't the best plan.