"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." - Isaac Asimov

"Curse you, Being X!" - Tanya von Degurechaff

It was, perhaps, always inevitable.

No matter how I struggled and fought. No matter how doggedly I held to reason. No matter what I said or did or even thought. In the end, the mysterious entity that tormented me had claimed to be a god for a reason.

It might be unworthy of the title by every rational analysis, but it had one undeniable power.

When death found me for the second time, it came with even less warning than the train that killed me the first time. A true soldier's death. As muddy as it was meaningless.

Yet my thoughts didn't come to an end. The flash of pain and darkness lasted hardly an instant, then I was somewhere else.

I couldn't see, or hear, or feel, or touch, but I was still aware of a yawning Void. An emptiness so profound that it made me ache. Even as just a…well I hesitated to say soul, but it was hard to think of another possibility for my current state, and even so reduced I could feel the pull of the Void. That, and the hungry whispers of the things that lurked inside it.

The only relief came from a presence beside me. One that glowed with a light I could feel even without anything left to feel with. The familiar light of a lazy complaining blight on reality that still felt it was entitled to my worship.

"You have refused redemption." Declared the self-declared god, speaking directly into my thoughts. "With every opportunity to change, you have proven yourself beyond salvation."

I tried to tell him exactly what I thought of that, but I didn't have a voice. I tried to think loudly instead and was rewarded with a flare of aggravation that rippled through whatever I was made of in this place beyond life.

"I will grant no more of my time or attention to a parasite." Intoned the hypocrite. Then I felt a shove, and the light shrunk to a dot in an instant, then faded from my senses entirely in the next.

I didn't even have a chance to try and shout my thoughts into the distance before the first thing took a bite of me. The glow of my own soul stuff let me trace the shape of it as I felt it swallowed down a fractal nightmare of throats.

I tried to do something, anything, but I didn't have magic or even fists, and the abominations in the empty Void weren't much for talking. All they cared to do was eat and eat and eat and eat and Eat and eAt aND Eat aND EAT AND EAT AND EAT-!

They might have nibbled on me for an eternity, or been moments into a passing snack. Time meant nothing in the Void and that stretched my suffering out like warm mochi. Not that I could remember what mochi was, or how warmth felt, or much of anything really. My memories must have lived in my soul after all, because I lost them with every bite they took from me.

That fragment of a thought gave me the idea.

I didn't have hands, but if I didn't have control over my own soul then what was the point of having one? With nothing but my own will I took hold of my soul and tore a piece from one of the jagged wounds I was covered in.

The pain would have been enough to make me black out, if I had a body to fall asleep, and if I hadn't already experienced it countless times over.

Instead, I braced myself and shoved the piece of my soul away into the empty darkness.

A few of the mouths tearing at me vanished, and even better, I felt myself changing course.

Propulsion and a distraction all in one. I didn't remember the thing I was supposed to do with my face when I was happy but I would definitely have imagined doing it if I did.

I ripped off and threw away bits of myself as fast as I could, my attackers diminishing with each piece until I was flying alone through…through something…

I…there was…

I kept tearing and throwing.

It was about the only thing I could still remember how to do. So I kept doing it. Until…

Until…

.

.

.

Something…different…

Light.

"Oi, get lost Fiends! This is my shiny whatsit!"

Angry light.

"Not much of one. Barely a scrap of shine left."

Annoying light.

"Rude scrap. I'll fix half of that. Restore."

And with just a word, Tanya was back. Mostly.

Her memory still had holes torn out of it, but she was aware of her own thoughts again, and the holes weren't so bad. How many more than three colours could there have been?

More important was the sudden awareness of a small woman holding her, and the presence that spilled out from the woman to hold the Void at bay. A fox's grin split the world and then they weren't even in the Void at all.

Instead they were somewhere that felt firm and Ordered and stable…and blue. It was very blue.

"Don't ask me about the colour. Don't know a thing."

Tanya felt a moment's relief at that. If it had been another thing like that fake god that found her then it would never have admitted to not knowing something.

"Wait! I totally know about the Way. I know everything about it. And I'm a she, not an it."

As long as she wasn't claiming to be a god, Tanya was inclined to thank her for the rescue and leave it there.

"I'm way better than any god. I'm Zakariel, no wait, I'm Zerachiel! Or, hm, I haven't decided yet, so just call me The Fox! Show me a god and I'll cut their head off. Unless they're too strong."

Tanya didn't know what to make of any of it, especially as the woman was suddenly glancing around like she expected to be attacked and planning to run away. Then an instant later she had stopped trembling and was examining Tanya from every angle.

It still didn't make sense how she could even see the woman, and instead of explaining anything she just said, "I was gonna ask about the other side of the Void, but there's not enough left of you for a good answer. Hmph."

Whatever was going on, Tanya was starting to think that she'd found somewhere with even less order to it then where she'd come from. Which was incredibly disappointing.

"Disappointed are you? The other side that much better, is it?"

Tanya tried to think placating thoughts, with a rising sense of deja vu, but the woman just shoved something small and round into her mouth, despite her not having one.

"That's so I can find you, when you're done growing your soul back. And I know just where to put you to do it."

Her strange awareness of her surroundings let Tanya feel every moment of the Fox cocking her hand back like she was about to throw a baseball, pulling a hole open in reality with the other hand and then-

The speed this time made Being X's best effort seem pathetic.

But she still heard the distant voice chasing after her, "Bring me something shiny!"

Then she hit-

Ninecloud City, crown jewel of the Ninecloud Continent

Lesser Palace of Celestial Radiance

Leiala 237 / 982 ADW

It had demanded enough treasures to ruin a lesser nation, but the birthing chamber was ready when the time came.

Scripts wound across every surface in the room, carved so finely that they'd look like decorative engraving to the eyes of those below the Lord Realm. They would guide and gather the power imbued into each of the pearls that had been set into the walls of the nine-sided room. Royal madra, bestowed by the Luminous Queen herself to safeguard the life of her cousin.

At the room's centre was a bed, and at each corner was a sacred treasure of healing. The Tear of the Cloudmother resonated with blood aura to eliminate strain on the mind and spirit alike. The Everborn Sapling strengthened the lifeline of all those who breathed its scent, stilling age and banishing decay. The Bloodless Eye would enhance life essence so strongly that minor cuts would seem to vanish in its light. And the Ninth Tiger's Blessing, most precious of all, would shatter its tails to banish death itself, restoring the life of anyone who died in its presence.

Beside the bed was a many layered chest. Spread open so that each panel could be seen for the void space it truly was, an endless bounty of elixirs and pills was laid bare. It was the personal treasure of the Medical Sage, foremost among the Ninecloud Country's vassals, and the unquestioned leader of those who attended to the birth. Her gaze swept through the room as though surveying the terrain before a battle, and the lesser sacred doctors redoubled their preparations at her attention.

Of course the chamber was a work of art in form as well as function. The dignity of the Ninecloud Court demanded no less. Yet, for all that the patient herself was worthy of that dignity, her husband and the Luminous Queen's actual cousin by blood, felt far from it.

Sha Rallan was an Overlord straining the limits of his realm. Though he was mighty enough to be a Emperor in his own right in a lesser nation, he could boast the bare minimum advancement necessary not to shame the bloodline of a Monarch.

Always he had sought to prove himself by deed. He had earned merits for courage and cunning where his slow advancement threatened to reduce his standing in the Ninecloud Court. He had given generously to the lesser houses of the Ninecloud Country, seeking stability over his own wealth. Most of all he had supported his cousin since the reign of her mother before her, when Leiala had been the Herald of Scintillating Wrath and he had been a mere Underlord swept along in her wake.

Through every step of his journey -perhaps excluding a few steps on the Rosegold Continent in younger days- he had held himself to the decorum his position demanded of him. He'd even intentionally allowed his appearance to age enough to thread a dignified gray along the edges of his long hair.

Now, at the side of his wife's birthing bed, he wore a rumpled robe and an expression of sheer panic.

Julia Arelius, her own blonde hair and youthful appearance marked with no more than a few drops of sweat and a slight crease at her brow, looked up at her husband like she was trying not to laugh.

"Dearest heart, you're looking at me like I'm a Lowgold going into labour." She was right to laugh. By all logic and reason, pregnancy was barely a danger to a sacred artist at peak of the Gold Realm. For one in the Lord Realm it was no more serious a risk than a stubbed toe. Perhaps even less of one, considering the materials it would require for even an Underlord to stub their toe instead of kicking clean through the offending object.

As an Archlord almost a century his senior, she should have been in no danger at all.

But if that had been the case then his cousin would not have commissioned the room they were in. Nor called the Medical Sage back from the Northern Wastes.

Light though her tone might have been, Rallan knew Julia better than anyone, and the agony that it would take to crease her brow was enough to slay a lesser sacred artist on the spot. To have shed sweat at all was testament to how far she must have stretched her senses, bloodline legacy of the Arelius Clan, to watch for any threat or flaw.

She was trying to calm his own fears, but it had been to her that the Sage of a Thousand Eyes had sent her warning. If anyone knew to heed the words of the Oracle Sage it was a fellow daughter of her clan, but his Julia would sooner tear off an arm than show fear.

He would happily bear the shame of his own failure in that arena. If only the warning would prove false.

The letter had been refreshingly clear, as these things went. His unborn daughter would never draw a breath, and his wife would die from the same hidden snarls in her madra channels that had so long frustrated their wish for a child. Unwanted complications from the otherwise exemplary Iron body Julia had chosen to refine in her youth.

Neither of them had been willing to accept the obvious solution. So, with every scrap of preparation that could be spared, they would challenge Fate instead.

Not that he could do anything but offer his support. Cycling their madra together had no real benefit to her or the child, and nothing short of catching up to her advancement in the sacred arts would change that. His own wealth was nothing compared to his cousin's, so any offering he might have made to the preparations would have only weakened them. He didn't even know any healing arts.

Sha Rallan could only sit at his wife's side, stroking her arm and whispering his love to her. When the contractions began he took her hand in his and steeled his resolve.

Her first scream came with a grip that crushed his hand to gore.

He did not make a sound, only sparing the injury enough attention to forcefully exclude his hand from the reach of the room's treasures. He would not take a single drop of healing power away from his family.

Julia sobbed in agony. Her spiritual pressure spilled forth in a wave that would crush an Underlord, and might have done just that to most of the sacred doctors if the Medical Sage hadn't protected them with an irritated mutter that echoed through reality itself.

Rallan could only dimly understand the words the doctors threw back and forth, though that dim understanding was enough to know that when all was done he would be going on the hunt. It was more than just the cost of a rapid advancement that was tormenting his wife and threatening their child. He at least knew what 'hostile madra construct' meant in these circumstances.

He kept his attention where it belonged for the moment. Offering comfort and love while the hours stretched into a day, then two.

By the third day even an Archlord's constitution was at its limits. Thankfully the battle was almost over.

With one last baffling sequence of techniques the Medical Sage gathered the energies of her lesser colleagues and assembled a working of healing that even he could recognise as miraculous. Julia's agony finally came to an end and the Sage declared the threat was past.

With a dry tone, she requested the Archlady stop cycling her madra and focus on pushing.

In another life the laugh she earned would have died when Julia birthed a child sucked dry of madra before it could draw its first breath. Rallan's heart would have shared a fate with the child, exposed to the crushing gravity of their world with an infant's frailty and no madra to protect it.

Stillborn to begin with, the child would have been beyond even the Ninth Tiger's Blessing. The Medical Sage, for her failure to see through the final trap of a hostile Monarch, would have been sent back to the Northern Wastes in disgrace. No matter the absurdity of expecting such a thing of a mere Sage.

But in this life, the Way opened for the barest fraction of a moment, and a wounded soul brought fresh life to the child. Madra pooled in the spot that would develop into her core, and the child instinctively cycled it to ward off the crushing weight of the world.

Julia's laugh became a cooing noise, half-love and half-awe, as her daughter sent out flickering threads of madra and seemed for a moment to have awakened the Arelius bloodline legacy at birth. Then the threads collapsed like the memory of a spider's web and the moment passed.

The detritus of birth was handled in a fraction of a second, now that the Broom Sage's descendant was no longer labouring to bring new life into the world. Julia spared another brief exertion to fixing her own appearance, and deigned to ignore her husband as he hurriedly accepted a healing elixir from the grumpy Sage and downed the vial like she wouldn't notice the injury she'd done him if he healed it quickly enough.

Rallan knew it was hopeless to try and hide anything from his wife, but he'd never been able to resist a hopeless cause.

Especially when he was so filled with joy.

Her power swept over him, followed by a multi-layered robe that she must have pulled from a hidden void key, and Rallan found himself ready to stand before the Ninecloud Court. Which they would have to do shortly, for fear that his cousin would bring it to them instead if they made her wait much longer to meet…

He looked to Julia at that thought. His wife had insisted on the right to name their child, and he had agreed that it was hers. By advancement she was the stronger of them, and by blood she was connected almost as closely to the Monarch who ruled most of the Rosegold Continent as he was to the ruler of the Ninecloud Continent. Also, she had looked at him with her eyes wide and soft when she asked, which was more than he could hope to withstand.

She grinned at him, then directed the same expression down to their daughter. Just in time for their child to yawn and blink open eyes that were as bright a blue as any of the Arelius Clan. The match for the wisps of blonde hair atop her tiny head.

Through the rising tide of paternal love sweeping through him, Rallen comforted himself that she had the nose and chin of a true Sha.

"Tanya." Julia announced, with an odd twist to her customary smirk, "For the second Arelius Monarch."

He considered it. "A lofty legacy for her to live up to."

Then he bowed his head in assent. "Sha Tanya it is."