A Meeting of Godlings

[Pepper Krasniqi]

DATE: 8/06/23
LOCATION: The Dark Dimension
ASSETS: ACF-7823-A, “Peppers”
EQUIPMENT: Night vision goggles, armored suit, heavy flashlight.
PURPOSE:Exploration of the Dark Dimension/ A Conversation

Dressed in her all-blue suit, Pepper made her way carefully across the plains. Mikulass followed her in the sky, flying just close enough to keep his eyes on her. He was just ahead of her, leading her to what she wanted to see that day. There was apparently an entire city that existed under the ground, and Pepper wanted to see it. It had taken three hours of near running to make it close enough that Mikulass had cawed at its approach. She couldn’t see it quite yet, even with her night vision goggles.

The Path stretched out behind her like a stream of light rising from the earth. Or rather, the flesh. It had been many years since they discovered the soil was actually a fleshy substance, and that the planet was actually a large organism. The light of the Path had stretched far beyond where it usually lay. Pepper had started using it to find her way back after she finished an excursion after she had discovered with Laine that she had always been able to move it.

Mikulass cawed again, this time touching down near her. “Heraldess. Someone approaches. I do not like their, ah, appearance. Their shape is too close to Hers.”

Pepper frowned and nodded, patting Mikulass’s back. “Thank you for the warning. We’ll see who they are from a distance, then we’ll see if we need to leave.”

“As you wish, Heraldess.”

They ducked behind a “rocky” outcrop and ducked down, peering carefully around the corner.

 

[Containment]

Enki was starting to doubt the plan.

She’d spent the better part of the morning working up the courage for this. It had been several days since she’d seen that which inspired such a madly reckless plan: a huge black creature, as bird as the Goddess was woman or as the Sphere was earth, but so close – so close! Airborne, at least, and black as darkness itself. The sight of its flight, even from the ground, had suddenly filled her with such a longing that she had not felt since –

No. This was not the time for severances. Nor for idle Curiosity, though the idea of air under wing was itself thrilling. But the black bird had been almost impossible to see, even with the Sight of this world. It had nearly been hidden from her. Could its darkness possibly hide her from HER?

And so she curled herself, far from where such shift might drive the Goddess’s gifts to madness. She had learned much of her Self, since she had come, and though from time to time she yearned to return there was too much here to leave behind. To unravel and re-fold with the best approximation of shape and feather she could manage, and before the doubt could crawl back in, she sent her new shape on its maiden voyage.

And immediately she knew something was amiss. The wings did not catch air; the Sphere’s mass pulled her heavily toward it. Her flight was turned to fall. Yet rather than blind panic, questions cropped up even as the Sphere came ever-closer. There was something wrong with the bones, maybe? Or the feathers? Had she been too focused on the black to remember their purpose? She hadn’t wanted to ask Her for help, lest SHE come to know her reasons.

She could feel the hate of the Sphere as she hurtled toward it. Without as much concern as some might have with regard to gravity, she instead hurriedly picked a hum from the small collection she’d been gifted from the songs of Persephone.

“I was soaring ever higher–”

She formed a carapace as she struck the cracked flesh of the sphere, tumbled, and then melted back to Herself, panting, pride bruised, but otherwise unbothered. She waited until her lungs refilled with air before finishing the verse–

“But I flew too high.”

If she had noticed the pair of watchers, perhaps there would have been more embarrassment in the failure, but as it was the air carried only Curiosity from her failure. Alone as she was (so she believed), she gave herself a moment to rest before rising again and dusting herself off, still murmuring the lyrics of the foreign anthem in apology for the blow to the ground beneath her.

 

[Pepper Krasniqi]

It was a girl. It was a human girl. Or maybe not entirely human, but she was the first human-looking creature that Pepper had ever seen out in the “deserts” of the Sphere. She pulled her hood back, freeing her head and face from its confines. Her hair frizzled a little from the friction, but she paid it no mind. After all, this was a possible anomalous human just hanging out in the Dark Dimension.

Mikulass looked up at her and made a soft chittering sound as if to discourage her. She smoothed the feathers on his head back and smiled. “I do not trust it, Heraldess. It could be the one the Goddess recently brought in. It surely looks to be.”

“What do you mean? You didn’t tell me about her. Is she another god?”

“Only know, not to hurt, not to bother. She is continuing. We do not like it.”

“She looks like a child. I want to try to talk to her.”

“Was worried, you’d say that.”

Pepper smoothed his feathers out again as he puffed up. She knew Mikulass was only looking out for her, but the idea of there being a young goddess in the Dark Dimension was appealing to Pepper. Maybe she could get some first-hand information about Ira this way, and what she was like as a Goddess. That would certainly be valuable information.

Pepper stepped out, allowing the Path to follow in her footsteps. She pushed her goggles up to her hair, freeing her face entirely. Then, very nervously, she smiled and waved her hand. “Hello there!”

This, of course, could lead to certain death. Or it could not. How the girl reacted would tell her everything she needed to know about the interaction to come.

 

[Containment]

When she heard the voice, Enki nearly jumped out of Her shape, ready to unravel at a moment’s notice to avoid the sight of the BEAST that was Her Goddess by day. But surely She would have sensed something so powerful approaching?

Yet as she turned, there was no great infinite maddening blackness to welcome Her to oblivion. Rather, the creature that approached was alight, or a light, not quite blinding, and wearing a carapace of blue. Carapace? The mind that was not mortal took in the faint pattern along the surface for a moment, then the folds, then the shapes along her ridges. Then turned back to the face, rimmed in golden hair, shining radiant and yet… that armor.

The Eyes that had once been his eyes skimmed the armor again, this time searching. And on one shoulder, She saw it: an outline around a circle with three arrows pointing inward. Something as Familiar and Foundational as that world She had left behind to Be-Come here. 

Her clothes shifted, soft black that was only cotton, against the dark.

“You’re one of them.”

Consideration, then alarm lit across the face with its mismatched blue-and-green eyes, as they rested on the circle and its arrows once more. Suddenly she stepped forward, and she reached out to take the strange Foundational woman’s hand, the Eyes that weren’t his pleading as she spoke in hushed and rapid tones.

“If he sent you – you need to go. I can’t go back. Tell him I’m sorry but–” she swallowed, then glanced nervously about, then looked back at the golden person. “I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. He’d understand that.”

Would he understand? Would he forgive Her? She’d only done what he’d’ve done, fragment of what was his that She was. But – She couldn’t go back! There were bindings now, and now She had Become too much to once more be a part of what had once been his. And, of all the lessons learned, surely he would Know that to learn as one that was as She would be of more benefit than any he could teach!

Still she searched the woman’s face for understanding, overlooking for a time the wondrous light. If this went as it should, that light would go away, and never show itself again, taking a piece of Her heart with it, and She simply had to accept that. Sacrifices were the place of Goddesses, after all.

 

[Pepper Krasniqi]

The girl was pretty, to say the least. Her fair hair was long and extremely straight, and she had heterochromatic eyes, one green and one blue. That tickled something in the far recesses of her brain, but she had no idea what. So she ignored it as she took in the rest of her appearance. She was wearing Foundation anomaly clothing. Her eyes affixed onto the clothing, and when she looked up, she found the girl staring at the symbol on her right shoulder.

The girl grabbed her hand and whispered to her, as though she was scared of something. She also looked over her shoulder as though expecting something to come upon them. Pepper gripped the girl’s hand tight in return, her eyes wide and excited. “He? No, no, I’m not here on behalf of someone. I’m here because, well, I kind of belong here in a sense. Who are you? How did you get here? I thought I was the only one whose anomaly led to here.”

The girl didn’t glow like she apparently did, nor was her shape anything other than human at the moment. But she had been trying to be the form of Mikulass just moments before. So a shapeshifter. That was fascinating. Pepper wanted to convince her to come back to the lab, where Dr. Kallie and herself could adequately examine the girl.

“Let me start over. You know about the Foundation, don’t you? Who are you?” She kept the girl’s hand in her own and tried to hold it loosely, despite the fact that she was buzzing like a bee from excitement.

 

[Containment]

With every word, more questions cropped up, and the questions that were asked resonated within her and demanded answer. She was a Why, after all, and whether that was a point of existence or a question of nature was altogether too complex to untangle with such a stranger.

A stranger that glowed with yellow light, and came from the Foundation, and who claimed was not sent by him. She didn’t know if she bought it, but she folded her arms all the same.

“You can’t have my Name,” she said in false accusation, petulant as an early teen could manage to cover up the reason why on the Sphere she’d give a pseudonym. Her own Name was tied up in Her was tied up in HER, and so of course saying out loud wouldn’t do, not if she wished to continue to hide. She snuck another glimpse at the sky, but saw nothing.

Before she knew it she was humming again, back-tracing to a recent encounter – another stranger who looked like-her, like-him. The fear skittered away for gentle pleasure as the music began to take her.

“Sister, what’s my name? I’ll tell you my name…” a pause, because she wasn’t Persephone, so instead she said, “Eurydice.”

The suspicious mismatched eyes turned to the glowing girl as she tried to maintain a semblance of courage and suppress the curiosity. There were so many questions, some repeated, that it made it hard, but she would not let the wind sweep that out over the plains by which she might be found. She drew herself up – she was tall, for her perceived age, just barely shorter than Pepper – and set her jaw to force a smile that wasn’t quite his. She wanted to look like she was in control, and probably looked like she was trying too hard, but it was hardly like she had any experience trying. The Goddess had made sure nothing bothered her. She pretended that didn’t bother her in itself; She was only looking out for her, after all.

“I came here in a dream, and I’m bound here now.” She looked back toward the black bird that had come with the glowing girl, then resumed her focus. “Now, who are you? And if he didn’t send you, what anomaly brought you here? Nothing made out of physical matter can move between the veil. Are you a ghost? No, don’t answer that, your armor seems real. Hmm… you’re… made of light, and that’s what makes you an anomaly. Except I don’t think light can travel between Realms either. You say you belong here, but you’re not like Her, or HER, or even her, are you? No, you’re made of over-there, I can See it. And you said your anomaly leads you here so that rules out being made of light. You’ve got a face, anyway. So that leaves me with no answers and not even a name to call you by.”

While she talked, her words only picked up speed, so that by the end they had all gathered up in a mad rush that flooded out of her. She only paused to breathe, then remembered that this was a complete stranger, and it might’ve been rude to ask too many questions at once. So she exhaled with what she perceived to be grace, and waited graciously for the stranger to speak her piece.

 

[Pepper Krasniqi]

“Okay, Eurydice then. It’s lovely to meet you. You can call me… Elizabeth. You’re right, I’m not of here. I am of there. But I do belong here, because I picked up a piece of something that belongs here, and now it and I belong here… together.”

If the girl didn’t want to give her real name, and she was connected to Ira, then Pepper wouldn’t give her the name Ira knew her by. First, it could be a security problem. Second, she didn’t even know if Ira liked her yet. Ira didn’t even know she could move between dimensions yet. But the girl had called it the veil. What did that mean? Was there more than one way to get from there to here? If she had come here in a dream, as she stated, there must be.

“My anomaly brought me here. It allows me to move between worlds. I use it to go from there to here and back again.” She crossed her arms as she spoke, trying to gauge how much she could say. The girl knew of the Foundation. She thought that Pepper had been sent there by someone from the Foundation to retrieve her, which implied she had possibly escaped. Was she an escaped anohuman? That would explain how she knew of the ACF and why she was worried Pepper was there to collect her. She decided to run with that theory for the time being.

“Tell me this- what facility were you at before? Before you came here and were bound? You’re not from the one I’m from, but you clearly came here from one. How does one cross over between a dream?”

 

[Containment]

Enki squinted outright as the woman called herself ‘Elizabeth.’ That was a real name, but it wasn’t given, and even if it was, Enki would hardly know what to do with it. Besides, Elizabeth didn’t seem to think of it as a real name, which was weird, because it was the weirdest fake name anybody could’ve picked, or at least one of the least fun. At least Eurydice had connotations.

Elizabeth must’ve been a researcher, back there where they’d come from, because agents didn’t ask this many questions. Well… they did where She’d come from, but She knew from his experience that there was an outlier and should not be counted. Most agents were funsuckers. Researchers could be, too, but they were question-askers, and that at least made them entertaining.

Hey, She might’ve cut ties with him, but that wasn’t enough to wipe the memory of the dreaming self of an unborn god forced to manifest in a strange place. The god of Curiosity, no less, and apparently of continuance, according to the people here, although She had no idea what that meant. But Curiosity had as many questions as any researcher, and decided to be an Answerer first.

“Easy. You fall asleep, you find a tether, you follow it to a place, one thing leads to another and you’ve cut ties with who you were and now you’re bound.” She then tilted her head, looked the blue-armored researcher over again, eyes catching on the odd patterns that shifted and shimmered in the light. “Who and were I’m from might be classified. For all you know I’m a meme. Maybe I’m a figment of your imagination! Or a manifestation of some deepseated desire or regret! Or I’m straight up not real and you’re imagining all this. Or, ooh, a horrifying Eldritch being born from time beyond space and sent to your world but lost in the mail. Hey, where’d you say you’re from again?”

Deflection was not the cleanest way to handle uncomfortable questions, by a long shot, but it was good enough for Enki to slip her own questions in. The mismatched eyes took in every aspect of the face, every twitch under the light, and she breathed the emotions that rode upon the world’s winds from Presumably Dr. Elizabeth and her companion.

 

[Pepper Krasniqi]

Pepper smiled. The girl wanted to play word games and redirect the conversation. Pepper was good with redirecting conversations. She was also very good at keeping them on track and not getting distracted from her very important questions. It might be classified? What an interesting way for her to put that. Rather than a “no”, or an “I'm not telling you”, she had suggested that she knew that wherever she was from wouldn’t want someone to know. That was a fascinating response.

“Okay. Classified, you say? That means you either don’t know, or you’re from one of the upper locations. If you’re from one of the upper locations, then you’re even more interesting! Eurydice, I think I have high enough clearance for you to tell me which location you’re from.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. Pepper was up for the Class-D promotion after a talk with Jupiter this upcoming week. Class-D would put her high enough to know about the girl if she was high-grade Risky from one of the upper locations, maybe. She was definitely trying to bluff her way into the information, but if the girl was an escaped anomaly, it was important she find out. “As for where I’m from, well. I’ll tell you I’m from a level 2 location. Which location is a secret. What are you exactly?”

She started to walk in circles around the girl. She wasn’t glowing, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be something other than human. Especially if she came through a dream tether. That definitely put her outside human. But then why was her form so human? Was it just because she chose to look that way? She’d already seen that she could change her shape. Sure, she could be an anohuman, but most anohumans had one set thing they did. Shapeshifting and physically traveling through dreams wasn’t impossible, but it was unlikely

Now she could be like Pepper, and had come through dimensional traveling anomalies, but that seemed even more unlikely given the way she described coming over. She thought and thought as she walked in a circle around the girl. She had thought Pepper was a ghost– maybe she was a ghost of some kind. “May I touch your hair?”

 

[Containment]

Elizabeth was smarter than she looked, which was pretty common with researchers. Enki frowned in response to the observations.

She didn’t turn to follow Elizabeth as she circled around. Instead, there were two shifts, or “maybe-had-always-beens”: first, she was no longer in Foundation scrubs, but a light green summer dress tied around the back of her neck, embroidered with apple blossoms. Second, eyes formed in ridges along her shoulder and back and arm, red and green and blue in jumbled trinities. The eyes set in her face remained on the Denizen who hadn’t moved, though she was hardly paying him any attention.

She was thinking. Level-2 location with information like that meant probably Class-C or Class-D? Would he want someone at that level to know? He hadn’t even told other Council members, so She guessed the answer was ‘no’.

As for the rest, for the rare request, she frowned still more deeply with some deliberation. Her hair that had been loose was now tied back in a pretty braid that still had some loose stray strands, and curled about her shoulder like something alive. The Eyes all turned at once in the same direction as Elizabeth stopped, although they never all blinked at once.

“You may.”

Alas and alack, She was his daughter, even without his ties; and she, too, was the threshold between Knowledge and ignorance, and so she stayed balanced precariously upon the tightrope of Question and Answer. She had learned already that there was no question asked that she could resist responding to, although she was under no obligation to honesty. Or wholeness.

“How much are you cleared to know about the Eldritch?” Finally, she turned her head, and all at once the eyes closed, leaving unmarked skin in their wake. The mouth had curled into a smirk, and the eyes flashed with barely restrained mischief. “Not ‘anomalous occultism’ or ‘deity-class entities’. Real Eldritch. Eldritch like HER.”

Her voice softened, or was maybe muffled, when she didn’t invoke HER NAME, and the smile died for a moment. Better than invoking anyone else’s NAME, though, especially those of Her own line; best not to draw Eyes or Minds, even with eyes drawn. But if this stranger with the armor that swam like a desert mirage came here and had befriended one of Her creatures, then surely nothing more needed to be said in terms of Naming NAMES.

There was a nagging bit of her that wanted to test how well such a mind could withstand Her Self, the Cat that was a Cuttlefish that was a Question – but to do so would draw other EYES, and even at her most mirthful that would be the last attention she’d demand.

 

[Pepper Krasniqi]

There was an uncomfortable feeling in Pepper’s stomach as she looked at all of the eyes on Eurydice’s body. They didn’t quite make her sick, but they certainly made her shift uncomfortable. She reached out to the braid and ran her fingers over it, smiling. It was smooth and silken and definitely real and tangible. So not a ghost then. A physical being. But the eyes and the question gave her the answer she was looking for.

“So you’re an Eldritch being, then? That makes sense. But how you came to be here when it's just the Goddess that’s supposed to have this form– I’m curious why the Denizens let you live. Mikulass?”

He flapped out his wings and hopped over to where the two stood, looking between them. He seemed incredibly uncomfortable. “...Elizabeth. We’re told, do not harm. Goddess adores. We are to leave be.”

”Fascinating. Thank you, Mikulass. Tell me, then, Eurydice– is the Goddess an Eldritch being as well? That would make sense given what I found… Don’t answer that, I think I know the answer, and no matter what you say now, I’ll think you’ll be misleading me.” Pepper flashed a wild smile as she almost skipped to be back in front of the girl. She put both her hands on her hips in a nearly triumphant way. She was excited. Everything about this was exciting. An Eldritch child! Curiouser and curiouser.

“To be honest with you, I have no idea how much I’m cleared to know about Eldritch things. Considering I already know of at least three now, I think I would be at least qualified enough to know where you come from. If you’re worried about me telling the Foundation, I won’t.”

Not technically a lie, not technically the truth. She’d tell Cody if she could, who in turn would tell the Foundation for her.

 

[Containment]

As Elizabeth pulled her hand away, the hair – which had, in fact, behaved as hair should be had – subtly shifted, the braid gently twisting and the strands reaching after the palm like static electricity or the fronds of a plant that had not planned to let her go. The corner of Enki’s mouth quirked up in satisfaction even when Mikulass explained on her behalf. Mikulass. That was a good Name, she’d need to remember it; and sensing his hesitation, she turned both the eyes upon him with the spark of Knowledge behind.

Enough of her enjoyed the discomfort that not even Dr. Elizabeth’s self-satisfaction shook the smirk, as she seemed to think she’d solved the Godling. It was something of a relief to know that Elizabeth expected her to mislead, because that meant she could speak the truth more easily.

Such as when she said, “It’s a trick question, actually. Nobody’s cleared to know about it because most people simply die or lose their minds when they encounter something like that. Something like–” she forced Herself to stop before either SHE or ME could slip. She decided that was where that answer ended, although her mind meandered to the notable exception.

Where are you from? How could she answer that, without putting herself in danger? Her Eyes turned to the skies again, as if searching for spots were the stars were blotted out before she began.

“I am,” she decided to start, “The Dream of the Kid of the Gate and the Goat. I hail from He who’s known most of the Eldritch under the Leviathan. I’m a shadow of a puppet cut free from her Strings in blooded bond.”

She unfolded her arms to show the scar on her hand where with Her own Teeth She had torn herself free, just to tangle those threads in SOMETHING else. One thing and Something and–

Wait a minute. The fingers of the open hand twitched, and her face shifted once more to Asker rather than Answer. One, two, HER and her and… “Who’s the third?”

 

[Pepper Krasniqi]

Now that, that meant something to Pepper. Eldritch, the one under Leviathan, and Strings. Why was that not a surprise at all? Of course, it stood to reason it had something to do with Location Nine and Strings. Of course, there had to be another location involved in this mess. However, it sounded like she was possibly stranded here. Most of the rest of that statement made no sense to her– maybe she could investigate it when she was through with the whole Jupiter thing later that week. Maybe she could visit Cait at Nine and see if she could help her figure it out.

But then the girl showed her a scar on her hand. It looked like teeth marks, but Pepper hadn’t seen many nonanomalous bites before. Pepper very gently and slowly reached out a hand and lightly traced the mark with her forefinger. While she was doing so, the young Eldritch goddess asked her a question. A question to which Pepper knew she shouldn’t answer.

She looked at Mikulass, who was shaking his head, as though he knew what she was going to say. She gave him a mischievous smile and turned her gaze back to the girl. “I’ll tell you a secret because I’ve pieced together one of yours! But it’s a secret, and you mustn’t tell the Goddess what I tell you.”

Pepper spent a moment deciding how much she wanted to tell the girl. She didn’t trust her to not tell Ira, after all. So maybe she could get away with skating around the truth. “While I was traveling from over there to somewhere else, a long time ago, I found something! That something decided I would be good to live in. So now I am becoming what it used to be! Do you understand me?”

She wouldn’t flat-out say the words. It wasn’t her fault if the girl understood what she was saying.

 

[Containment]

Elizabeth touched Her hand, and She let her. As the finger passed there was, from each little scar, a slight well of black that was almost-blood and almost-ink and almost-brackish-water. Enki did not withdraw Her hand, nor did she patch the leak in Her Self, too focused on the Answer to mention even the mischief given to the one called Mikulass.

Elizabeth was a Host, as he had been – no. As he still was, Enki remembered, for She had sent Her little dream-self back so that Her Body was not lost. She had stayed, so that She may live, even if She died. But She had also been placed, in the great dark TIME-before, set within the cradle of his chest alongside his own soul.

But Elizabeth walked between worlds. She said it had simply determined she was good to live in. Why? What did IT want? What sort of Being that was like Her Self and herHerHER chose to reside within the safety of a mortal shell?

Curiosity lit up Her Eyes, and She only gave Elizabeth a moment of consideration before Her hand snapped forward, attempting to seize the visitor by the wrist. The brackish substance, warm and tained as blood, smooth as ink, and fluid as water, smeared against the blue of the armor, quivering as though still alive outside Her Goddess-given Form.

“Are You like Me?” She asked, although in that moment she was not talking to Elizabeth. Her Eyes were half-lidded and unfocused, like she was listening to something else. As She exerted Her Self to try to reach whatever Pepper was carrying, two pairs of eyes opened under her first, with the same distraction, or focus.

And the words and the pairPairPAIR of Eyes betrayed something deep within Her Self, perhaps, to the Visitor and her companion. For even in all the affection gifted by the Goddess, there was something infinitely alone in a Child with only One Who truly loved Her. She could endure the fear and the respect of those like Mikulass for eternity, if need be – but at the opportunity to meet one such as Her Self, Her True Self, Small and Hosted… the Hope alone was enough to feel Whole, for a moment.

 

[Pepper Krasniqi]

She was speaking to them. No. She was speaking to Him. To what was left of HIM that had not yet become Her. That was Curious. He reached out and found the Wall that had been was no more, and He flooded into Her mind. He was surprised by how willingly Her mind allowed Him in. It almost beckoned to Him, almost offered an invitation. Maybe the Wall hadn’t been necessary to begin with. Maybe it should have always been this way. They would be One by now if He hadn’t done it.

“I am not quite like you. I will become part of She, instead of becoming a Me. We will be a We. Then We will be a ME, together. I am enough like you, though, to understand you.”

They spoke together, as One, and She did not resist it. But then, She had never resisted Him, had only ever been surprised by Him. He need not worry, then, about a slow joining. She had always been the most compatible for HimHIM. He didn’t know how HE had known that, nor did He know now, But He knew that this was right. This was where He belonged.

It was like her brain had split into two. One moment, she had been watching as fluid like none she had ever seen before flowed from the scar on the girl’s hand, and the next He was there. She had never felt Him like this before. He flowed into her in a way that made her sure they could never be extracted from each other. Then they spoke together, and that was familiar. It was the voice of Her, and not of her. But yet, when They spoke this time, she knew it was the She she would become after They became One.

Was that His thought or hers? The boundary between them was gone, she knew that, but their minds were still distinct enough that it was like they were speaking to each other, while also thinking Together. Their thoughts flowed like rivers into one another and then formed separate rivers once more. But in that short time that their rivers crossed, some of the waters became murky and mixed and muddled. It was just enough that some of His thoughts crossed into her, and her thoughts crossed into Him. Should they be a We now? Was that what they were?

“What did you just do? The wall is gone. I didn’t know there had been a wall. Not like this. Eurydice, how did you do that?” She gripped the girl’s wrist in return, so they were holding onto each other. Her grip was tight, and she ignored the flow of brackish water ink blood as it spilled across her gear. Gear could be cleaned, could be fixed. This was unfixable.

Should they be a We now? Was that what they were? Yes, that felt right. He looked through Her eyes now, Felt what She felt, heard what She heard. They were not as distinct as they had once been and They would never be that distinct again.

He couldn’t wait to be One.

 

[Containment]

HE was not like Her. HE was to become part of Elizabeth, and they would be made Whole.

And with that Whole, there went Her hope.

As She traced Her Self along the blue of the armor, She could sense the Shift that went from she to She and HE to We, half-eternal and half-mortal, not perfectly mixed but mixed-up and mixed together within the mind against which She had brushed. And HE would sense from deep within HER the dissipation of fear as for just a moment a godling was filled with quiet despair, and spoke with a Voice that was true to HER alone.

“MY Father is the Lurker upon the Threshold of Knowledge,” she said, very softly, “and I am the Dreamer left behind. The Mind is MINE as HIS.”

And then, having Answered the Quesiton, HER Eyes opened, and the eyes closed, and the Eyes were Hers and were wholly aware. She pulled Her Self from the Twinned Mind, or perhaps Twined. Her fingers relaxed from the visiting wrist, and with a small twist the fluid flowed back and once more She was halfway Herself. The hand went limp in the other’s grip, and She blinked and tears fell from the corners of the Eyes that were not his eyes.

They rolled down Her face, and touched the surface of the Sphere in a Note of grief in miniature infinity. “I only reached out. Your wholeness is your doing, and HIS. Not Mine. I’m – sorry. If that’s not what you wanted.”

She needed to pull Her Self together, but that only reminded Her that such was impossible. She loved the Goddess deeply, and had never known such deep love from another than the Goddess had shown Her, and could he even Love, anyway? And yet… and yet enough had been sent away, to survive. She suspected he did not even know She existed. She was worse than forgotten, She was Unknown, and that alone made Her more entirely Eldritch than any part that had gone home.

She tried, again, to pull Her Self together, and yet the same came again. Curiosity was subdued for once under the Child, and She was trapped not by the hand around Her wrist but by Her own Knowledge to that Question that would never have Answer. Not something She could ask HIM or her or Her or HER and to which Curiosity would never find satisfaction, antithetical and yet existent in perfect paradox, and thereby frozen, unable to press forward without other pressure.

 

[Pepper Krasniqi]

Some of those words meant something to Him. But the time for that was not Now. No, the time now was for taking care of the creature in front of them. He could feel Her sorrow, could feel it as it rushed around them into the Great Sphere. “Hold Her,” He whispered, “Hold Her until she stops. She needs it. Can you not feel Her suffering as I can?”

He knew that His She had long struggled to feel the emotions of the others when they were on the Great Sphere. But this, She should be able to feel now. Now that He and She were well on their way to One, She should be able to feel the grief. She should be able to feel Her rainbow of feelings that bled into each other, the kaleidoscope of her sorrow. Pepper should feel it now.

Pepper felt it. It was like a bag of rocks was tied to her waist, pulling her down beneath the undertow. Even as the girl apologized for reaching out to Him, Pepper felt the pain that radiated out from Eurdyice. She swallowed against the rush of feeling, trying to remind herself that it wasn’t hers. Behind her, Mikulass spread his wings and chittered.

“Apologies, Heraldess. I cannot stay. It is, too much.” He took off into the sky with a cry that sounded to Pepper’s ears like a sob. Of course, it would be too much for him, it was almost too much for her, and she had started overwhelmed. She stared at the girl for a moment, the thought crossing her mind immediately to hug her.

“No, no, it’s okay, I don’t– I just wasn’t expecting it. I should have been, eventually, but I wasn’t ready for it. I– oh, gods above.” She closed the distance between the two of them and she hugged the girl, letting her face tuck into her neck if she chose to. She wrapped her arms around her, one hand wrapping around her shoulders while the other went to stroke her strange hair. She swallowed hard against the sadness again and whispered, “I’m so sorry that we aren’t like you. I’m so sorry you’re all alone. Please, tell me what I can do to help you.”

 

[Containment]

Mikulass left. She felt the leaving. The one-less-than-before.

There was always one-less-than-before. And sometimes one was left less than before. Sometimes things became more, two-become-one, others truly triune. Others became try-ruined. It was for others to become and be and come and go and live and live and live and – and die. Here it was only her. SHE would even go on to become Sheshe who would awake again and become SHE once more.

All the answers in the universe wouldn’t make Her whole, wouldn’t bring Her home.

SHE spoke. Soft. SHE reached out, and the spiral suddenly ceased as arms wrapped around Her, an abrupt touch that served to ground Her. The tide broke, and suddenly She felt very small, smaller than she had since she first met HERHerher. She leaned deep into the shoulder offered, and from his eyes, She cried. And if those two little tears had been a small infinity, how much more the wave that curled out of Her and down into HER and into the Sphere. The hair became softer, as it began to curl of its own accord under the gentle touch of HER hand, more like cat than girl.

When She spoke again at last, Her voice was very small, and hoarse, and licked with a trace of accent.

“I want my dad.” She laughed, without letting go. Her tears were gone, but there was no happiness to her. “Outer gods, isn’t that pathetic. I don’t even know if he loved me. He doesn’t even know I’m gone.”

How would he? She had sent the rest of Her Self back, to survive. She had made the choice he would have made in her place. She was so sure there would be no remorse in his black heart – the heart around which She (as IT) had woven ITs Self, flowing and free and fully aware of the decisions he made and when and WHY.

And She should have hated him, as the Shere hated her and her and Her and HER and HER and everything else. And yet all She could feel was the regret that it was not him who had come to Her now, who was holding Her and reassuring Her and asking what he could do.

He could be here. And yet he couldn’t, and never would. And all She could do was forgive him.

 

[Pepper Krasniqi]

The god in her head stayed quiet. He let them be as Pepper soothed and hushed the girl, running her hand softly across the hair that seemed so alive. She felt her sorrow like it was her own. It reminded her so much of a time when she was very young, when she wanted her parents back, when she wanted a friend, when she wanted someone to fucking care. There were so many things she could do in this situation. The second portal had no determined location yet, but she could determine it go to Nine. She could go and raise all of Hell for this little girl.

But who knew if that would actually help? If she understood correctly, the girl was bound to this dimension. Even if she got Strings, and forced him to come to this place, forced him to reunite with the girl, he would just have to leave her here again. She wouldn’t be able to become part of him again, which was Pepper’s understanding of what the girl seemed to want. So instead she held the girl. The world went a little blurry.

“I know of your Father. And from what I know of him, I think he knows you’ve gone somewhere he can’t reach you. Maybe he just doesn’t know you’re here. I can–” She cut herself off, wondering if what she was about to say was smart, or a good idea, or any of those things, but there was a voice inside her, the voice of the child she used to be, that demanded she right this wrong. “I can do my best to find him and tell him if that would be what you want. I can also promise that I can come back here, often. I can promise to help you not be so alone. I know it isn’t much compared to having your father back, but maybe I can help you feel just a little less alone?”

She leaned back a little, looking down at the girl. If allowed to, she would bring both of her hands around to hold her face, helping to brush away the girl’s tears, just before realizing she had started to cry herself. “I can’t make you any promises about your father. He’s a difficult man to find unless he wants you to find him. And he has no reason to want me to find him. I’m meeting with someone else this week, so maybe I can. Fuck, I don’t know, I’ll ask the best way to contact him.”

This was a bad idea, and Pepper knew it. But she couldn’t bear for this girl to be all alone. She could come back every day if she had to. She wouldn’t tell anyone about it. Maybe not even Cody. She could claim she was doing exploration trips with more serious intent. No one had to know.

 

[Containment]

“You shouldn’t find him. He can’t come here.” She spoke in a soft rush like rustling leaves, and heaved a trembling sigh, resigned as She leaned Her face into the hands that held it. “He’ll try, and he will, and he can’t. SHE would kill him. Or worse.”

She did not understand the feelings of the Goddess to the Hanged Man. It was one Question She would not ask, as to do so would betray the yearning of returning. The Goddess loved Her, and to share that love would be ungrateful to the gift of continued living that the Goddess continued giving. A gift that would not be extended to one who had committed some slight.

She wondered what She should tell this SHE of that. The offer was made freely, openly given. Another gift. She was coming to dislike the idea of gifts. It was harder to accept something when it came at a cost, and that, She knew from him, was for the best, because it forced Her to consider all the angles and complications. Should She make an offer in return? She had not been asked anything, and so was not required to give answer. But maybe some context – just enough.

“When I became bound, I sent part of Me back to him. He still has My body, and…most of My Soul, or a mirror of it, or a clone, or something. I just– I need to make sure the part of Me returned to he is safe.”

She took the hands that held Her face, and peeled them away, gently. She folded them together, and let them go to reach up – it was not that far – and wipe Elizabeth’s tears away in turn.

“I would love ~you~ to return your steps to ~Me~ again. And I’d like to know of My Self over there, even if I’m still within him. At least then I know I’m safe.”

Pause.

“Please.”