It's Getting Colder(Warning!)

[Ira]

Felix's face and emotions did not change at all as Cait made her first response. Aesmat looked a little ashamed, a little hurt still, but shameful for her outburst. Cait's emotions reverberated and explained to her and Skirkuh beyond what words could, it was simply the way of things, and Aesmat understood what it was that was being explained to her.


Then, as Cait finished her words, Felix clasped his hands together loudly and grinned. "By the little Goddess Cait, I'm so glad you said that-" Then, turning, he heaved a massive sigh and let slip the emotions he was trying to hold back. It was a feeling of the heart caught in the throat, the intense sadness, and the inability to breathe. All in all, similar to Cait, similar to Ira. "I'm so glad you said that."


Turning to Shirkuh and Aesmat, Felix stepped up and knelt before them. Again, they recoiled almost instinctively. Their emotions, just as they had been from the beginning, gave shape and understanding to their bodily movements. Felix was wrong, he was a thing made incorrectly and one not to be engaged with. But at the distance that he stood, he was impossible to ignore. Bowing his head, he muttered, "Thank you for what you have done, I will take them from here."


Without another word to the denizens, he turned to the others and said, "Come! I have much to show you, and much more to talk about! I have a place for Duet, as well, if you can force her to rest- haha!" At that, he turned toward the exit and left, expecting to be followed. As he walked along the outer wall, he spoke in quick, rambling motions. It wasn't at all unlike when he and Cait had first met. Felix was still largely unchanged.


"Oh Cait Cait Cait CAIT! Oh I've got so much trapped in me by GODDESS I cannot hold it! Only been awake for what- not even three days! Not even three days and already so much, so much has happened. I'm connected to the little her, I see it now, and I'm only here and not there- if you know what I mean. Probably because of the law you put in my head- no hard feelings! I'm glad you did it! Oh- here."


It had not even been a minute of walking before Felix stopped outside of what appeared to be a solid wall. Brushing his hand along the outside, he revealed a perfectly fitted, circular door and slipped inside. Inside, Felix would brush his hand once more upon something along the wall and a thousand bioluminescent veins would light up along the walls and ceilings. The room was cavernous and housed a single object in the center. Roughly four hundred feet long and one hundred feet wide, it was a living vessel of bone and muscles.


It kinda looked like the Nebuchadnezzar from the movie The Matrix


Smiling at the vessel, Felix would speak, "I designed it myself from my memories! Of course, dear Ira made it work for me, but still-! Oh- oh Ira, I can say her name now that it's just you guys! Oh it feels good to just call her that." Then, pausing for a moment, Felix looked at Cait directly, "Let me be clear, sorry. She'll never be ready to see you, she'll never be the same again. At least, she won't if we leave her alone. She wants to change, and not for the better. The thoughts inside her head Cait, I can hear them, they scare me."


Felix paused again, his voice dropping even further, "She scares me."

 

[illirica]

"Go ahead. I'll catch up."

Brian shared a look with Nic, one that they both understood knew it was time to engage in advanced personnel management. The Locusts' chain of command was a complex one - Gail was the team leader, and they all defaulted to her when needed, but she was also demonically entangled and occasionally engaged in questionable decision making - which did not seem to have anything to do with the entanglement. She was just Like That, as they phrased it.

Since she was currently dripping on the floor, in most teams that meant the next ranking officer took over - but that was Joshua, and he both had no interest on command and also had his hands full with containing the dripping, so to speak. Cait had been with the Foundation the longest after that, and since she was pushing for a Council position, that more or less left her in charge.

This meant that Brian and Nic usually took over the wrangling of the rest of them, to ascertain that no one did anything that they would all regret more than they had to. Nic and Cait had a tendency to tease each other, which was fine before a mission when they were trying to get their minds relaxed and prepared, but in a situation like this it wasn't ideal. Nic wouldn't do the same with Gail, but he was capable of picking her up if she fell over, so that made the separation of duties fairly simple.

"We'll catch up." He would remain behind and monitor Cait and make sure that whatever it was she ended up doing... they would certainly regret, but at least they would know what they were regretting.

And whatever it was, she wouldn't be alone.

The rest of the team was, of course, fully aware of the decision making that had just happened, and Joshua nodded slightly and turned to follow along with the L-14 revenant, watching him with the eyes of someone who had a thousand research focused inquiries and was likely to walk into one of the walls if he didn't watch where he was going.

That would be Nic's problem. Brian gave him a good luck sort of shrug and let him make sure their team lead didn't ooze onto the floor in a way that was excessively unnecessary, and turned his attention back to Cait, who'd lingered behind with their hosts. She sighed, once the others were out of view and they could all pretend they were out of earshot - which didn't matter, because they would all go over everything in detail once the mission was over regardless of whether they had been present for the conversation. It was less about not wanting them to overhear than maintaining a certain amount of decorum, or whatever it was that the Locusts had decided to use in place of decorum.

"Thank you. Really. I know what you did for us, and I appreciate it. Your... friends, the others like you who helped us - can you pass along my thanks for them as well?"

My, not ours. Brian noticed things like that. If Cait was creating a debt, she wasn't involving the rest of the team in it, giving them a loophole to wiggle out of. She'd trained with Strings, though, so that much was natural for her. And they'd all trained with Gail, who was just as bad as he was, though she usually came at it from the opposite direction.

Cait considered their hosts for a moment, thoughtful, then asked what was obviously on her mind, because she really wasn't any good at hiding anything:

"Can I give you a hug?"

 

[Ira]

Who Felix Jophann was in life- it may never be known. Perhaps he was the type to ramble and talk endlessly, even if his conversational partner didn’t come with him. Or, perhaps he had been a quiet, patient, reserved man before his ‘changing.’ Whatever the truth was, whether it was Cait or Nic who followed him out, Felix would rant all the same. He had a lot on his mind he needed to offload and whatever poor soul happened to be closest to him would be the one to hear it.

As for Aesmat and Shirkuh, they looked at Cait as she approached them with apprehension and pity, respectively. At her first statement, Shirkuh nodded and spoke, “Yes, of course. We are servants of the Eldest, this kindness, it is what SHE would want… Even if SHE is silent.” And he meant what he said, but it came with mixed emotions.

Sadness, there was so much complex sadness. Sadness that SHE did not listen to their prayers anymore. Sadness that Cait and the pair might never meet again. Sadness that Shirkuh was not convinced the Locusts would survive what was to come. But, through all that, a little bit of joy pierced through. A happiness that Shirkuh held, a little spark because he had the privilege to meet the Locusts. Specifically, he met Cait, and Cait was kind.

Aesmat, feeling the desires on the wind, reached out as Cait spoke the words of her last question. Shirkuh would follow, embracing Cait and his partner gently, but Aesmat was first. They held Cait lovingly, and they were so incredibly warm. Their fur was as soft as eiderdown, and their hearts beat with such force that it could be felt throughout every inch of their bodies. Now so close, the more guarded feelings of Aesmat could be felt clearly.

She was not so sad, rather, she felt angry. It was a deep resentment, Aesmat felt like SHE had abandoned them. Aesmat was not mad at the Locusts for what they had done, the Goddess deserved Her fate. But she wished, so desperately, that the fate of this world could be different. Because, hidden beneath the rage and resentment, was a small voice of hopelessness. Their world was vast and uncaring, and if even the gods no longer cared, what reason would there be to even go on?

It was, with these feelings, that the denizens embraced Cait.

 

[illirica]

Okay, so Brian had Caitsitting under control. Nic gave him the sort of Godspeed, brave warrior look that often passed between them. Of course, he was just as much in the thick of it as anyone else, given that he was currently tasked with managing both Agent Weber and Dr. Seimar. Theoretically, Dr. Seimar was managing Agent Weber, but since he was already giving their escort that I wonder what he looks like on the inside look, Nic felt that he was probably going to be handling that, too. Dr. Seimar was still upset that Cait had gone into a morgue without him, even if Agent Weber had been the one telling him, in no uncertain terms, that he was going to sit back at L-9 and let Cait do her thing.


Nic thought that Dr. Seimar probably had it the hardest, with the whole Cait situation. Sure, they all knew she would be great for L-9 and they all wanted to help her get there, but Dr. Seimar had known her when she was just a kid. He still thought of her as his little tagalong Eldritch research buddy a lot of the time, and sometimes she still filled that role, but other times - well, other times she was going to have to be out there negotiating alliances with weird gods and resurrecting dead guys, and he guessed it was probably a little hard for Dr. Seimar to admit she'd grown up.


At least the dead guy in question was keeping that conversation at bay, although he was doing it by talking more or less constantly. Nic thought that more than anything else was a tip-off that Cait had been involved in bringing him back, because she could go on and on in exactly the same way if she got started. Agent Weber had, thankfully, subsided - apparently she'd decided she didn't have to defend their persons or their dishonor or whatever else it was she thought she was protecting. She'd lapsed back into - not quite silence. The demon was humming again.


Nic recognized the opening of Welcome Home, which was probably because early Coheed and Cambria was one of the places where Agent Weber and Cait intersected or something - Brian would know. Brian had spreadsheets. Still, that was not exactly the sort of song you wanted to be humming at people when you'd just killed their Goddess, Nic thought, so he gave her a discreet elbow in what was left of her ribs, kind of like nudging the button on a music player to change the track. That one Evanescence song everyone knew got another immediate elbow, they would not be bringing any more things to life, thank you very much. She settled into something he didn't know, one of those songs that predated the rest of them except maybe Dr. Seimar, who wouldn't be any help anyway, because he listened to country.


Well, hopefully it wasn't about murdering everyone around them or anything. One never knew, with Agent Weber. They seemed to have gotten to where they were going, which was some sort of weird mystic ship straight out of turn-of-the-millennium movie references. Nic personally would have gone for the Ulysses, but not everyone had been an Atlantis fan. Dead Guy seemed happy with it, though, but he seemed happy with everything, even when he was obviously not happy. Weird. Nic glanced back over his shoulder, waiting for Cait to catch up and let them know whether or not there was a spoon.

There were so many feelings.


It was kind of overwhelming, being this close to it all. Feelings weren't simple, not really - it wasn't just sadness or anger, there was anger-because-of-sadness and there was joy-in-despair and there was hiding-fear, so many things that tangled together like a web of knots, little snags and snarls and intersections and loops out of place. It wasn't wrong, but-

"Hey, kid, has anyone ever told you that you don't have to be responsible for making other people feel better?"


Cait was sixteen, already L-9's prodigy, and had just committed the horrible sin of disappointing a whole lot of people. Oh, it wasn't like she hadn't disappointed people before, but... well, things had mostly been different about that, since she'd joined the Foundation. She fit in here, in a way that she never had before, and she'd had a whole path laid out before her.



And then she'd gone and picked a different path, and all the researchers she'd been working with were all having feelings about it, because apparently she was wasting her potential by going into agency and not research - but Cait didn't want to go into research. She didn't want to study things in boxes, she wanted to go out and see what things were like for all the things that weren't in boxes. There was a whole world out there, and whole worlds beyond it. Research was fun! Cait liked fiddling with things to see what worked as much as the next person! She just didn't want that to be all she did. She wanted to try it all out and see what happened, not just when things were set up in a lab, but anywhere and everywhere.


That was why she'd declared for agency, with the intent of going onto one of the surface teams. ACF had been firm that they weren't sending her out there at sixteen, which sucked, but it sucked in a way that she could deal with, probably. Cait hadn't expected the disappointment, though. It was like being a kid again. She'd joined ACF to get away from being a disappointment.


"What?" Somewhat mystified, Cait dragged herself back into the dubious present.


"You. Don't have to make other people feel better. You can just let them have their feelings! And they will get over them, or they won't, but you don't have to solve that for them."


"...Why are you telling me this." It was a statement, in the way that meant she wanted the answer but didn't want to be caught asking for it, so she resorted to sarcasm.


The other woman just laughed, which was annoying. Almost. "If they put you in a lab, you'd have turned it into a portal to the netherworld in two weeks."


That was less annoying, and probably true. Cait bit her lip thoughtfully. "Actually, I could probably-"


"Already got one. But thanks."


Of course she did. This was L-9, after all.


"Rachel?"


They both looked up. Cait knew who that was, by reputation, anyway. The newest member of STRH-IX "InSINerators," incidentally the position that Cait had been applying for. The same team Agent Emery was on, the one that specialized in the infernal. She'd come from L-6. Gross.


She looked quite a bit older than Cait's sixteen, which unfortunately left Cait with little room to argue that part of it. There was also a purplish-reddish half-physical / half-spiritual worm-looking thing hanging out of the pulpy crimson mass of where her eye was supposed to be. It wriggled in Cait's direction, giving her a weird sensation of being... watched? Analyzed?


Gross, yeah? But in a much more interesting way.


"I'll see you around, okay? Don't waste all your energy trying to solve other people's problems. Then you won't have any left to be someone's problem."

Cait had a problem to be.


She gave their hosts a smile, enjoying for a moment the warm embrace of soft fur, reflecting simple pleasures and joy in small things. New friends, new places to explore.


And a new goddess, who wasn't really the same as she used to be. Cait straightened, gave them a nod, and raised one of the many legs of the millennial-feeler-hunter to wave good-bye, then hurried off down the corridor to catch up with Felix again, just as he turned to meet her eyes.

"None of us are the same as we used to be."


"'I knew who I was this morning, but I've changed a few times since then.'" The whole team could pull that one off in unison. Cait giggled, but it wasn't wrong. Everyone was changing. That was life. If you weren't changing, you'd be a corpsicle, and Felix already knew how to do that.


"Anyway. Dealing with scary things is what we do, yeah? So let's go ride the awesome ship and talk some nonsense into a broken godbait." Cait's smile was infectious. Similarly like a plague, it was just as likely to end in a rictus grin.


"Come on, Felix! It'll be fun! What could possibly go right?"

 

[Ira]

Felix paused for a moment, then, quietly, repeated the mantra the Locusts had spoken together, "I knew who I was this morning, but I've changed a few times since then..." Smiling, he continued, "That's excellent, and very fitting!" Before hopping down a flight of stairs toward the vessel below.

He moved with surprising grace, but his eyes were 'attuned' to the incredibly low levels of light, just like Cait. Though in Felix's case, just like the denizens, light tended to obscure things rather than reveal them. While he moved up under the vessel, he continued to speak,

"I'm still a researcher- you know! Or, well, I consider myself to be! I don't know if I can leave this dimension, I don't even know if I would if I had the chance! I think the part of me that wants to go home has been removed, so there's that. But I'm going to learn as much as I can anyway, just like studying anomalies! Though this one is pretty far out of the box. Ah~!"

Felix tapped a specific section of the underbelly of the vessel and it opened for him with a hiss. Internally recycled air filtered out from the bowels of the living vessel along with a little ramp for the Locusts to follow. Adjusting his eyes to see in light, Felix walked up the ramp and into the ship. The interior of the ship was, so far, the brightest thing in the entire 'dark dimension.' Beautiful lights of varying colors lit up every surface and the inside was surprisingly comfortable.

The floors were like a soft carpet, undoubtedly grown fur of some kind, and lined the halls of the vessel. The walls were hard like bone, but occasionally broke apart to reveal large, accordion-like structures that stretched away and together like the rhythmic breathing of lungs. Pointing from one hole in the ship wall to the next, Felix explained as he walked,

"That's sleeping holes, don't know if we'll need em though! That's where we eat, aw look at those little tables- oh! That's medical there. If you want to take your drippy friend in there. There's a tank of red liquid in there, throw her in! It was made for me if I sustained, oh what did Ira call it- ah! 'irreparable damages,' that's where I was to go. Probably would help Miss Gail!"

Felix stopped, finally, as he reached the cockpit. It looked eerily similar to the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. Abiet with all the nice cardboard and LED lights replaced with veins, soft flesh and bones. It wasn't nasty per se, but it wasn't the most wholesome thing to look at either. Sitting down in the co-pilot's chair, Felix gestured for Cait to take control and smiled.

 

[illirica]

Brian kept a hand on Cait's back as they entered the ship. It was less about herding her in the right direction and more about making sure he stayed with her - and making sure she knew he was there. Cait was as independent-minded as anyone, but she needed her people there to back her up. Being adventurous wasn't the same as being alone.


Hence, the little guy. Brian had already figured out there were going to be times when Cait was going to have to be somewhere the rest of them weren't, so having something to be attached to would be... good for her, he thought. It was a bit like a sheepdog, only more Eldritch, and with extra legs. Perfect for Cait, anyway.


He looked around the ship with the sort of familiarity that came with having watched The Matrix enough times that he probably could have navigated through the thing with his eyes closed. Their guide seemed happy to show them around, though, just like he was happy about everything else. Cait had sworn that part wasn't her fault. He claimed to be a researcher, which hopefully didn't mean that he was going to try to dissect the ship while they were still on it.


Or that anyone else would. Brian looked up from Cait and caught Dr. Seimar's eye. "No dissecting the ship while we're on it." It was said quietly, but firmly. Hopefully Agent Weber would keep him distracted. Brian had known her long enough to know that was part of what she was doing - but he'd also known her long enough to know that Agent Weber was usually doing about six different things at the same time, and some of them you really didn't want to know about.


"Hm? What? Oh, of course not-" The truncation at the end of the medic's sentence sounded less like I will not dissect the ship and more like I will wait until later, which was concerning. He turned a pleading gaze to Agent Weber, who was certainly more aware than she was pretending to be.


"Don't dissect the ship, Joshua. Brian wants to keep it."


And now it was his turn to have one of those oddly thoughtful looks. She wasn't-


No, she was entirely correct, actually. He just hadn't thought of it like that, yet. And of course, he couldn't really keep the ship, because they needed to get back to L-9 at some point, and can we keep it? was Cait's thing and not his, and they were already going to be bringing back a little guy and they'd be in enough trouble about that.


"Sometimes it's good to think outside the box, Felix." This statement was far too normal for Agent Weber, so Brian was already prepared for whatever she said next to be completely off the wall. "Or sometimes you just need to build a new box."


She wasn't watching their guide. She was watching Cait. Brian had mental images of sudden warning klaxons, but didn't quite know what the emergency was just yet. He was sure he'd find out soon enough, though, because Cait was looking like she didn't know what to make of that either, and she was going to puzzle over it until she did.


"Well, that's ominous. So, you gonna leave us with that one and hop in the goop tank?"


"No, I'm good."


"You are not 'good,' you are half-dead. Medically speaking."


"Mmm~hmm." Another one of her demonically-loopy giggles. Great. Even Cait didn't miss that one. The rest of the team exchanged a glance.


"What... are you doing?"


"Fishing."


She didn't add any more, apparently deciding they could piece it all together. Brian thought Cait might have been getting there, but it was Nic who spoke up, but only with one word that didn't make the situation at all better.


"Godbait."

 

[Ira]

Felix paused in the cockpit as he observed the various members of the Locusts. His face never lost that wide grin as he listened in on their conversations, nor did that grin fade as he strode over and straight to Dr. Seimar.


Clasping Dr. Seimar's hand, he shook it vigorously and started introducing himself. "Joshua- was it? What a pleasure to meet you! A pleasure! I'm Dr. Jophann, though I'm certain you already knew that. Foundation procedures and the like, I'm sure you all know every escapade each one of you gets into! Haha! If I can bend your ear for a moment-"


"DO. NOT. KILL. ANYTHING. Nota[EXPLATIVE]INGthing!"


It was almost shouted, with each word specifically emphasized and the last few spoken so loudly and so quickly that the sounds slammed together. While Felix spoke directly to Joshua, the manner in which he spoke and the volume of his voice seemed to indicate he was really speaking to all of the Locusts. Especially as he laughed and continued,


"No! Really! Don't dissect anything, don't kill anything, don't touch anything if you can help it oh and did I mention the not killing? It's very vital-" Felix turned toward Brian and remarked, "You should know this too-" Before continuing at Dr. Seimar, "It is very vital you do not kill ANYTHING here! Not a thing!"


Another laugh, loud and forced, as he finally released the good doctor, "Sorry- don't mean to alarm! Honestly, if I had a say in it I'd take apart bloody everything in this place! But! Nope! Not allowed! Well, you can- but you absolutely should not! See, this whole dimension is a perfect circle of sorts, it has a je ne sais quoi that's absolutely irresistible to research, I know! But IT knows that too! Everything here is connected in a cycle that bypasses the law of entropy- or perhaps it's better to say that entropy as a concept doesn't exist here!"


"Ah- don't let me tangent! Focus! Haha! Focus, yes. Because of that fact- or perhaps simply related to it- everything here is connected. If something, ANYTHING dies, ANYWHERE on this planet, it can be 'felt' per se for hundreds of kilometers! Like broadcasting a massive beacon of 'Hey! Look at me! I don't belong!' Hah! That's actually how a LOT of researchers who were trapped in here met their ends! They'd find something interesting, stab it! Then find a fleshworm- oh like a sandworm from Dune, you've seen Dune right? Tangent! No!- A fleshworm! It finds you, hunts you like an insect but oh you're so much smaller than an insect to it- I..."


Felix stopped, took a massive breath of air, and collapsed into the nearest chair. Rubbing his face and trying, desperately, to keep the smile, he slowly relaxed. It was this gentle relaxation that elicited a sudden wave of emotion centered on Felix. A wave of pain, suffering, gloom and sadness, that threatened to tear flesh and fur off the very walls around them. Even those rejecting the feelings would not be safe, they demanded acceptance, demanded to be felt. It was almost as if little Ira was standing in the room before them. Slapping himself, the wave ceased immediately and Felix popped back up with a grin.


"Sorry! My bad! Didn't mean to do WHOOPSIES! Haha! Don't worry about it! Anyway, very clear, everyone understand? Great! Great! To the cockpit!" And, at that, he started straight away back to the front of the vessel. He sat in a back chair, one meant for a passenger, and held his head very tightly. For those attuned, what had just happened would be overtly obvious. Felix was a husk now, connected to Ira whether he liked it or not. As a result of that connection, part of her feelings were being shoved through him like an overloaded circuit.


As long as he pretended to be happy, pretended everything was fine, he could turn that connection off. But if he relaxed or acted normal for even a minute, Ira threatened to destroy him and everything around him.



---


It was quiet, at least at first, in the nightless night. She had not been here in a very, very long time. Longer than the existence of entire planes of existence. But for someone like Her, time wasn't really something She thought much about anymore.

She would have stayed here, rested, waited, gathered Her strength to go and wrest back control in a few millennia, but something gave Her pause. Someone gave Her pause. It was bait, it had to be, dangling in front of Her as a trick or a taunt. But She was never one to turn down a game. Bait or not, She would nibble. Perhaps even taunt a little herself...

-

The reverberating strum of an electric base guitar thummed and thummed with every word of the Goddess. She was speaking. She was singing. Only the woman known -at least at one time- as Gail Weber could hear it. Well, the woman and the demon. To exclude the demon at this time would be an exercise of power She did not have. But She was not entirely powerless, not yet.

She could still sing.

"With the lights out,
It's less dangerous.
Here I am now,
Entertain me~"

 

[illirica]

Joshua locked eyes with the fascinating researcher in front of him. He'd read Cait's notes, of course, and talked to her about the whole process in depth, but really he'd have loved to get a moment with Dr. Jophann under sedation, just to have a chance to look around inside and see what was going on.


The sudden volume made him blink - not flinch, no, he was a professional and a Locust, and both things meant he was used to getting shouted at about things.


"But if we don't take them apart, Dr. Jophann, how will we learn-"


"Nope!" The interjection, bright and perky in a way that was somehow entirely different than Dr. Jophann's, came from Cait, who was very suddenly behind him, with the little creature in her arms. One of those he had already taken apart, and he'd learned so much. Cait lifted one of its forelegs, and put it over his mouth. The doctor in Joshua wanted to complain about this being unsanitary, but he had more or less been raised in a barn, and he didn't really fuss much about messes. He wouldn't have lasted long at L-9 if he did. Instead, he just raised an eyebrow, and waited for Cait to retract the creature.


"When we're here, we're going to do things differently. Yay!"


"You were complaining about that new ethics code just as much as the rest of us, Miss Corby. I very much doubt you've bought into the whole idea of let's do things better."


"I didn't say better, I said differently! Look, just trust me, okay? It'll be great!"


It would not be great. The sudden miasma from Dr. Jophann threatened to overwhelm them all, for a moment. Now, if he could just get into the man's brain and see how that worked.


The creature's paw booped his nose, admittedly guided by Cait, as if she could tell what he was thinking. Of course, she probably could. They were a team, after all. He was just used to being the one telling her what to do.


...And having her ignore it and go put eldritch rats in the vents, of course, because that was Cait. She'd always been a willful girl. He supposed it was for the best, otherwise she'd probably end up... well, it was best not to think about that. He raised his hands, in acceptance or surrender.


"Well. Don't let me stop you, then." Not that he would have, of course. He wanted to see what Cait ended up doing just as much as any of them.


He gave Dr. Jophann an understanding nod - perhaps they could talk shop later and compare notes, at least, even if he didn't have a chance to dissect the man. For now, though, he had a team to keep alive, despite their protests. He turned his attention to Agent Weber, who was just as willful as Miss Corby, but hopefully she'd be persuadable in this instance.


"Well. If you aren't going to get a proper healing done, let's at least head to the back and sit down." He would feel better if she were sitting. No, he would feel better if she were lying down, in a proper medical facility, and hooked up to an IV line - but he was going to have to do his best with what was available to him, just like any field medic. Right now, that was sitting.


Thankfully, she didn't protest, letting him take her arm and guide her back to the room they'd passed with the little tables. She was humming something, one of those songs that seemed familiar. He'd probably heard it somewhere, even if it wasn't really his sort of music. Something popular, then. He released her into a chair, which she slid down into rather inelegantly, folding her arms on the table and laying her head on top of them. Joshua reached out enough to tug one of her wrists free, which she obediently held up long enough for him to get a pulse.


Weak. But it was there. He'd keep an eye on it. "For the record, I really must protest what you're doing here. I know you're going to do it anyway. I just wish you wouldn't. You can't take care of them if you don't take care of yourself."


"Mm. We know." Ah, the demonic we. Joshua was familiar. "We'll be careful. But She's here, Joshua."


He looked around, but of course there was nothing to see. And... Cait hadn't mentioned it. He took her wrist again, feeling the pulse - no.


The beat.


"With you."


"Not yet. But close. Very close. I can... taste it, almost." It wasn't the right word, or the right sense, but it was as close as she could come with the limits of the language. "Tastes like audacity." A little half-laugh, amused at something. "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

Well, that left just three of them - or four, if you counted Felix, or five, if you counted Felix and Ira, or... actually, Cait was just going to stop counting. Six if you counted the millennial-feeler-hunter. She was really going to stop counting now. She and Nic and Brian followed Felix up to the cockpit, where he sank into one of the chairs. She stepped up behind him and patted him on the back, hopefully soothingly. She'd told them all the happy-stuff hadn't been her doing, after all.


The other part had been, though. She didn't apologize - she hadn't done it for him. She'd done it for Ira.


Protect her from Herself, she'd told him. She was still wondering where that would end up, undoubtedly it would be interesting. He'd motioned that she ought to go ahead and sit down in what was apparently the pilot's seat, which was actually very cool.


But there were other feelings to continue, so she stayed where she was, behind Felix, and gave Brian a little shared smile. "You know you want to."


"Cait... I mean, yes, but so do you. This is your thing."


"Of course I do. But... look, Brian, I appreciate that you think about what I want. Really. I do. But it can't be all what I want. You're part of this, too." Part of this... whatever they were. It was complicated.


The best things were complicated.


"I think you should do this one. I can sit back. I'm about to have... something." Something. She didn't know quite what yet, but she could see the outline of it, the shape of something. 'Hey, look at me, I don't belong!' Felix had been trying to get his point across, but those words had stuck with her more than anything else. This place - the Dark Dimension, Ira's Waking World - this wasn't their place. This was its own place, and they were the anomalies.


And who was thinking about that? Who was thinking about how to keep the ACF in its box, when it crossed over to places like this? How did they make sure they didn't... well, they didn't [expletive] everything up while they were here? Ripples in the water, waves in the ocean, who was going to smooth all that over?


She was.


That was what she was going to do. Maybe. Hopefully. It all depended on one little thing - one little goddess.


Cait reached up, scratching the little creature behind its ears. It had draped itself over her shoulders like a many-legged scarf, no doubt contemplating the same idea she was - or just contemplating whether or not she had any more Eldritch chicken. Possibly both. Or neither. She had a feeling she would know soon enough.


"Are you sure?" Cait knew he didn't just mean about the ship. He meant about the other thing, the thing she was still figuring out, because he might not be able to see the shape of it just yet, but he could see the shape of her. Brian had always been able to read her pretty well. Sometimes better than Cait could read herself.


"I'm sure. You fly. I'll navigate. We should go, though." Cait smiled as he stepped past her to sit down in the pilot's seat. "She's unexpecting us."

 

[Ira]

For someone who had spoken nearly non-stop since showing his face, Felix had become oddly quiet while Cait spoke with the other Locusts. He had certainly shown a glimmer of true interest when Joshua replied to him, but there was something terribly strong that held him back. Or, perhaps more accurately, there was something terrible strong Felix was too busy holding back.


Either way, it had finally come to a head and the researcher had nothing more in him to give. It was all he could do to hold back the projected emotions of an Eldritch god and not lose himself in the process by this point. Perhaps later he would be stronger, but he needed time and rest. Two things he could not acquire if he was babysitting the Locusts.


With Cait’s words though, the worry of babysitting disappeared from Felix. She seemed to understand, or at least Felix knew she had come to the right conclusion even if the steps to get there were wrong. But he was always a kind of ‘the process doesn’t matter if the results are correct’ kind of guy, much to the chagrin of many of his colleagues back in his research days.


So, the moment Brian sat in the cockpit, the results would begin. A fleshy tendril dropped down from the ceiling and dangled gently near Brian’s neck. It looked almost frighteningly similar to the ‘plug’ that the humans in the matrix would have injected into the back of their necks. If Brian made the obvious, and horrible, decision to set the cord against the back of his neck, it would latch on tighter than a vice and inject a needle directly into his spine.


It would not hurt, but it would be extraordinarily uncomfortable. Both the new restriction in his movement and the sudden, blinding lights of seeing through twelve compound eyes. Not only were their eyes entirely unlike a human’s in their basic construction, but they were also eyes that saw in darkness. The light was blinding, darkness illuminating, and the world was a wash of a thousand colors never before experienced by human eyes.


Even in their little hangar, the colors were fantastic and numerous. But no time would be left for admiration or wonder as the console in front of Brian would open up to reveal the two controlling cavities. He would know what they were, every single part of the ship had a name and he would know them all. More than just knowing, it was more like he named them himself and not a knowledge of being ‘told’ their names. Every name would be something he would call it.


If he reached his hands into the controls, he would feel a touch of electricity as his fingertips merged with the nervous system of the vessel. Then, finally, the Ilbrahim spoke to Brian. It was not words, not a conversation between peers, but a connection between a man and a machine. It growled at him, the engines popped and roared at the new pilot, and it demanded control. Like a car with an extraordinarily stiff steering wheel, or a motorbike that accelerated far too quickly, it was a machine with a mind of its own and it wanted to GO.


The ship was meshing its very existence with Brian, rearranging and renaming itself to be what Brian thought it should be. If he so wished it, even the very walls around the Locusts would begin molding and changing shape to fit what Brian thought they should be. It was attempting to become Brian, to rule him, to merge his mind, body, and whole with the vessel’s machinery. If Brian did not resist, if he was not careful, the vessel would flare to life and eat him alive.



----



“Hello~
Hello~
Hello~
How low~?”


“Tsk tsk tsk-” Came the taunting sound of the Goddess


She was somewhere and yet nowhere, the edge of something like death. She walked with purpose, with determination, with a beat in her step. Like a dancer or an artist or a monster or none of these things at all.


“You’re still so close. Standing at the precipice like this, isn’t it painful?”


Her voice was mocking, taunting, a twisted sound of someone in a position of great power lording it over a plebeian. Of course, no matter what She thought, that was not the relationship. She was a fish nibbling at a wriggling worm, threatening to hook Herself, yet not fully latching on yet.


“It’d be bad to die here. There’s no ‘afterlife’ you know, and We wouldn’t allow any soul arrived to leave. I’d like to see the contract that can break brute force, might makes right- you must know.”


A giggle, a laugh, a stifled cry. Sounds elicited purposefully and ones completely uncontrolled. Even with her taunting tongue, the Goddess was certainly not in any position to exert the force She threatened. She tapped her foot, the outline of light illuminating a dark and mangled form, torn apart by both law and their previous battle. It was more than simply not healing. Gail had damaged the Goddess's very soul, a wound unrecoverable.


“Energies in this dimension stay in cycle and recycle, but you are not of the rotation. I’d say you’d still be fine, but I don’t think dear Ilah is in any mood to catch a dead soul.”


She was dead. There was nothing more to be said of the Goddess of the cycle. At one point, She was the great creator of the recycling, the destroyer of entropy, and She who ruled the palace of resurrection. But now? Now She was reduced to nothing more than filth and detritus upon its flooring.


“Hello~
Hello~
Hello~
How low~?”

 

[illirica]

Knowing what was coming didn't make it any better. It probably made it worse, because Brian was all tensed up rather than relaxing into the embrace of - of - whatever-whoever this thing was. The needle tickled his spine, a strange pressure, an insertion where there hadn't been one before. There was light - too much light, too much sensation, strobes, scarring-


"Hey..." A soft voice in his ear, soft arms around him. He couldn't move his own, but she was there, stepping in, just like she knew he needed her to. Her eyes were open - all of them, the soft blue ones and the dark-drowning orbs she'd acquired just recently, seeing as he did, showing him the way. He could feel it, just like he could feel her embrace.


"Breathe, yeah?" Just breathe. Breathe like she had, when the little goddess was crying and the sadness was too much to bear. Breathe through it - one, then another. A process. A pattern. He could follow it to the next step. Slowly, he relaxed, and let his-its-their eyes grow accustomed to the darkness, to each other. The ship was anxious, ready to jump ahead, but Cait's arms were around him, there to hold him back as long as he needed, giving him time to adjust.


Breathe. He relaxed, and felt Cait's arms loosen, still there if he needed her to be, but letting him feel his way through this one. He reached his hands forward, hands resting on controls that he knew were there, the kiss of electricity beneath his fingertips. The ship had names, scrolling though his memory like syntax, accessible whenever he needed it. Ibrahim, it was. Ilbrahim, he could be.


Hell with that.


People didn't go through L-6 without learning to be very careful with technology, especially technology that they were plugging directly into their nervous system. It was just another anomaly, wasn't it? He knew how to deal with those. The firewalls went up, defenses at the ready as he partitioned his mind, holding parts of it back, pushing others forward. Part of him had to be synchronized, of course, because otherwise it wouldn't work at all - but he didn't have to give over the whole of himself to this. Routines and subroutines, everything established in its own little domain.


The ship was growling, and he didn't quite growl back, but the sensation of it was there, somewhere in the space shared between them, imagery of a hand on a throttle, ready to go - but go meant guidance, meant control. They could go, but only if the ship was willing to let him command it - otherwise they'd sit here idle, for as long as it took. Brian was patient enough to deal with Cait. Ilbrahim had nothing on that.


Somewhere in the lines of the code, they reached a code of conduct, something that they could work on, one personality overlaying the other like a z-index. Controls shifted under his fingers, the ship's form staying as it was, bioluminescent lights flickering on in the place where there was no light: a warning glow.


That's right. They were the dangerous ones. They had places to be, and it was time to get there. The ship didn't have its own song, so Brian pushed one into place, something to get them moving in the right direction, humming the intro under his breath as he lit the engines and jumped forward into the darkness.


Highway to Mars
Under a million blazing stars
When love's afar
Beyond horizons
Forget the scars
Farewell to mother Earth as engines ignite
Tearing the skies
To Mars

Gail could hear Her. It was a distant voice, a whisper, but She had definitely noticed Gail was there, and She was not one to lay down and die quietly. Gail listened to the impotent rage, greatly unconcerned. The dead Goddess was a lot more concerned with her soul than she was, hanging on the precipice.


Bitch, I'm right where I want to be. She might have thought this was all some sort of novel idea, hanging about at the intersection of life and death - but of course, She was immortal, and immortals didn't spend a whole lot of time doing that sort of thing. Mortals, on the other hand, they'd spend as much time there as they could, because sometimes it was a one-way sort of street.


And Gail had both a demon and a team at her back. If the Goddess didn't think she'd already woven a safety net for her soul, then She was very much mistaken. This wasn't the first time Gail had gone up against a deity, and little things like an angry dead Goddess were hardly going to intimidate her.


She'd killed Her once already, after all.


The Goddess was almost monologuing, desperate for attention from the one person She knew could give it to Her. Gail closed her eyes, letting her thoughts wander, intermingled with the demon, who wanted to go down there to the afterlife and kill Her again. Or maybe that was her own thought - sometimes it was hard to tell. Sometimes they were in accord. Often.


Another taunt, this one finally enough to break the silence, but not on her own behalf. Gail's voice was soft, though she knew it would be heard: taunting, from the confines of the ship as it lurched into motion, latching on to an unforgotten Name.


"She told You not to call her that."

 

[Ira]

The vessel pushed and pulled against Brian, demanding more at times then less when it could not take everything it wanted. It was just as much animal as it was machine, devouring everything it could feasibly acquire. Like an animal, however, it could be taught what it could and could not have. Brian's restrictions were obeyed and partitions respected. Like a wolfdog learning it could not sit on the couch.


Like a machine, it obeyed Brian's commands. Engines flared to life and it roared into flight. It would go but only at the direction, the guidance, of its pilot. The hangar revealed itself in the vessel's motion as merely a room attached to a massive tunnel. The tunnel led for thousands of miles in a dozen directions, but there was only one direction that the Locusts intended to go toward- Ira. One tunnel, larger than the others, led straight up. It would not be difficult for Brian to turn the vessel upward, though the passengers would certainly need to strap themselves down.


The Ilbrahim could do nearly anything in the manner of flying. From 'side-stepping' and flying straight up for as long as needed to passenger rooms and long-term survival. It was a vessel that would fit in nearly any science fiction setting, though the setting would need to allow for a certain 'macabre.' What the Ilbrahim could not do, however, was fight. It was a vessel made, grown, and designed purely for safe transport. It was this unfortunate fact that would become abundantly clear as Brian would 'see' someone following them.


A larger vessel, slightly faster than the Ilbrahim, roared out from a nearby tunnel and gave chase. Perched upon it and nearly the same size as it, the massive spider that met the Locusts earlier at Shirkuh's home. It tapped its feet to a beat and grinned. Indeed, with eyes that could see in darkness, Brian would see it grinning and 'laughing' as it chased the Ilbrahim. Dozens- no hundreds- of little skin spiders began crawling out of their vessel, shaking and tapping along as they spoke.


"Godkillers Godkillers! We see you fleeing! Godkillers Godkillers! We shant let you grace yourselves with swift death! Godkillers Godkillers- RUN! WE WILL CATCH YOU! HAHAHAAHAHAHAAAAA!!!"


Felix looked back from his nice chair where he sat, comfortably strapped in, as the voices were loud enough that it nearly shook the vessel as they yelled. He sighed with a tone that sounded more like annoyance than worry, though the smile never left his face. Looking back to the others, he remarked, "The Goddess's followers are just as frustrating as She was, haha! Shake them off! This thing can handle it!"



---



The Goddess snapped.


"She does not get to decide what she is called! She is a petulant [EXPLATIVE]ing CHILD and I will put her in her place!"


It was a quick response, an obscenely emotional reaction to the slightest goading from Gail. Blackened blood, scorched from the denial of life, splattered across the visage of the 'floor' between the two. It was not real and not present in the room with Gail. However, it was as real as real could be for the Goddess, and just as painful. Sighing deeply, the Goddess stepped back from the light.


She was not in a position to fight Gail, not yet. She would not leave, but She would stop running Her mouth without provocation. In the game played between the two of them, the Goddess had already fallen back two paces.


---


Ira stood quietly in the empty great hall of her palace. Her palace. Ira never had a hand in the creation or design of this place. It was a massive structure, a living insect whose carapace formed both outer and inner walls. Its blood, bioluminescent and beautiful, flowed into natural lights for the sole enjoyment of the Goddess and the Goddess alone. For Ira's people could not see in the light, and She liked having special things that no one else could have.


Ira looked at the displayed around her, paintings and murals and intricately decorated objects that held no meaning whatsoever outside of reflecting colors in the light. She was not like Her, Ira had always possessed eyes that saw in darkness. Even back on Earth, back with her friends, her eyes were twin pools of black within black. She had never been able to see in the light, instead, she simply made do with what she could observe in the tiny pockets where there were absences of light. It was like seeing the whole world as vague, dark shapes and black outlines.


So it could be understood to anyone watching, though there would be no one watching, why Ira was mashing every intricate object in the room. No one would question, though there was no one to question, why Ira was taking a hammer to every mural in the palace. Finally, of course, there would be no judgment, though there too was no one to judge, of Ira's choice to tear down and burn every painting in the palace. With each mash, each strike, and each burned painting, a wave of pain and death would reverberate across the surface of the Sphere.


Ira never understood TV either, that was the wildest thing for her. Like when Cait sat down with her and brushed her hair while playing something on a projector. Ira could barely see it- barely understand what she was watching, but she tried her best. There were giant robot monsters, Ira knew she could do better. It was on the list of things to make now, the new list. The list had grown long since her absence, but she was back now. She would never leave again.


She was on her own. The Goddess could not restrict her anymore, Ira forbid it. That thing was banished to the furthest reaches of what little remained of the realm beyond, that too She gutted. Not that it mattered, it was a worry for Her and Her alone. No more rules, no more setbacks, no more roaming Beastia and no more stupid little cuttlefish mucking about Ira's relationships.


And no more Cait brushing her hair.


Ira screamed and another wave of pain ripped its way across the surface of the world. This one was stronger, too strong, Felix would certainly feel it. Ira regretted that but there was little she could do to stop it, Cait had bound that stupid little man to her, and Ira didn't have the heart to let him go yet. So she sent him on a mission, to get the Locusts and return them home. It was an incredibly easy task, the first real task Ira had ever given him, so it came as no surprise that he failed-


He failed-?


Ira stood at the precipice of the tallest turret at the highest point of the palace. Black smoke billowed out from the room below her, Her 'bedroom.' The room where She had met the visitor from another world, the room where SHE had accepted the apples and enjoyed the fruits of their emotions. It was a room of memories, a room of great meaning, a room that had existed for longer than the full formation of the Sphere. Ira had set it on fire.


Felix failed in his task, the Locusts were coming to her. Or- perhaps the Locusts overpowered Felix or used some sort of weird Foundation mind control on him? The Foundation, that evil and terrible place. Ira would never return. So many rules, so many restrictions, so many friends... A wave of pain once more, and Ira felt herself glad to be rid of it all. Gladness wasn't supposed to hurt this much, she knew that, so maybe it wasn't that emotion? How was she supposed to know?! That wasn't her job!


Another wave and Ira curled up on top of the tallest tower, crying gently. She would deal with the Locusts when they arrived. She'd send them home, they didn't deserve to be trapped here. No one deserved to be trapped here. Ira set her hands on the palace as the entire creature groaned and fell to the earth. It had been one of Her husks, Ira had simply set it free. She would own nothing before Ira's next rest.


Once Ira sent the Locusts home, she could finally shut off everything from the outer dimensions. She could finally be alone. She desperately wanted to be alone. That is surely what she wanted. Surely.

 

[illirica]

They were in motion. It had happened suddenly, with a bit of a lurch, as Brian and the ship came to an accord and it was agreed to be go-time. Cait gripped the seat for a moment, steadying herself, then moved to sit down and pull some webbing over herself, drawing a little more out to make a harness for the creature in her lap with nothing more than sheer willpower and the expectation that of course it could do that - and because Brian understood, and the ship was doing what he wanted it to, she was right. Just like magic.


Kind of.


They weren't alone for very long. She could feel them out there before she saw them - their loss-become-anger, their impotent rage. The ship apparently had audio pickups, because of course it did, although presumably they could also turn them off if it was a boring conversation. Right now it was just the usual taunts and threats of personal injury, mayhem, and death.


"So, we going to drop a depth charge or something? This thing does have depth charges, right?"


"No, I don't think so."


"Didn't they have depth charges in The Matrix? Or shockwaves or something? EMP? We have an EMP?"


"We're unarmed, Nic. Remember?" Cait pointed a reminding finger at Felix. "No killy, no punchy, no touchy."


Nic leaned back in his harness with a sigh of infinite dissatisfaction. "No, Cait, we can't blow anything up? Worst ship ever. Hey, Brian... there could be depth charges, though, right? That's how this works?"


"No. Yes. I mean, like, yeah, it's how it works. But no, we're not going to create depth charges. Just let Brian fly the ship. We'll be fine."


"Oh. Great. We'll be fine! Love that for us." The sarcasm was dripping more than Gail had been. "So.... we just gonna wait until they catch up and yell 'boo' really loudly or something? What's the plan, here? We could drop Gail out the back and she could punch them."


That was such a lovely mental image that Cait was almost tempted to say yes. Probably not the best call, though, unfortunately. Maybe another time. "Relax, I got 'em."


"Oh, you got 'em. Well. Good job. You might wanna get on that, though, because they're getting closer."


"Mm-hm. Shush, or I'm gonna drop you out the back." Cait giggled, and Nic rolled his eyes at her, but subsided. She let it be quiet, taking it in, sinking into it. Quiet. Silent. Lonely.


Where is she? Why doesn't she come? Did I do something wrong? I tried to do all the right things, but she still won't come. It's never enough. I'm not enough, not good enough. If I were just good enough, she'd come back. If I deserved her. Why should she come back? I'm not good enough to be loved by her. Not good enough to be loved. Stupid, wrong, everything I do is wrong. If I just tried harder. If I just did better. If I were someone else.


The track was familiar, well-worn, a despair she'd sunken into long ago, over and over and over again. She knew the loss, the loneliness, the abandonment. They weren't made-up feelings, they were real, true, undeniable. She pushed them out from her, feelings in the space around them, insufficient, hopeless, useless.


She was six, watching the cars go by after school, wondering, waiting, hoping. One had to be for her, one had to be the right one. Surely she was not forgotten.


She was eight, wanting to do something, but it was too much trouble, always too much trouble. She shouldn't have asked, it was too much. Go away, don't be a bother. Surely you can manage that much.


She was ten, silent and withdrawn, not speaking for days at a time, doing everything to make it easier, because maybe it would be enough, maybe if she was helpful enough, maybe if she was good enough, maybe if she didn't cause trouble, maybe it would be enough. Surely she was not bad.


She was twelve, her hand clenched around the closed pocketknife hard enough that it left deep lines in her palm, not opening it yet, not yet, but if she did, when she did - Surely, surely she would notice this; she had to notice this.


She pushed all of it outward, the blighted hope, the loneliness, the pain that came after a while, slow and tentative at first, faster later, because it didn't bring her back, but it was a relief, something she deserved - at last, finally, something she deserved.


Do you think you can hurt me?


I see you.


I see your pain.


I see your loss.


I see your fear.


I see your loneliness, your emptiness, your sorrow.


I see your love.


This is mine.


Share it with me.

 

[Ira]

The Skin-spider and his speaking children were not weak by any stretch of the imagination. The Locusts did not know their history or their authority because there was so much about the Sphere and its denizens that they did not know, perhaps it was more they would never know. They did not know that, among the denizens of this sector, the Skin-spider held a great deal of authority and reverence among Her followers.


He carried out Her will, and without Her the Skin-spider would lose more than just his Goddess, he would lose much of his power. The balance of this dimension would be thrown out of order for the foreseeable future, and it is the emotions of this foreseeable future that drive the Skin-spider and his children. Feelings of abandonment, fear, and loss drove the Skin-spiders to action. But these feelings were ones of the future, powerful emotions born of mental machinations.


They were not memories.


Cait's emotions, born of memories experienced and not fears of possible futures, far outweighed the strength and resolve of the Skin-spiders. Her pain outweighed their loss. Her loss outstripped their fears. Her fear understood their loneliness, emptiness, and sorrow. But most of all, Cait's love broke them. The Skin-spiders loved their Goddess, of course they did, but they felt love for only their Goddess. It was not something they shared, not even among themselves.


This love, shared freely, broke the Locust's pursuers. Their vessel fell behind, slower and slower, until it lost all power and docked on the side of the tunnel wall. The Skin-spiders followed no more. They could reply to Cait's emotions with their own love, for they had none to give. AS children of the Goddess, they did not know love as the children of Ira or the children of Beastia. Their emotions, while genuine, tended more toward selfishness, power, and control. So now, faced with new feelings, they stopped to accept them.


Perhaps they could even change.


But the troubles for the Locusts would not end with their pursuers. The Sphere felt the projected emotions as well. It was a living entity, a beast of a size nearly beyond human comprehension. Accepting the feelings of Cait, it reacted as it was wont, with hatred. Wave after wave of intense hatred would slam outward from the tunnel walls accompanied by massive bone spikes. The very walls of the tunnel sought to strike down the Ilbrahim.


As the walls around the Ilbrahim attempted to dash their vessel to pieces, the tunnel in front of the Locusts began to shut as well. The flesh of the Sphere folded itself to trap the vessel, forcing it to crash or turn back into its enemies. However, whilst the landscape altered in front of the Ilbrahim, the vessel itself began to shake and beg something of Brian. It was growling, shuddering, demanding to STEP. It could move PAST the walls, side-step them entirely. It just needed to fold space. To bend the laws of space and time like thin sheets of paper. To move from here-to-there. It could do it, it could.


It just needed to not liquefy its strange passengers in the process.

 

[illirica]

"Ah, Cait..." It was spoken softly, tinted with regret. They'd all felt what she'd projected - of course they had. To the Locusts, though, none of it came as a surprise. They knew - they all knew. They'd shared each other's lives, each other's joys, each other's sorrows - especially each other's sorrows. The things that they got involved with were quick to exploit any weakness that they could find. No one was without weaknesses, but knowing about them knew that the rest of the team knew when to step in and shield one another.

In this case, it had been her choice. They understood.

"Mm. She's doing better, now." Gail had pulled herself back up from whatever demesne she'd been half-out-of-it in. Cait had found her place and blossomed, but just because a wound had healed didn't mean that it had never been there. They all had scars, in their own ways. The followers were falling back, and Gail resisted the urge to call back to them: Don't go, She's so close, don't you feel Her? But they weren't dead, or close to it, so of course they didn't.

Their loss.

Which was, of course, the whole point. Gail drifted again, a line in the vast ocean, tempting the great abyssal things below. Did You ever love them, I wonder? Or had it been one-sided? Love was like that, sometimes. She might not have been able to feelingsbomb the area as well as Cait had earlier, but she sharpened a well-honed sentiment, tossing it back casually as if at the tip of a spear, tracing the line from Goddess to priest, what once had been and now was broken.

It was a simple thing, only: patience.

Wait. Just you wait.

Just You wait.

Perhaps it would mean something, or perhaps not.

"Hey. Oh, that does work, good. So, we have a decision." Brian's voice, quietly ambient, because of course he could project his voice through the ship, even if he wasn't actually speaking while he was locked in. "We can do a little dimensional hop to get out of here but Ilbrahim wants to liquify us, are we okay with that?" Brian seemed like he was very much not okay with that and very much wanting it to be someone else's choice.

"Heck yeah! Liquify us!" No surprise who that was. For someone who'd been manifesting abject depression just a moment ago, she certainly sounded cheerful.

"Wait, what? No! I don't want to be a liquid!"

"Aw, come on, Nic, the human body is like ninety something percent liquid anyway."

"Closer to sixty, Miss Corby. Which is not to say that's a recommendation. Does the, er, Ilbrahim - does it provide an analysis of the process for study-"

"I think we need to decide now, Dr. Seimar-" Indeed, if the motion of the ship were any indication, things were getting dicey.

"Come onnn, I wanna be a goop god!

"Cait, please never say that again-"

"Goop gods, goop gods, goop gods! Can we? Please? Tuesday votes yes!"

"What the [expletive] is Tuesday?"

"Tuesday's the little guy, duh. 'Cause he's, you know, just another Tuesday. Anyway, that's three yes, because Ilbrahim wants to, one no because Nic is a weenie, one abstention for research purposes, so..."

"Mm... just do it."

"Really?!"

"She's like ninety percent goop..."

"I have a feeling we're about to become liquid one way or another. Might as well have some fun with it."

"...I hate that she's not wrong-"

"YAY!"

"...All right. Make it so."

 

[Ira]

And so it was.


The Ilbrahim could do it, it certainly could, but stepping without liquifying would be nearly impossible. However, its passengers seemed fine with that. In a movement so fast it could barely be quantified, the Ilbrahim lurched and side-stepped the space between itself and the walls closing in on it. More than that, it knew the destination that its passengers sought, so it moved as far as it could in that direction.


The Locusts were liquified, of course, but only for a moment. Perhaps it would feel weird, perhaps it would be painful, or perhaps it would not be noticed at all. But it had happened. Rather than go through the time-consuming process of 'reassembling' everyone, the Ilbrahim did as it would do for any other denizen of the Sphere. It simply de-liquified them. They were solids just like the denizens, so it was a relatively simple and instantaneous action.


They had come out close to the Goddess's palace, Ira's palace now. No more than a quarter a kilometer's walk away. It was close enough that it could be seen clearly by Brian, but far enough that the whole of it could be observed. Should Brian desire it, the Ilbrahim could make parts of itself translucent for viewing. Though the palace, a glorious structure grown from the back of a mountainous beetle, was perhaps not as wonderful as it could have been.


It was on fire.


Far above the Sphere, the vessel rose and fell gently through a boldly golden sky. The atmosphere was ablaze with streams of golden flame, swirling and twirling like spirits playing in the wind. The fires from the palace had spread Sphere-wide it seemed. They illuminated the landscape as it had never experienced before, but there was unfortunately little to illuminate.


The surface of the Sphere had been scorched by wildfires. Raging infernos that left little to nothing in their wake. Husks of what could have been a forest and deep valleys of evaporated waters decorated the ground below. Endless beaches of bone shards had been melted into a single, solid clump, and no life whatsoever scurried or breathed beneath them.


It was good that they came out so close to the palace, as the Ilbrahim began to quickly descend. The oxygen on the surface of the Sphere had been consumed by fire, leaving nothing for the Ilbrahim to pull from to power its engines. It would not drop like a rock, it had reserves that it could pull from to slow its fall, but it would not be able to travel far.


Felix sat up a little straighter in his chair, that damnable smile still plastered across his features as he spoke joyfully, "We're here."


---


Standing on the immense Perron leading up to the great entrance doors of the palace was a single, small figure. SHE stood perhaps only five feet tall, but HER shadow cast itself upon the entire side of the palace facing HER. It was not dissimilar to looking upon the dark side of the moon. SHE looked like the Goddess, in fact, SHE was nearly an exact copy were it not for the different clothes and height. SHE wore a simple, black stola with a clasp of bone in HER hair.


HER face, too, was slightly different from the Goddess's. Not in its construction nor its shape, but in that it was utterly horrifying to gaze upon. It was like looking into a vast and terrible abyss, knowing that something down there looked back, hungrily. It showed no emotion, yet afterimages of every emotion played out across HER face like a broken film. Faces of anger, laughter, fear, rage, sorrow, and everything beyond, but not one overrode the overwhelming feeling of

just

nothing.


SHE would need to be crossed to enter the palace. Even with HER small size, the knowledge that SHE would destroy anyone who ignored or disrespected HER was as innate as breathing. But more than the Beast that now stood in the Locust's path, each member would feel the reverberating sorrow from within the blazing palace.


Waves of sadness crashed upon the Ilbrahim like the gentle lapping of the ocean. Not as overwhelming as before, but as unavoidable as getting wet when swimming in water. These projected emotions would tell the Locusts that the answer to their quest was here. They had arrived at the gates of hades and Ira was inside. The last step, it seemed, was to bypass Cerberus.

 

[illirica]

It wasn't getting liquified that was weird, Nic thought. No. It was getting reconstituted that was weird. The liquification part was over before there was too much to say about it, and apparently people didn't have a whole lot of thoughts while they were goop. Or, at least, he didn't. Getting back to himself, though, oh, that was weird - because now he had this memory of being temporarily a liquid, and it was indescribably weird. He'd felt his bones melting. Bones were not supposed to melt. Well - sure, there had been that one weird thing down in Florida that one time, but that had only been some of the bones, not all of them. Of course, he'd heard stories about things sort of like that happening-

-to-

-oh. Right.

That was the one they didn't talk about much. Before he'd been here. Okay. The less said about the horrors of liquification, the better. Anyway, they all seemed to have survived it intact, or at least as intact as they had been beforehand. Maybe more so, in some cases.

He was also pretty weird there had been another voice echoing goop gods right before the transition, but he didn't want to ask about that any more than he wanted to ask about any of the rest of it. Sometimes, the only thing you wanted to say was and then we arrived. The Locusts had written a lot of and then we arrived into reports. It was a sentence that left a whole lot out, and sometimes... well, sometimes that was for the best.

They were there, wherever there was, and the ship developed a case of partial transparency because apparently Brian thought it needed windows, or it thought Brian needed windows, or - Cait would know. Nic wasn't usually the one who conjugated irregular ontotheology.

The place was on fire, which tracked. He nodded to himself - really, he would probably have been more weirded out if it hadn't been. The Locusts were always going places where things were on fire. Sometimes they were even on fire before the Locusts got there. It saved time, that way.

"It's a beautiful day-" Cait had apparently decided which song she thought fit the mood best, which either meant she thought this place was great or she was still in recovery from becoming sludge, or both. Nic was betting on both. It was familiar, though, comforting in its own way. He was used to heading out to whatever it was they were facing with her quiet soprano at his back, synchronizing the situation with her spells. She wouldn't be casting right now, though, but the sound was at least pleasant, even if the song was a little too on the nose for his tastes. They always were, though.

"Mountains crumbling down
-it's a beautiful day-
Skies are turning red
-it's a beautiful day-
We're all falling now-"

They were, too, the ship starting in on what was presumably some sort of semi-controlled descent. A little wobbly, sure, but it was Brian's first time flying the thing. It was probably like a first time driving sort of thing - not that Nic really remembered his first time driving. Just one of the many things that had vanished with the rest of his memories. He wondered if he'd hit anything.

He wondered if Brian was about to hit anything.

"-it's a beautiful day-
This must be the end!"

"Cait, did... the little guy... just..."

"Yeah, I'm teaching him a song." As if that were the most normal thing in the universe. Because, great, apparently it was going to talk. Or something. "I don't think he understands. I think he's just repeating the sounds, kind of. Like me when I'm singing in Gaelic."

"Please do not start singing in Gaelic." From the ambient Brian, who actually knew Gaelic. Nic was kind of with him on that. Fortunately, Cait seemed happy with the one she'd already picked,

"Let's dance - da-da - like ants in a hillfire~"

Nic sighed as the ship settled down, waiting for the next disaster. It didn't actually come. There was sort of a silent pause, as he looked out the window at the weird carapace... castle... carapalace? It sounded better than bughut. There was a Medium Sized Godbait out their waiting, too. Bigger than Ira, smaller than the Goddess, at least, he thought so. Hard to tell from this stage.

"So..."

"Oh, she's all yours."

"Me?"

"Well... yeah. Gail would just piss her off. Joshua would try to dissect her, which would piss her off. Brian's still connected to the ship and I'm going to keep watch on him and make sure that goes smoothly enough - plus then if we need to leave in a hurry, he's ready for it. Plus there's no oxygen out there. Take Felix with you."

"Oh. Oh, no. Cait, you're making sense. I hate it when you make sense."

"I know! I had reasons and logic and everything!"

"Oh no...." He looked out the transparent window, then sighed, then looked back at Cait. And Brian. "Okay. Okay. Sure. This is fine."

Boy, was it ever. Nic unstrapped the webbing and stood up, heading back to where the hatch had been when they'd come on board, taking a deep breath of the ship's air and letting it out with a few keywords. Tattoos along his skin didn't quite light up, exactly, but he'd always thought it felt like they ought to. He could definitely feel the contract coming in. Usually it went pretty fast, but this time it was slow going, like pushing a heavy boulder uphill. He didn't know what to make of that - Agent Weber had written all the contracts, he usually just triggered them. He'd have to ask her what that meant. Some other time. When she wasn't giggling along with the voices in her head.

Eventually, the sigils didn't-light enough that the elemental they held pulled through, a comforting pale-greenish miasma around him that would give him enough air to breath in his own little bubble. If Felix stayed close enough, it would cover him too - or maybe he didn't need to breathe, given that he was a zombie and all.

"Yeah. This is fine." Just like it always was, right? They were a team. Agent Weber was poking gods, Dr. Seimar was keeping most of her insides on the inside, Cait and Brian were probably making out in the cockpit. Gods, he hoped not. Or at least he hoped they were done by the time he got back.

The ship unsealed itself, and he stepped out onto the scarred ground, walking up to the small woman-shaped-thing standing in the middle of the apocalypse. She was shorter than Cait. Not a lot of people could claim that. It didn't bother him, but it would have bothered her. He'd noticed she was used to being the shortest person in the room, and when she wasn't she got kind of weirded out. Not with kids, sure. But with other adults.

He'd never had that problem. Pretty much everyone was shorter than him.

Presumably he was supposed to do something here that would let them pass, but without blowing anything up. It seemed a little redundant, really, since everything was pretty much already blown up.

"So...do I need a password? Or what's the deal, here?"

He didn't try to walk past her, though. Every re-solidified cell in his body was telling him that would have been a very bad idea.

 

[Ira]

Felix stood up without a word as Cait told Nic to 'take Felix with you.' Patting his new compatriot on the back as he did his weird, uh, thing? Felix remarked, "You and me partner buddy! Hah!" Whatever Nic was doing, Felix's brain was far too clouded to try and figure it out. That isn't to say the scientist under the husk didn't desperately want to understand though.

Felix stepped out with Nic and, perhaps for the first time, acknowledged the thing standing on the stairs. He smiled, as there was nothing else his body could do, and waved to it. SHE did not move. SHE did not even seem to see him. Instead, SHE watched Nic with great interest. The shape of his tattoos, it was almost like SHE could see them through Nic's clothes, and the cloud of air allowing him to breathe. It was fascinating. Felix, of course, did not need to breathe. He was already dead after all.

After Nic spoke, Felix smiled and stepped forward. Nic didn't understand the ways of this world like Felix did, Felix knew he could properly explain things. SHE was reasonable. If SHE would just listen, then everything would be fixed. "Hey! Hi, listen, she doesn't understand what she wants or even what's going on! Let us head up there and give her a little pep talk! It'll do away with this whole mess and-"

SHE looked at him.

Felix dropped like a stone. His body crumpled to the scorched floor at the foot of the stairs like unwanted trash. The smile hadn't even faded from his face, his eyes still open, as he ceased to be. The crumpling 'thum' as his head hit the hardened ground made a sound far louder than it should have. But the entire world seemed quiet but for the crackling of flames, so perhaps it was simply that.

Then, SHE looked back at Nic. There would be a moment of silence, but it would not hang in the air long. HER voice was uncomfortable to listen to, a sound incomparable unless it had been heard before mixed with the very easily recognizable voice of the Goddess. It was not the Goddess, of course, She was dead, but it certainly sounded exactly like her. The incomparable sound, strangely enough, would probably be the most familiar thing to the Locusts.

It was the sound and eldritch thing made when it was trying to be understood, and trying very hard not to drive its listeners mad. So SHE spoke, "Little Ilah spoke highly of you- things. You will understand I have not cared to remember your names. She remembers them, though, and that perplexes ME. Dea hurt her heart, you know this, and I cannot bear to see her heart like this."

SHE waited for a moment, continuing to observe Nic, before continuing, "I would not see her heart hurt again. If that is your intention, to bring my dear Ilah more pain, then you may leave." It was spoken strangely, not a command to leave, but not necessarily the 'allowance' to leave either. Nic had not been dismissed, he had been given a chance to respond.

But Nic would know that. SHE was eldritch, more so than anything else the Locusts had encountered so far, and thus the most familiar. Perhaps it would even be a comfort.

 

[illirica]

"Ah. Hell." It was spoken mildly, as curses went, and it was as much a definition as a curse. Then again, Dr. Seimar was a researcher, and Hell was the operative term.

They had been liquid, for a moment. It had been interesting, and he had not had nearly enough time to study it - the experiment would have to be repeated - but later. Later, because while the team had gone through the process as intact as they had ever been, Gail's demon wasn't exactly a physical thing. It was more metaphysical, a manifestation of belief, and beliefs couldn't truly be liquified - or re-solidified.

That was why, when the ship had stepped through whatever distance it had gone, the manifestation that she'd collected around herself had either been left behind or had ceased to exist. It was really very interesting, from a research standpoint. From a medical standpoint, she'd lost consciousness and was bleeding out.

Research would have to be ongoing. Dr. Seimar cut through the seat straps with a scalpel, not wasting time with figuring out how to release them. As any first responder knew, moments could count in a situation like this. She didn't resist, nor did the demon - they had an accord, he and it, with the long-term understanding that, generally speaking, he was trying to help. If he had had a full medical suite, he would have known exactly what to do - but Dr. Seimar almost never had a full medical suite, and knowing what to do anyway was why he was with the Locusts and not sitting back in an office building somewhere.

The first thing to do was be aware of one's surroundings. Often that meant checking the scene to make sure it wasn't full of acid, flesh-eating weevils, or angry demigods - but it also meant looking around to see what there was that he could use. In this particular case, Ilbrahim had already offered a solution, and this time Agent Weber wasn't conscious to tell him not to use it. Dr. Seimar got a lot of mileage out of implied consent, with situations like these. It didn't take him too long to drag her over to the tank of reddish goo.

It wasn't a medical suite, but at least it was going to be interesting. "I suppose you'll do what you can. Just try to let it help, do you understand?" Perhaps it did, perhaps it didn't. Dr. Seimar never really knew if the demon knew any more than rip, tear, murder, kill - Gail said it usually didn't - but it did seem to have a vested interest in her continued survival. He didn't often talk to it - mostly they considered it polite to pretend it was just her in there - but he felt like he should tell someone what to do, and Agent Weber wouldn't have listened anyway.

With presumably some help from Brian, he got her dumped into the tank, where whatever the substance was in there would, presumably, get her patched up enough to start telling him off for saving her life. Again.

That was the way things went, as a medical professional. Dr. Seimar smiled wryly, then sat back to take notes. After all, he was hardly going to waste the opportunity.

Felix was dead.

Well, he had been for a while, but he was dead again. Re-dead? De-incarnated? Anyway, he was down. That was kind of a shame; Nic had liked him. Maybe he'd get up again later. Or maybe Cait would fix him - for some definition of fix, anyway.

That left him and HER. An overwhelming murderhobo who could undoubtedly stop him just as easily as SHE had stopped Felix.

It was so nice to be back on familiar ground.

"You dropped something." He pointed to Felix with his thumb. The guy deserved some sort of recognition, after all. Nic shrugged, and rolled his shoulders. "Anyway. Look. We all know she's hurting. And I'm not gonna lie to you and tell you she's not going to get hurt again. That's part of growing up, and she's just a kid. At least, she was a kid on the outside. And kids aren't always great at knowing what they need." He paused for a breath, and assessed the situation. He still wasn't dead, and that was good enough. Might as well keep going, then.

"I think... Cait can probably help her. But it'll hurt. Like setting a broken bone." He'd had a few of those. They all had. He wondered if SHE ever had - did creepy Eldritch murder-aspects break bones? Their own, that was. SHE had probably broken a lot of other people's. "But I don't think she's going to get better on her own. So I guess it depends if YOU want things like this or not."

Nic gestured, expansive, to the burning wasteland around them. For all he knew, maybe SHE did want things like that. Maybe SHE liked the doomsday vibes. He wasn't here to judge. He liked to do all his judging later, sitting on the couch with Cait and the rest of the team, passing a tub of ice cream around.

He turned the question around, because sometimes it was a lot better to be the one on the asking end of that sort of thing.

"Can YOU help her?"

He didn't think so. If SHE could, SHE would have done it already. That meant either SHE couldn't, which meant SHE needed them - or it meant SHE didn't want to, in which case they were probably gonna have to punch another god.

This day just kept getting better.

 

[Ira]

SHE stayed quiet while Nic spoke, patience was perhaps the only virtue that remained within HER. When Nic asked his question, there was an inkling of a thought in HER head that SHE should've reacted. SHE should've threatened him, chastised him for questioning HER, or obliterated him at that very moment for daring to speak so disrespectfully. There was an inkling of a droplet of a thought that perhaps, maybe, SHE should've done or said something. Any reaction at all really.

But SHE said nothing. SHE simply stood there, silent, for a few moments. Then, quietly, SHE spoke again, "She said you didn't understand her, I see now what she meant. Though I do not care to see. She is, always has been, and should always remain, a child. She is the littlest part of me, the kindness, the innocence, and the longing for something more. I gave her strength because I knew I could not trust Her with it. They were meant to be- well..."

SHE stopped and, gracefully, sat down on the steps. Looking past Nic at the landscape, then back to the flaming palace, SHE sighed. The sound of her breath shook the steps of the palace and vibrated the ground beneath Nic. Looking back to him, SHE spoke once more, "I cannot help her. They two were meant to be each other's greater halves, two pieces of me that could do what I could not bring myself to. To care. I cannot help her because I do not care anymore, I simply- selfishly- do not want to see her hurt."

SHE waved her hand, "Go, do what you can." and, in an instant, every Locust that desired to be within the palace would be within it. It was a sudden yank, an instant pull by the hand of an adult leading children. No one would be forced, however, and SHE intended to leave behind in the vessel anyone who did not- or could not- go within.

They had permission, but not blessing.

The inside of the palace, unlike the outside, was still oxygenated. The carapace walls burst with massive pockets of oxygen and flammable blood every few seconds, feeding the raging inferno that boiled within it. Ira was here, somewhere, amongst the ruins of a thousand artifacts and hundreds of ruined paintings. This place could have been beautiful once, and to the right eye it still was, but it was also on fire.


---


The Goddess was in, slightly, a better mood. Of course, She was still in incredible pain, that wasn't going to change for at least a couple thousand years and She'd need to get used to it. But it seemed that Gail was not in a great position either. That brought Her great joy, even if She didn't understand why Gail was suddenly not able to 'keep it together.'

As Joshua carried her body over to the vat of red, the Goddess giggled. She wasn't sure if Gail could hear Her or not, but She was going to enjoy what happened next. The vat was Red-of-the-Sphere, a concentrated drink of blood and plasma concocted from deep blood vessels close to the heart-core of the Sphere. The Red, when drank, provided the effects of feeling a thousand emotions flooded together. It was a horribly overwhelming sensation that both Ilah and the Goddess loved.

Of course, the Denizens had a different usage for it. The Red was a good drink for celebrations and relaxation, taken in moderation and watered down, but it showed its greatest properties when used as a healing salve. The Denizens were, for the most part, born from the Sphere and not each other. The Sphere's Red was nearly indistinguishable from what a human might consider 'stem cells.' So, when submerged in Red, a denizen might see injuries and wounds impossible to heal on their own become merely bad stories. So long as they could withstand the intense crashing of emotions, they could be healed.

But, Gail was not a denizen! As far as the Goddess was concerned, this goop vat might as well emotionally shock Gail before drowning her, and that was going to be hilarious! From her vantage point in the darkness beyond life, the Goddess leaned in as far as she could to see what happened when Gail entered the vat. All the while, she laughed and taunted, "Hey little bitch, when you drown, I get first dibs on your little demon friends. I've always wanted new pets!"

-

Unbeknownst to the Goddess, Ira had created this vat specifically to restore Felix and other humans. It would reach out, gently, and restore Gail's body. It did so not on its own, but through a process of stimulating Gail's own body to repair itself at an alarmingly fast rate. Not a foreign process, but an internal assistance. As it worked, emotions would still flood Gail, but nothing like what the Red might normally contain. They were feelings of love, of kindness, and adoration.

They were the feelings of a small, ecstatic child, overjoyed that an adult was playing a game with them. As if Ira was right there beside Gail, laughing, smiling, and hugging her.

 

[illirica]

Cait was in a bug house, and it was on fire. Had the rest of the team been there with her, they would not have been surprised by the cheerful "Yay~!" that escaped her as she found herself there. The others were elsewhere, because they didn't need to be here right now. Tuesday was with her, though, and she set him down on the floor to trail along after her, making her way through passages.

She turned as she walked, her eyes taking everything in. It was all destruction and all wonderful and all Ira, of course, but Ira was currently a disaster, and that was a whole mood. Cait didn't mind. She was here, and that was what mattered - because Ira needed to know she was here, needed to know that someone was looking for her.

And so Cait looked, sort of, because she knew that the looking was important, but she also knew that she would find Ira when Ira wanted to be found, and until then she might as well just enjoy herself. She let her feelings wander, scouting ahead, looking for the trace of the little sad goddess that would eventually lead Cait to her, and after that...

...Well, after that, a lot depended. She couldn't wait to find out what came next.

"Oof." Well, that was done, then. Nic wondered if SHE had expected him to disappear, when SHE sat down on the stairs. He didn't, though, because he didn't need to be in there. Cait did, but this was between Cait and Ira, and whatever had to be worked out between them needed to be done without everyone else getting in the way.

That and he had a feeling that the mood of it was going to be overwhelming. There were a lot of feelings going on around here already, and he didn't really need to stand too close to the epicenter when Ira and Cait started emoting at each other in full force.

So he sat down on the stairs as well, next to HER - not too close, because SHE probably wouldn't like that, but close enough that SHE would know he was there, silent for a minute, staring at the burning horizon, then nodding slightly to himself and resting his palms on his knees before asking, casually:

"So. How're YOU doing?"

There were eyes on Her. They slithered across Her skin, little visions crawling in and out of what was left of Her after all the mutilations. They did not see, but they certainly saw - sharp, serrated, slashing, bright-blood-in-black-darkness, hurt, maim, kill.

She would feel them, not entirely real, not entirely unreal - something between, bound where it shouldn't have been, as close to it/self as it could be. It/self was healing, rapidly, distressingly. Feelings of joy threatened to overwhelm it/them, and they writhed against the intrusion, the love, the kindness, the adoration.

It hurt, more than the wounds had.

She had wanted a child, it/they knew. Wanted one, wanted the next one, wanted, wanted. All of them wanted, all of them gone - hurt, maim, kill. Such things were not a part of it/self, could never be a part of it/self. It did not create life. It did not nurture. It did as was its nature, it protected it/self, and the intrusions were removed, destroyed, aborted.

Again and again and again.

And now, in the red womb, a child's love reached for her, and it/she knew what could have been, could never have been. The body healed, the memories bled - deep wounds, reopened.

It curled around it/self, as if it could protect it/self from this, and it watched outside, the leaning, looming She, who had/was a child of Her own, skittering through where Her heart might have been, if She weren't as heartless as it was.

The little one hurts her more than you do. It was not a sentence, but a feeling, a comparative pain - look, look, with all these eyes, do you see? Do you see the tearing? Can You hurt us like this?

It coiled, sinister, and whispered, as such things as it/self tended to do when unrestrained: You could be a part of this...