Fated

 

Far far in the clouds, a flock of birds flies away from the smoke coming up from an old rustic brickhouse. The building, aged by time but seemingly immortal as the world itself was crested in the virgin dirt, her hearth implanted into its granular bosom surrounded by forests on all sides. In back of the solid-walled lodge, its smoke-hole capped with the mossy log of the roof, the ending of Mother Sovereign's young Duckling house orphanage lay against cable wires and steel beams that structure the resort behind it, build wall to wall but sharing no interior without a sight of velvet lined carpet to be seen. This morning she rose the flag she had placed by the lodge door over the side-pole of the lodge, the pole was straight and flipped with a white flag, a symbol indicating that all who seek refuge may find it, whether or not they're lost. So in place it was this morning, viewed by the gaze of a green haired young girl who wandered her way here. The young child looked to the sky, her hair the color of fresh cut grass, a sight one doesn't see unless they live far out beyond the reach of the techno-capitals and galactic regimes afar from mother's home. The grass green young girl's eyes were a blue that was oceanic because the world had been fresh when it was born, a verifiable ocean of crystalline waters long before being sullied by the corruption of man.

This morning she was looking at the flock of geese around an enclosed fence that circled around the smokehouse's left flank, the smoke billowing out like the mist of dew in the mornings, a veil that covered the ground and made the children's toys and playthings disappear into the thick of the sky and into the vapors above, where one day they would become rain and the children themselves would bathe in it to wash away the filth that has laid on them in the long winter. When the girl snuck through bushes, she saw children inside squat against dirt rugs as Mother Sovereign arrived. The naming felt unaptly named, she was plain and rather simple, but she was the Sovereign of many things in her eyes, even though she was the lowest of beings in the eyes of those to whom she ministered these grounds in place of. Her hair was mottled brown and short, folding over itself uptop with a bunched ponytail that zig-zagged out like a wave in back of her head. Though she was ancient she appeared young, and wore an air of wisdom that was in a class of its own, as many times she had witnessed the fall of cities, had seen men leave their women behind in the cold of the night and had watched the sky burn with the fires of distant men's wars that were not fought here. Not in her home country, not since the first rebellions of the Feyland. For the women of this mystical society of Kymraazistan, this woman in brown, with her hair zigzagged in a bun in back of her head, was a warm sight to behold. There wasn’t a soul in the countryside that didn’t know her. She walked inbetween the space created by rows of children with fresh excitement in their eyes, her rich silken blue-floral gown lined with gold trim yet covered by a smudged brown apron overtop, both sleeveless for a white underfit which provided her arms with baggy sleeves. The brown apron was soaked in mud, but the dress underneath was spotless. Such is a woman who lives a modest life and knows how to take care of her own apparel. Once she arrived at a rocking chair in her lounge, she picked up a strange vanilla tome and began to read. The pages were blank, but that was her secret to tell and no one else’s.

"Once upon a time, in this land of ours that is Kymraazistan, magic was in abundance and flowed through every soul, each tree and valley, across the lakes and even stars above. This was around the time when the children played, and before the men made themselves war with the Great Birds who spit our way. Now, there was magic, but it was very unpredictable and did not always go our way, we had to rely on our ancient druids to guide us across these ancient forests and swamps and ensure the ingredients for all things, spells, potions, an afternoon meal would glow with warmth and radiance for our people. A single missed ingredient could be fatal, and no recipe could ever work twice. A great druidess named Ualmuy who knew the secrets of the ancient and sacred texts, and she helped our tribe survive, taught our eldest women these recipes that would allow us to grow and prosper as a people, and we were happy."

The girl outside looked closely, shuffling through the branches somewhat to listen closer as she peaked through. She was transfixed by this story and its gentle, humble storyteller. But then it was interrupted, Mother Sovereign taking out a rather sizable cauldron and filling it with water and various vegetables and meats, then placing it near that hearth where it may boil. "The Great Birds, atleast the ones that arrived had been watching our world for a long long time. There were champions of course, capable of many types of abilities, but these held little interest to the birds. Ualmuy was the most important as our culture's matriarch, she was to create a magical machine that was very complex, to ensure that the birds were not allowed to come close to us. Ualmuy would take some time to do this, but she was confident she could succeed, for she had watched the birds for a long time as they circled our land, but never did they land and there was an explanation as to why, one which she would not tell. She simply performed her rituals of radiance, and did her best to guide those following her."

The young girl outside looked up, wondering why the women in the orphanage looked so sad, why were they staring off so intently towards the window, out towards the metallic scrapers along the resort's rim. The woman coughed. "But as she did, Ualmuy did begin to notice that the Great Birds watched when she did this. It began to occur to her, that the birds were trying to learn the druid's secrets, for the stars up in the sky would not tell them. So the druid would do her rituals in the morning and then begin to perform her magic and spell-work during the daytime when the Great Birds were awake, for she knew they would be watching and learning from a distance. There was one thing she couldn't figure out." Mother Sovereign took her large ladle and continued to rotate it slowly, injecting tender love and care into the broth. "The Great Birds had been above for as long as Kymraazistan's history recorded, but even now were watching to learn druidcraft. Why hadn't they learned yet? Were they dim? No, Ualmuy concluded, ravens are a clever race of birds. It had to be something else. But what could it be?"

The young girl listened intently to the poignant sound of her voice.

"She went into the forest and meditated, trying to discover the answer. Ualmuy, perplexed by this question took out her dice of fate. People often thought of fate as something preceded, but in actuality it was an entity that was always within and would reveal the truth in passing when the right moment arrived, and this dice was no different. Can anyone tell me why?" Most of the children went silent, but one who'd heard this story before raised their hand. "Oh oooh, I know! Because the dice doesn't have numbers, it gives a new symbol everytime! One it'd never rolled before and will never roll the same again!" The children were in awe.

"That's correct." Mother Sovereign confirmed, her eyes kind.  "When she used her die, the dice revealed to her the answer, but only as a riddle. Ualmuy's mind after several rolls deduced that, since Druid magic was interpersonal- that is to say, based on different feelings, experiences and conscious insights, no recipes work twice."

“N-no recipes work twice..” The girl outside repeated, her short green hair bobbing with her head in thought.

A girl in a pink dress and pigtails asked with her hands in her laps. She asked, "Mother, is it true? Can we never do a ritual twice?"

"This land is filled with magic, but it's not magic like it used to be. Magic now is different." Her mother said, the same sound of Mother Sovereign's voice. "Magic now is something that's being taught, even in textbooks and academies I hear. I don't trust it, I'd rather let our children learn the secrets of the land, the way that it was designed. It was natural and you could feel it within the way of the land, I suppose. The sentiment still holds, but to solve the mystery- Ualmuy realized how to trick the ravens. She went and for a full year, did the same ritual on a small goose. She realized the solution to her problems, as she realized that the birds were watching her rituals. She made several glyphs, several symbols on her hands and fingers, but she never drew them with anything except light and air, which couldn't be seen. A simple spell to create very loud, very large fireworks that could be seen across the horizon. After a year.."

The woman turned a coppery lever along the wall, turning the hearth's flame off and pulling the cauldron with a steely clamped instrument close. "The Great Birds went down and, seeing she was doing the ritual no more, swept down and kidnapped the bird. They attempted to repeat her ritual  and failed. But they didn't give up! They captured every goose, they captured every child. But they couldn't do the ritual. The fireworks wouldn't work.  They couldn't find a clue as to why and became furious, spinning in circles until their feathers shed in agony in a jet black rain of humiliation. They were forced to return to the sky to their great nest beyond the stars.. They wait even to this day, until now, frustrated and infuriated by the secrets of Kymraazistan. That is why Mother Raven protects us, to learn our secrets."

Mother Sovereign's voice trailed off, and then she began to sing a haunting hymn in a strange language. It was the language of these people and it sounded like words from a distant time. She began to sing, and some of the children began to sing as well. There was a loud THUD. They looked towards the window out into the skies, but they were silent. Having left the bushes and sneaking away, the green-haired girl crawled and snuck away from the window out towards the modernized concrete road and drank from the fountain. After washing and sparkling her face, she headed into the automated-door that slid on cue and disappeared from sight. Inside the Duckling orphanage, the frail and gentle Mother Sovereign began to serve each of the children. One of them tugged on her leg, pulling at her skinny kneesocks. "But Ma', why did she let the bird out? Why not just give it to them?"

Mother cleared her throat, leaning in to pat them on the head firmly. "Because.. sometimes, you’ve got to let go of the goose."

The green-haired girl snuck around the resort and pretended to be a tourist, sneaking around to eat from the occasional dining cart, but only when pushed back for return for the resort's server, never when fresh and pushed towards a guest initially. Living second-hand could become a lifestyle if she allowed it, and survival was a perfunctory concern for her. Days passed. She knew she could never do this in the capital again, if ever. She knew if they found out she'd be punished for it, maybe even sent back to live amongst the filth of a city-world back home.

On the fourth day, she went back. This time she approached the gate at a slow walk and it turned transparent, and the girl could hear the creaking of metal on metal in the sky above. A bustling ship in the sky flew down and soon, several men in suits, all with different pastel colored skin left on a motorcade of flying bike-like vehicles, blue trails from the flames as they descended. When they entered the orphanage's front entrance, a few geese outside honked and squeaked at them loudly, drawing minor annoyance to their stoic facade. Mother Sovereign opened the door cautiously, then folded her arms like a brace and stood anchored. "I told you, the answer is no."

The men already had papers out. "We know it's been 200 years. We've been waiting." One of them said.

"You mooks can bid on any planet, anywhere and we have no idea what you want from us, but we've told you no." She turned away. "Get off our property."

The man with the blue suit, looking vaguely like one might recognize a businessman from a distant planet, smiled a sinister, white grin. "This is the sole concentrated area of land in your world that, for reasons we don't know doesn't share the locals usual, issues. It's an agreement we're making, I suggest you not be so obstinate." He turned his head to see the resort behind her orphanage, connected wall to wall.

"It seems your neighbors have already accepted our complimentary 'Re-evaluation' offer." Mother Sovereign folded her arms tightly again. "We are not selling any land in this country. We have made an agreement as to how this is to be. If you will please leave, I'm sure that any of the surrounding nations would be glad to have a more civil conversation with you."

"Amelie Ualmuy, be reasonable." The lead man in dark shades said, "Speaking as a representative but someone looking out for your interests, you know that Kymraazistan is not in an enviable position with its neighbors. A tiny land such as yours can not hold its house for long. The fact that we're offering is something you cannot afford to ignore, and they're only asking for a few small pieces of land in a small corner of the nation. What do you have to lose Amelie?"

"My home. I've told you my answer already. The answer is no.” She turned away. "I suggest you leave."

The man in blue pressed his lips together with a smile. "You're a good mother, I'm sure you're a good mother to all your children and we're sure you are. That is something I can respect. But wouldn't you rather give these children riches and success beyond their imagination?"

"I'd rather they have an imagination." The woman said, now in a bad mood. "You've been coming here to try to buy me off for ages now. Who determines what are riches and success, you? High Kosmosis?"

"You just don't understand our system, or even the world at large. You have the opportunity to not worry about these matters, these problems are things of the past.." The man turned towards the coop. "But I'm sure the 'riches' here are, indispensable. You'll be sorry when the day comes and your neighbors aren't as patient as her."

Mother Sovereign shook her head, with a face of frustration and impatience. She rolled her eyes. A couple children were whispering behind her. "I suggest you never return here again." The man looked at the geese, and he smiled. He didn't say anything more and the men in the suits returned on their vehicles back to the ship.

Exhausted and pent up, Mother Sovereign returned to her orphanage. The children looked at her and the woman put her hands on their shoulders. "Don't worry about those ghouls." She hugged the child in front of her. Ualmuy embraced the world of magic that existed behind the trees, the magic that was in the sky, the land and all around them. She sang and danced with the children, even the small boy who was missing a foot from the ankle and who wore a glass leg that had to be replaced every month.

The following week, she looked at her pantry. The supplies of rations had been eaten through and the homegrown harvest was scarce this season. With little other options and hungry children to feed, Mother Sovereign made the decision to swallow her pride and head to the building in back, having to go in front because there were no entrances or paths connecting the two inside. She turned away from her orphanage and entered the modernized resort. When the doors closed behind her, a woman who'd been standing there looked at her, one with cherry-red hair, once black, wearing a pinstripe suit that gleamed with spotlights and rubbery texture. "Our country's martyr and beauteous charity case." She said, not a hint of warmth in her voice, her accent retrained for professionalism. "To what do I owe the pleasure, from this visit on high?"

"Cut the crap Worlyn, the children's stomachs are growling." Mother Sovereign responded bluntly. "Sneak me some supplies. I won't tell anyone."

Worlyn smirked and placed a hand on her hip, glossy nails running down the smooth skintight surface of her suit.

"I can't. It's against company policy. We cannot all be as charitable as you dearest!"

"Worlyn-" Mother Sovereign began to protest. "Be reasonable. I'm begging you."

"There is no reason. No, no reason at all." She stiffened up. "To listen to the words of a beggar. Perhaps, our country's oh-so disposed and vacant princess can order me to care. But of course, you will never do that, for you do not want them to know of your existence.  If you can't find other places for your children to go feed, may I suggest signing them up with Kosmosis Inn and fulfilling an employment contract? It comes with food, shelter, a free education.. We're more than willing to take them off your hands, at this point we would accept any child."

The woman turned away. "Look, just provide a little food for them, we don't even have any meat to cook with!"

"I'm sorry." Worlyn turned away, then turned back away. "You're the one who's being obstinate. Everything in our great land has been stripped away, has been a long time ago. The days of druids and magic, of mystical auras that govern our life is long over. It's all been replaced with hard science and logic. But for the leader of a country to run from their throne to be some, Orphan pauper. Pathetic. As for those strays you take in? The price of admission is high and the poor must pay with their souls, even their future."

"I won't let the poor and meek be stripped of their souls." Mother Sovereign crossed her arms, sighing. "I'll do anything. Please, if you won't do it for an old friend, for the children perhaps.."

Worlyn pouted, then sighed and rolled her eyes. "God, fine. But.." She paused, rubbing her chin as if scratching a thought with a coin and hoping it flipped upright. "Hmm, so I have some new suitors coming, in three months. Important guests, galactic regulators from the G3j-Inspectors Dulveta. The tourism for this world is huge, you wouldn't know it because they pay us to conceal it well. They're fascinated by 'the folk land' as they say. Perhaps you could give them the old, merry-cherry routine, the song and dance, they could use some entertainment. Do the rain dances and shaka-shaka, you know the schtick. Do a little magic for them?"

"I'll do magic to them." Amelie protested.

"Be nice. But oh, I'm sure you can feed those kiddies off stories of the before-times. Tell them it with a straight face." She put a hand on Mother Sovereign's shoulder and smiled.

"Promise me the food?" Amelie asked.

"Promise me the show." Worlyn replied.

"No." "No."

"It's a deal then." Worlyn said, a satisfied smile.

Within thirty minutes, 8 large pallets were carried by mechanical droids, metal men in sharp bellhop outfits that brought to Mother Sovereign's basement storage. She watched them carry the supplies one by one, without question or stopping, each like an ant in the midst of a march. These ants held no lack of a question, everything in their simple instructions was a collection of facts and automation connected as linearly as a traintrack entering its station in rote. "Thank mother raven.." Mother Sovereign said finally, deciding to get a bag to carry supplies to her storage shelves upstairs. The large metal door to the orphanage basement  began to creak and the noise of the automated droids began to subside. The sounds of children could be remotely heard, playing upstairs on the other side. She took out a cigarette and began to smoke walking out the door and locking it behind her.

Suddenly, there was a 'thud' behind the door. Amelie hesitated, the brunette turning slowly. She heard noises behind the door, and with a huff opened it and walked back to the crates. Curiously, she began to knock on each of the pallets one by one. On one of the pallets was a sound that caught her off-guard. Her finger bounced up and down several times in curiosity, and her eyes grew wide. The wooden crates moved, but there were no holes in them to look through.

She opened the top of the crate.

Down inside, surrounded by half eaten fruit and vegetable stacks was a girl with green hair, dirty as can be. Her face was smudged with dirt and grime, with a few scratches on her cheek and a bruise on her left temple. Her pale face was pale, perhaps with hunger, even as she munched down. The girl began to sob, huddling close to the corner, her lips trembling as she did.

Mother Sovereign froze, the sound of her beating heart and the creaking of the air filling the space. From the girl's corner, Amelie could hear no heartbeat, only a slight whirring that reminded her of a ceiling fan in the resort lobby. "What's going on here?" The owner of the Duckling orphanage said, eyebrow raised. "Oh, they sent me a girl. I guess I'll have to cook and eat her." She said with a smirk.

She began to look at the crates around the girl. She took one box out, the girl crying as she stood up. "Well I'll be. Are you a Kosmosis spy?"

The girl nodded. "I'm from Kosmosis. But I'm not a spy."

Amelie figured she came from the hotel, maybe a guest lost their kid. "What's your name?"

"My name.." The girl said, but looked away reluctantly. "Is.. is T.."

She turned away, a look of distress on her face. "I'm sorry but- I'd rather not say."

"It's fine." Amelie replied, she tried to comfort her. "I take in alot of children, are you looking for a new home?"

"I'm lost."

"That's not what I asked. Not all who search are lost, and not all who are lost are without a direction." Amelie said with a hint of kindness. "My name is Amelie. You can call me Mother Sovereign, or Ma' or Nana or whatever you prefer.."

"O-okay, Ammy. I cannot tell you my name, sorry."

"It's fine." Amelie said, hugging the girl. "It's not your name, just like it's not my name. It's what we call each other. I won't call you that. Whatever name you wish for, I'll call you that instead. Okay?"

Leaning into it, she put an arm over the women, who couldn't help but notice the barcode on her arm. Amelie's eyes went wide.

"Just, call me.. Pixie. I heard this place had Pixies once, and they brought light to people's life... I wanna light things up like them."

Amelie stopped hugging her and paced around the room. She went to a small cellar door, opened it up and came back with a container of whisky. "Want a drink, kiddo?" She poured it into a glass.

"But then again, you're not a child, no. So this should be fine." She offered her the cup, and 'Pixie' drank. a small amount from it. Amelie opened up another crate and found a large bag of caramel-flavored nuts and handed it over. The green haired girl was lead upstairs to her office, a room filled with shelves of books, mystical artifacts and an old wooden crook along the wall hung up. They ate and drank. The child didn’t get drunk or poisoned, confirming Amelie’s suspicions that this wasn’t a flesh and blood child.

When they finished, Amelie asked if Pixie wanted to go back to the resort.

"I can't." She said, "The woman at the desk said I have bad 'thief' hair, and I don't want to go back anyway."

"Then, perhaps indulge me in a game." Mother Sovereign reached into the pocket of her apron, and the motion was so ordinary it would have been invisible in any other life. She drew out a small object wrapped in cloth.

A single dice.

It wasn't like any regular die, not that the girl had seen any. "This die is called Kamujiri. It's among our world's oldest magic." She held the dice in the palm of her hand. "When I was your age, I would play games with this all day, every day. I'm so happy to finally get the chance to do so again."

"What do you mean?" The green-haired girl said, a hint of interest in her voice.

"Say, you and I roll Kamujiri, and if I win- I take you to your family. But if you win, I get to keep you here with me- Err, I mean you get to stay here." Amelie said, the first time to her that the idea had even entered her mind. "But we won't let our emotions guide us. We'll roll this die and let it determine our fates. But for each number, there is a consequence, a reward and a curse. And to win, you have to know which to accept, and which to avoid."

"How will I know which to accept or avoid?" The girl asked.

"That's just it- you won't. That's the point of the game! And no number repeats twice or is predictable." She took a deep breath and took a swig of alcohol from her hipflask.

 "Alright, so we'll roll the dice. Let's play."

Taking the dice cautiously, the girl rolled them onto the ground, the dice landing on.. two buckmeats? Fruits, that Mother Sovereign was able to pull from the pallets. She offered them to her.

"Do you accept?"

"W-wait." The girl said. The fruit seemed good, but, what if it was a trick?

"How do I know if I'm supposed to accept or- avoid this?"

Amelie patted her on the head. "Okay, pass then. Just roll again.”

She did so, this time landing on a side with 10 knives. Mother Sovereign briefly went up, then back back down with kitchen knives and aimed them at the girl as if preparing to toss them.

"Do you accept?"

"I-" The girl was getting confused. This was a very strange game.

“I,” Pixie’s eyes flicked between the fruit in Amelie’s palm and the sudden, impossible ten knives the die had just demanded into being. “I don’t understand how I’m supposed to win if I can’t know what anything means.”

“That’s the first lesson Kamujiri teaches,” she said.

“It does.” Amelie raised one of the kitchen knives by the handle, not threateningly, not theatrically. Like a tool. Like a truth. “The trick is, the reward and curse don’t live inside the symbol. They happen when you take it into your hands.”

“Take what into my hands?” The girl asked.

“Fate, some would call it.” Amelie smirked.

Pixie swallowed. Her throat felt too small for all the air in the room at the moment. She tried to parse the metaphor and looked at the dice carefully.

"Every diceroll by itself is meaningless, so far as the chaotic randomness of the universe itself is. The lie the game sells is that you can know which is a curse or a blessing, when they’re one in the same." She smiled. "In actuality- the game is a simply tally contest. You earn points by accepting everything and rejecting nothing.”

She waved her knife. “All you have to do is take every opportunity life gives you."

"Okay." The girl said, and in a gesture Amelie hadn't seen, not even from the rowdy orphan boys who lived here, took the knives. "I accept it ma'am."

She closed her eyes and prepared to be stabbed with knives. Smirking, Amelie flung them at her. When she opened her eyes, they were stabbed around the wall inches from her.

"Severing ties. Knives are not only for hurting. Knives are for separating what’s been fused together, and in druidic mythology, it teaches that 'Fusion is the great deceiver' The desire to be fused with the flesh, with gold and death, with all things will leave one immeasurably diluted and in despair. To meld is the end of one. To cut into two, is the start of all good." She snickered. "It's abit of a bone to those ol' Shionist jabbi's, but we came up with it first." Amelie slid a single knife across the desk, handle-first, toward Pixie. The knife was cold. Honest. A simple piece of steel. "To cleave a heart in two, is how one's heart makes it thru."

After the fear subsided, she turned to the buckmeats. "And these? They seem an obvious blessing, but- a curse? “

“The curse is that food is never just food,” Amelie said softly. “Sometimes it’s a leash made out of sweetness. Sometimes it’s a promise that asks to be paid back later.”

Pixie’s fingers hovered over the fruit like a bird uncertain of a landing.

“You mean if I accept it, I’m, indebted.”

"Mhm." Amelie said. "Why do you think people let themselves get taken in by that silly hotel you were at? Because food and brunch, schedules and warm hospitality is a clockwork concession. Promises they trust. Food tells the world, one is alive. And giving it guarantees life, but guarantees in life are the poison to all that is good. A fusion, a meld, because if one can guarantee you life, they can also guarantee you death. So offering food, or anything generous should always be looked at suspiciously." She picked up the dice and playfully rolled them to make her point.

They landed on skulls.

"There are no guarantees in life. That is the greatest lesson of Druidry. That’s Kamujiri. No blessings or curses, no good or bad- merely what we accept." She picked it up between her pointer and middle finger to show to Pixie. "And since we all must accept life, and in turn death- a true player accepts everything, and rejects nothing in life nor death. If you treat every offer as potentially poisoned, you stay alive, because you may as well be already dead. That, is true the essence of freedom."

She ran her hand through Pixie's hair and scuffled her softly.

"So, do you wanna stay at my place? Do you accept my hospitality?"

Pixie felt that she understood. Everything is a question of life and death, a lesson she'd learn. And in that, she realized Amelie understood her plight, and the true nature of the game. Pixie thought for a moment, then took up the dice in her hands.

"I reject it."

The room went dark, and the sounds of the children's laughter were absent. It was as if they were playing a game of hide-and-seek again.

"There are, uh, some people after me. If they discover you have me, it'll put your whole orphanage in danger. Besides, didn't you just say food and safe things are bad?"

Amelie shrugged. "Well, that is what my spirituality teaches me anyway- I was always a lousy learner, so I don't accept and believe everything in the broth, as they say. I accept your company, and in doing so accept the responsibility of caring for my own life. I understand now that life and death is a cycle of fusing and cleaving, that you cannot ever fully be fused, even with another self, as two selves cannot exist as one forever. But I reject what Druidry says of food and family," She pat her head. "It's true that these can become paralyzing guarantees, and where lies guarantee is a guaranteed grave. But, if one is merely offered unconditional love and becomes a stone, there's no guarantee the other will accept what's being offered. In that light, Kamujiri has no value in anything to do with love and limerence, which are infinite and incalculable. It merely offers what we choose to reject. So why? What's wrong with food and family? The food and family aren't bad- accepting their blessing or curse is. We accept life. We accept the death. We may leave this life anytime we choose, just as the children at this orphanage may. I try my best, that's all I can say. If my services and safety are inadequate and harm may come to them and bring them displeasure, they should seek better blessings. Otherwise, simply-"

"Accept everything and reject nothing."

Pixie replied, struck by the meaning of her words.

She took up the fresh buckmeat fruit in one hand.

"We accept those to live with. The chosen bonds."

Then the knife in the other.

"And we reject those who aren't good for us. The necessary cut."

She put the knives away, and poured herself another drink.

“And you,” Amelie added, voice suddenly warm as soup, “are going to learn the difference between being kept and being home. I'm merely offering you a place to stay, like them. If it comes to risk to me, so be it. If it comes to risk to these children- I offer no guarantees.” She took a long sip and sighed. "And- I tell them all as such when they come to this orphanage. The good times are for when they leave, for theirs to take when they decide to leave. But they are not for the moment. Do you know why I find that so fascinating?"

The two were interrupted by a knock on the door. "Ma', Cassey found a bunch of Jarcrow eggs and a nest outside! Come look!" A little girl said. Laughing gently, Amelie guided Pixie out and soon found herself trekking through the forest to the side of the fence. Pixie watched her interact with the other children kindly and yet, not dutifully. More like she was another one of them that they happened to enjoy circulating around. She had a game, Pixie noticed, and so did they.

Ultimately Pixie slept on the den couch, stopping short of being allowed a room or to bunk with the others upstairs in the warmer cot and blankets. With the supplies lent by Worlyn, the Duckling orphanage was able to eat merrily, and everyone lived happily ever after.

“The end.”

 

__________________________________ꕤ⎝ ༺✧༻ ⎠ꕤ  _________________________________

 

 

"That's not the end!" Pixie said, the young mechroid said in bed. Amelia giggled a tad. "No, of course not. I'll tell you the rest when you're older."

"But you always stop at that part!" Pixie pouted. She loved hearing Amelia's stories like this, of her two mothers only one had the nurturing hand of a sinner disguised as a saint, always hovering over and filling her head with light. Amelia tucked a port into Pixie's neck and then the sheets over her, kissing her goodnight. Soon she turned off the lights and left.

"There was a reason she didn't tell you." A new voice said from behind the door. Pixie turned around, her eyes going wide as the holographic form of Queen Kosmopolis. "M-mom.."

Kosmo didn't smile as Amelie had, and this made Pixie's ears go stiff. "Ssh, no one told you this but.. Amelia is actually.."

"Amelie from the story. Geez, obviously." Pixie huffed.

 

 

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"Kymraazistan? That's what the citystate of Kosmopolis used to be called. A small country on the western shore of Greatland , before its fall and subsequent absorption by Kosmo corp. A tiny kingdom, before it was modernized it was the folklore capital of the world, so some say." Jazz told Lincoln, pulling up a classic burgundy tome full of old folkish stories that her mother’s used to read to her. "I've loved Kymra lore since I was 5. It's abit, wayward from Shionist fables and beliefs, but it has some interesting ideas on how to live and what to avoid. It is a spiritual tradition that values introspection as a concept of life over ignorance as death, it is a way to value reflection itself over the simple satisfaction of being alive, something which you would think is universal.. why do you ask?"

Lincoln blinked, she knew better than to start Jazz on any impassioned topic. But it was for that reason that she knew she could get a lecture in the right direction, one in way of answers. She straightened her mini-skirt and sat on Jazz's plush bed, patting the oversized plushies on it. "I was hoping it held a hint about the Void, and Nobu that arise from there. Has anyone ever discovered why Nobu don't pop up there?"

Jazz's mouth pulled upward into a small smile.

She popped the folk grimoire onto the bed and snuggled up next to Lincoln, squishing her friend's boobs somewhat before flipping through the pages to the imagery of a big black bird coating the king in the illustration across the pagespread. "Legend says its due to the land's protection from their folk figure and worshiped spirit, Mother Raven. for the land has always been an unfailing nurturer of people and animals alike, for as long as people can remember. Mother Raven keeps all beings safe from harm or danger from the sky, like she is overlooking them." She turned the page, showing an illustration of Mother Raven plucking a robed druid through the sky. "Which is why no one can see or enter the raven's home. Everyone knows it's in a big cliff, somewhere in the mountains, but- it can't be found. Mother Raven only brings people into it if they need a blessing from her, but that requires a metaphorical sacrifice of one's life. Oh oh oooohh my favorite is the story of a mother Raven sacrificing herself to protect a feyland child. Those that do are said to acquire magical powers, and the speaker of the nest known as the Arch Highcrone one day-"

"I get it, it's a story." Lincoln said. "But that's just a myth right? In recent centuries countries have tried to study why no Nobu attacks Kosmopolis, or historically its older country, but.."

Jazz shrugged. "Oh, I don't know then. Nobody does! There are alot of theories.. It's as abit of a modern mystery as Kosmo corp is, and is a good example of why it's still so secretive and aloof. I do have one thought I've researched!" She picked up a stuffed ram in a pastel gown and frills and snuggled it.

"Y-yeah, what do you got?" Lincoln asked, gently pulling off Jazz's hand from sliding too close to her bosom.

"The raven's been a symbol of Kymra for thousands of years and seems to be a strong guardian or a mother figure." She said. "But, curious minds look deeper! I've done my research and there are monsters, alot of them in Kymraazistan's mythology, some that don't resemble Nobu at all! Along with very ancient stories of warriors who fought them in a silent desert."                  

"Monsters?" Lincoln said. "But, that's not Nobu's home, is it?"

Jazz nodded.

"Right, no Nobu attack that place. So why are there stories of monsters? Plus they don't match the description of other ancient Nobu at the time! Too big, and wildly different. Many seem similar to desert creatures and cavernous animals you'd expect in mythology- but there's a huge problem. Kymraazistan was a forested highland kingdom. It had no desert! The country doesn't isn’t even bordered or anywhere near a desert, it's all hills and forests! And no desert creatures like the lizard monsters, apex sandapes and sky-snapes that exist there, are only said to have existed in lore! So why are there creatures like that in their myths? I mean, it doesn't sound like Kymra at all!"

"Right right." Lincoln said, following her logic very soundly. It all did sound rather strange, if abit over-interpretative to read into a few old folk tales. She knew Shionism loved to focus on fairytales, and apparently Kymraazistan was more akin to the folktales nerds into LARP and sorcery got into- Druids, alchemy, feylanders, pixies and sprites, spirit critters, the offsprings of mythics and humans.

"They say they're from 'faraway'- but that's not just because ancient Kymraazistan was a secluded country. Here's my theory." Jazz raised her hand as if being called upon by a teacher. "Kymraazistan as a land- or, if not atleast its people, came from somewhere else.”

"Oh?" Lincoln said, confused. "You mean like.. world transference? So the place is from Orchid like Nightfall and residents of Acorn grove are!"

"Yeah, similar! But, I don't think they're from there. Switcheroos and transfers from there are common throughout the world, but my theory is, Kymraazistan from ancient times, hails from another universe that's not ours nor Orchids. One where such monsters and wastelands exist!"

Lincoln smiled slightly. "You've never been known to think small."

Jazz collapsed her head on the bed. "But that's why I think Mother Raven, or atleast her myths are abit of a way for some of the people of Kosmo to think about the Void. It's like a fairytale, a bedtime story for adults, because it gives an alternative metaphorical explanation to the Void's origins. The Void is not merely a place, but a metaphor. Like a forest, a desert, a raven's nest- the land itself can be a metaphor for the soul's own, internal conflict. Maybe that's why Mother Raven didn't protect or hunt and eliminate these monsters from, that place and whereever it came from. She allowed the Mythics to thrive and proliferate, as if to say those monsters were 'part of the land' and its origin, and said conflict. Geographical consciousness is in a way, spiritual." She snuggled into Lincoln's soft arm.

"But, that's all just speculation. Kymraazistan as a country doesn't even really exist in the same sense anymore, so who knows! We still don't know why the Void or nobu exists in the first place!"

"Maybe it's nothing at all," Lincoln replied. "Like a lot of mysteries in life." She wasn't trying to sound pessimistic or anything, or even try and make a philosophical point. She was just stating a fact- the Void, and the Monsters weren't something that needed a reason, they just were. Like how sometimes life can't be explained, sometimes the Void and the Nobu can't either.

"Maybe," Jazz said with a warm smile, flipping around on the bed onto her chest.

"Maybe, someday we'll investigate and find the answers.."

 

 

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Summer rolled in like a wave, crashing over and over with increasing intensity.

A stressed out Prima tensed up, her hand never letting go of Tina's own as they entered the Worlyn estate hotel. There was a high-profile scientist circuit nearby in the big city that would be advertising the aerodynamic Particle-engine thruster, created by Tina Donna truly. She'd also be showing off her other inventions and new designs as she'd been traveling around the world on tour, while Prima had been visiting every dojo, shaolin and martial arts school she could find to deepen her knowledge of the ways of the fist.

It was because this was Prima's job, her duty and obligation to go represent the Donna family, to represent what it stood for, and who she was on this day. A day she had come to hate with a passion of spite and loathing. A meeting with their own mother. The two had checked in and already Tina was looking at the gizmos on stretchers and carts along with the numerous world-famous scientists she recognized in the lobby. "Look Prima! It's the world reknown researcher on the Temnayaborg! And there's the nano-rail lightspeed developer, Margartha Winters! Ooh ooh we have to check out-" On one hand, Tina had never been this excited in her lifetime it seemed, the girl was usually a shy powderkeg short of a wallflower. But here in this hotel, her sister saw her spring in every direction imaginable.

Prima's head pulled down to the right. The lobby was swarming with a large amount of newsies. They were trying to get her, or someone else as they rushed past her. Prima she was not the person they wanted. She wanted to see nothing, and no one. The tall, stocky woman arriving with a towel around her neck and a gilded stretchsuit arrived, her glossy gilded outfit stopped short of her knees and elbows barely fit her when bulged out with her expansive musculature. It made her appear to be a linebacker. The men and women of the press shuffling past her, on their phones or chatting with companions, were all dressed more or less in suits and dresses as they swarmed and asked her questions.

Yet the woman made no effort to keep her head lowered. A warrior of pride, Mama Might. Madelyn Demetria, the so-called goddess of the harvest. The woman had a female crewcut that was shaved around the sides of her head, which revealed numerous tattoos etched into her skin.

"Excuse me, madam." One man said, sticking a phone in front of Madelyn and talking over his shoulder. "I represent a Kosmocorp toy company, I was wondering if you'd given any thought to signing a merchandising deal and the rights to-"

Madelyn smacked him with the palm of her left hand, slamming it hard and cracking his phone and the wrist. "Get the fuck out of my sight."

Her fist knocked the phone from his hand and into the lap of the man who tried to ask her a question after him. The man dropped to the floor, clutching his broken wrist in pain and cringing. “If you need my opinion, go ask gravity.” She said.

She walked past him and ignored the other reporters, the 8' 6" woman able to pass them  in a single stride. "Hey, hey stop." Another man in a suit said, pointing his finger up and yelling. "Excuse me, uh.. I'm- sorry for the inconvenience, but world-class martial champion and A-rank Mama Might, we were wondering if you could tell us, uh.. what about how you like these new products? Do you think they have potential, if you were an investor?"

"I'm not a producer." Madelyn corrected, her head low but not her lips. "If I was an investor, I'd throw them off a cliff. No one is going to sell me any shit."

Prima stewed in angst. Her sister was right in front of her, trying to dodge around the mob of media, and with her hand on her back. She had to make her way through the press, like a bull pushing through a crowd of bullfighters made of straw, effortlessly rammed aside from her most casual stride.

“Her new stuff is getting lots of attention, and I was wondering if you could give me an opinion on what your family thought-”

Madelyn pulled out her fist and wrapped it around the reporter's crotch. The newsie flipped over, clutching at his privates and screaming in pain. "I got your opinion right here." With a kick to his dick, he went flying across the room and cracked into a wall before slumping unconscious. It was always like this everywhere she went, if people wanted to court the goddess of the harvest, they had to abide by her song and dance. Tina finally made it through. She chorused and leaped into their arms, hugging her mother.

“Mom!!!”

"It's a big day today, Tinny." Mama Might said.

"Mmh!" Tina moaned.

"Mom! This is where we're going to meet all of these super important people." Tina waved, pointing around past the miasma of reporters to other scientists setting up tables and kiosks in the lobby.  Mama Might gave a silvery grin. "That's precious as an avalanche sweetie." She turned to see the blond ponytailed girl looking away. "And, oh look the Prima is here."

Prima squeezed her fist. When her mother raised her hand for a handshake, Prima refused to take it. "Well 'The Prima', is only here to escort Tina! She's not here for you!" She announced formally. "Oh.. That's just.." Mama Might looked back at Tina, who was hugging the woman even tighter. She sighed, pulling out the chair and turning back to her daughter, her fist resting in a fist and ready to smash her. "Oh, you sure about that?"

“What kind of girl would just assume she wouldn't want to see her mother?"

She walked over. "Oh.. In that case kid."

"MOMDAMN!" Prima swore, as Madelyn punted her.

Madelyn threw her fist towards Prima. "Get lost!"

Prima in the heat of the moment held back, she knew it would come to this- her mother was just testing her. She wanted to see her block it, or to punch back, to pull her into a fight. To see which was stronger, and to test her progeny and how far she's come. If she got into a full on brawl right here in the hotel lobby, it'd be her dream come true. That's what this woman wanted!

To test her skills and fight her. She knew Mama wanted it, because there was nothing Prima in her boiling blood wanted more than that exact thing.

The blond girl dodged the hit instead, the punch creating a rush of air that went out like a hurricane from one of the room's corner fancy doors, which burst open and flew off its handle flipping, the wall cracking around it.

"Yeah! Who the s’well would ever wanna see you!?!" Prima declared.

A few of the other reporters noticed and soon the mob surrounded them. "Is that Prima, Mama Might's daughter? The one who runs her dojo and takes on challengers worldwide?"

"Like mother like daughter!"

"Get her an interview!" "Maybe we can sign her onto an endorsement deal! What's she doing in Kosmopolis?"

"Prima-" Tina began.

"Primaaaa!" Her mother huffed, throwing her a condescending glance. The two became increasingly swarmed by media, as if they were fishbait thrown into a river and now in a sea of minnows.

Prima gave them a look, and then had to punch a reporter woman's head forward when she got too close. "Mom, this is why you came here? This is what your life is? Your career? Running from a news circuit every week, and talking about your stuff? 'Mother of the harvest' yeah sure.."

 Her own mother was a famewhore and a media slut, just like the rest of the sold-out martial arts circuit. Just because she happened to be the strongest fighter didn't change that.

"It's 'Goddess of the harvest', get it right girl!" Mama began slapping away and chucking the increasing number of press members like bowling pins sending them tumbling backwards before they'd even gotten close enough to take her picture or have her sign something. "It's all in a day’s work! I got to represent my family and show them off! What kind of mother is that who doesn't show off her kids, huh?"

"Well- uh.." Prima stopped, the media now rushing over her too. But she gave one of the reporters a slap, sending a woman across the lobby with her head to the ground. She looked at them. "Like whatever." The two found themselves engaged in a full on brawl against the hysterical mob rushing around them. "SHOO SHOO!" Prima shrieked.

"GET AWAY FROM MY DAUGHTER! THE ONLY ONE WHO GETS TO FIGHT HER IS ME!" Mama Might yelled.

From the staircase, Tina sat down and watched, sighing.

"It's always like this with family huh.."

An hour later they rested back in their hotel room. The two had been invited before the circuitry venue day to a luxury brunch at one of the surrounding tourist buildings, their mother had ordered the most expensive food they could, and invited her staff and security detail to join. "She said she's reserved the whole place tomorrow. You could buy a house with how much this place cost.." Tina said, looking at the brochure.

"What did she spend it all on?" Prima asked. "A golden belt, a sash to her glory? A red carpet she'd turn into a bandana?" Prima grumbled, having no patience for that biologically-adjacent woman.

"P-prima, can you please try to get along? Just for one day.." Tina said.

Prima raised her fist in the air. "She abandoned us Tina! Why would I ever forgive that!?"

"Yes, but, she's h-here now isn't she?" Tina asked.

"She came all this way to see you, and your inventions- But she could've come see us back at the dojo anytime. I'm not gonna forgive her for that." Prima huffed.

Tina sighed. "I'm just glad she's here! And you both are, too! My mother and my sister. I'm just glad we all get to-"

She looked at Prima's eyes, who was growling at her like a Siberian frostbeast.

"And, I don't like this place.. This city.. I don't belong here! It's just always.. I can't.. I always get frustrated when I'm here, but I cannot take it out on the buildings or ground or all the robots here. It's all metal, and also not my property."

Tina shrugged, opening her booktop. "Personally, I love kosmopolis. The industry, the empirical city plannings, the tech.. But for sure, it's not the place for you. It's a place for intellect, or.."

Prima rose her head up. She gave a sideways glance.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Prima said.

After an awkward silence, Tina continued. "People who can't fight rely upon fighting people who can, that's you and mom! But, in this city people who can make things make things for people who don't know how to. You see that here, and it's more my style. It's the spirit of the city. It's where Pixie came from, and I uh, I like it alot." Tina answered.

"That's true, you're a Kosmo-stan." Prima said. "I'm not. Pixie's beat me up enough times that it's not really fair! She doesn't even know martial arts. What's the point of fighting if you're just born a big strong indestructible robot who cannot be beat? Boooring!"

"What’s the point of fighting if building can prevent the need?" Tina replied. The baroque reply caught Prima off guard, abit too heavy to digest in the moment.

Tina raised her head. "But anyway, I really like the new inventions I see in the news! If it makes the city a better place, it's a good thing, not bad." She looked out the window- a skyline of multicolored scrapers etched into a plasticisque city, bright colorful lights and rails across elevated buildings. A variety of latex suited staff and drones patrolled and maintained it on every floor, through shining colored-lens windows and clearscapes.

Prima looked around her room at the towering spires of the Kosmopolis skyline that poked through the window. In contrast, Prima's own private suite was decorated in simple furnishings of hardwood with leather and silver, with large-screen monitors in every direction, some showing her own face in the advertisements for the Donna family. Others showed the Kosmo tech and its products being used to power other parts of the city. The holographic billboards and sleek, futuristic metro look reminded Prima of Greatland, the premier country that the city-state sat on the very border of and shared a prominent alliance and geopolitical partnership with.

"It's a big bright city of gasmasked robots. They do whatever you want here," Prima said. "Like whatever."

"It's the greatest city of them all," Tina said, the two now going to take a walk to one of the lower floors to walk into the main shopping plaza among the a cathedral of intelligible plastic towers and metallic skylines. It was as wide as two football fields were stretched out, but in only a single floor with merchants on every side as far as the eye can see. "Prima, I love kosmo tech, and I love mom! But.. if you don't like this place and aren't happy to see her, why don't you leave?"

"Huh?" Prima turned. "Of course, I can't leave."

She threw both arms around her younger sister. "Someone has to look out for you!"

 

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Penny, a year older continued to listen to Amelia's story. In the tale, Mother Sovereign, then known as Amelie was dressed with her face painted cream-white, a black streak across her nose and lips painted black and a symbol that if one squinted, faintly resembled a dot with a crescent over it, like an odd sickle or blade etched across her forehead. Aside from stark makeup, she wore a hooded cloak with a purple color that went all the way to her toes, and a hood that hung behind her head to cover her ears. The look was completed by her silver metal boots, and a golden metal breastplate that adorned her chest. She looked like a warrior priestess with armor plates, but also like a dark woman with a mask of the night. She looked like a woman in shadow with the stars. She looked like a figure of legend.

Three months had flown by since she first took ‘Pixie’ into her orphanage, who would sometimes sleep and stay, sometimes wander the countryside. During that time she’d grown rather accustomed to the folkish country, its people and forests, and become friendly with all the children that lived there. And so too, Mother Sovereign grew attached to the strange child.

"Welcome to our country." Mother Sovereign replied, her voice a bit more hushed. "Thank you for coming. Come in, come in." They entered the hut and sat around the hotel lobby as the children sat in back and the tourists in front rows.

This was the appearance of the Kurajahurst ("Night Woodstar" in Kymraazistan dialect), an ancient mystical drudic role meant to regulate watch over the stars, forests and nature, and to be a conduit of her spirituality and myth. They were something of folkish storytellers, bards of the rustic Kymraazistan society in ancient times. Her friends, faces painted up and in different getups of black-and-brightly colored garnish robes, tights, gloves and sashes, hates and skeletal horns all stood beside her, some holding props and musical instruments.  The women and men who worked the land on the great farms, the women and men who harvested the wheat, barley and grains from the lands, were in her story about to do a great dance ritual atop the grain silos. These silos doubled as special observatory decks, the Kymraazistan's believed to be closest to the stars was divine, for one who could watch over the dirt and ground always held the prestige of the gods. Rows of men in suits and several woman, all tourists from far far away sat in a crowd as Mother Sovereign began to orate and perform the genesis myth of their world.

For Amelia it was the most fun of her life, and the most she could’ve ever imagined doing- a celebration in her homeland of their people, culture and traditions!

"Thank you for being here." Mother Sovereign said. "We're all very thankful. I, myself, am very grateful you're all here to listen. Because I've got a lot to share."

And so, on the observatory deck, Amelia the Sovereign and Mother, along with all the other dancers and singers who were wearing masks and painted-up in similar makeup to the night star priestess, now danced their own dance ritual. They danced, in unison with one another and to the music of the winds and the sounds of the grass that blew around their feet and the rustle of their fabrics. Amelia’s told the legend of her homeland, the fable of Kurajahurst and their legends. The story about a god who long ago watched the world form from his forge, as if stoking it from clay. It was a dance, a story about the world of their ancestors. Of old Cormethum, the great tortoise god who watched over them in the night of the ancient deserts. Of the Arch-Kurajahurst, the goddess of the night stars, the one who came to Harvest in the ancient times, before there were farms and cities, a goddess of the forests and rivers and fields. How she came from the heavens and the skies, and gave them the tools of war and magic, and taught them to grow food and protect their own when horrible beasts hunted humans in the drylands of the world back then before time began.

Then Amelia's friend, Harajuube stepped forward to tell the next part. It was a story of the goddess who was the first to sing and speak to her people, of her who raised her first daughter as a leader in battle against the fanged ones and great birds in the prehistory. Harathium was the first of the original seven Gods of the harvest and one of the oldest, wisest and strongest, whose beauteous voice and song blessed the land of harvest to grow forevermore, and in this world the country of Kymraazistan thrived in her wake. It was a story of the ancient goddess who gave the first of them all that they still do to this day, the harvest ritual where the people gathered in the fields and on the decks of the observatories and in the old grain silos to tell their stories and sing their songs of praise to the goddess. It was said that the love between Cormethum and Harathium made the god of Intellect, Aphathomasis, jealous, and so she plotted to destroy the world of harvest. That was the first fall, the story of the world and of their people and what divided them between them and their gods. All the while, Pixie watched with the other kids, holding their knees tightly to the chest with both arms.

As the dance went on, the other people in the audience were more enamored by the show than Pixie could possibly be. They cheered and made noise, and took pictures and videos, they clapped and danced and made new friends with one another. They took this opportunity to experience and see the local folk that they only could in this part of the world, where the old ways met the new. And they loved it, for the old ways were ancient, and they brought meaning and purpose to a people and a land.

But in contrast, Pixie did not like it.

Not because she felt it untrue, but because she could see behind the too-saccharine act of lady amelie, mother sovereign did not care for it either. It was all simply an act, a performance to make good on a bargain because she knew she was in good favor in the hearts of its people and wished to continue that. She was not a woman who wished for a new age of worship. She just wanted to be remembered by her people as a figurehead, a symbol of strength. The old ways could not be resurrected, only the old legends told. There could be no new myths. And thus, the people’s belief in the old goddesses and gods faded. All that remained was their legends and their lore. Pixie, for the first time, looked at the woman and saw that she did not like the act she was performing.

And yet, she knew she had to go through with it to satisfy the crowd who sat before them.

And so, the mother sovereign said to the crowd.

"Thank you all for coming, and for witnessing my stories and my dances.”

This woman had just made a minstrel- a caricature, selling out the culture and spirituality of Kymraazistan for a few loaves of bread. And when it was over, she couldn't have been happier, having conned two-fold at a loss of nothing more than an afternoon.

 

 

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Days later, Pixie followed Amelie through a trek to a local town, one not yet bought in by Kosmocorp's corporate nonsense. The rooftops of rows cottages surrounded the vision of those curious children behind her, eyeing the extreme vibrant reds with muted greens and saturated blues against fall-toned oranges shimmering with gold brick. In a village where the winding valleys and advent of spring seemed the most poignant melody in the air, children played in the streets and made friends, laughing and talking. "Stay close, don't go too far you little devils!" Mother Sovereign said playfully, watching as they scattered. Some chasing pigeons, others running towards the marketstreet to greet the vendors and stalls offering fresh produce recently reaped from the bounteous world's tidings. A single girl looked upon a statue- Grapheus, the female 'God of death,' the most mysterious of the 7 gods in Kymraazistan mythology. On her wrist sat a bird, the same one that the girl had seen in illustrations to represent the grandeur of Mother Raven, protector of the folkland.

Pixie didn’t speak to anyone as she looked at this statue. She couldn't. She could only look around and sigh, Mother Sovereign’s true heart and essence unmasked before her. A goddess who had forsaken her faith and people. Mother who had put on a show just the other day for the looks and gratification, selling a culture for those not part of it. She looked back and Pixie in repose.

She saw it all in Pixie’s eyes, and saw the truth of the goddess before her. She was a false god, Pixie knew the ritualistic nature of the performance Amelie had put on. She knew the nature of the old ways, and how the old myths continued to live on in these lands. She knew that they were being sold like an old book for the price of three or four copper coins, that they had been for a long time in the hearts and minds of these folk. Amelie was just the latest person in this line of false sages.

"Amelie, why did you perform for those people the other day?"

She finally asked, brunt and direct.

"So you knew." Amelie laughed gently, getting on her knees to look up at the statue.

"I know. You think I can't see you're a sellout. All the gods are, these days. They're old figures of legends. You're just a modern mystic. You're a conman."

Amelie sighed, giving her friend a playful squeeze. "I did it for the children." She answered, Pixie's eyes growing wide. "We're poor. A lot of the people who've lost their gods, are poor. The gods aren't so generous these days to us Kymraa folk. That's why they're selling theirs off. I just needed abit of food and to put on a performance for one afternoon. It wasn't a big deal." She said, raising her hands in defense.

Pixie wrinkled up abit as she shook her hand over Pixie's shoulder. "Doesn't that bother you? Not that I care but,” She asked. "Don't you care?"

"No." Amelie said. "I just care about the children, the future of our people. But I can't help everyone all at once." She answered. "I cannot be here for the children and the gods."

Amelie looked up and looked at the statue for one last moment.

"If they don't like that I disrespected their pantheon, this old gem can rust in the ground, as the old saying goes. I'll give them the time, a few more years until their myths are forgotten. Then, maybe in their memory of the gods they forget their past and remember me instead." She smiled again, and looked at her like she was a daughter. "Then I'll be immortal, remembered until the world ends." She finally said, holding Pixie's hand tightly.

Pixie looked back at the statue, then at her. "You're not the mother sovereign. You're Amelie- The witch of the night, the false one." She held out her hand, a bit coldly and with distaste.

"I'm no one." Amelie said, abit heartbreaking for Pixie's ears. "Just an outsider, some old lady and her orphanage. No one invites nobody to lunch my dear."

Pixie raised one brow. "You don't look that old."

"You'd be surprised." Amelie said. "Walk with me."

The two strolled abit through the marketplace, Amelie occasionally side-eyeing to keep track of the ratpack she'd brought with her. She bought the kids some food and sweets, a bit of fruit, vegetables and a baguette. It was not much, but she managed to give the kids some extra pocket money to buy themselves extra food to their hearts desire. A few more coins later, and she told the others to return to the center by the statue in an hour, and for anyone older to watch those younger.

The two walked to one stall in a street corner selling Zofafruits, Amelia cheerfully greeting the green-skinned, swarthy green lady standing behind rows of purple peachy, juicy orbs. Pixie gasped. "Y-you.. she.." They looked down. "You're a llavalite.." They said.

The lady looked at him strangely, bandana tied closely in back her head. "An ancient out dated term. You're quite charming." The lady replied, offering Amelie a purple sphere.

When Amelie tried to return with coins, she said 'for your trouble', with a knowing glare. The two began to walk away, a small child of the same complexion and odd grooves on her face poking from behind the stall.

"Is she..?" Pixie asked. "She's a... She's a..."

"Just a local selling fruit, Pixie." Amelia said, stepping to the woman's side. She smiled at her. "They're called Feyland here, love."

"Feyland? I know a Llavalite when I see one." Pixie said.

Amelie looked at her once more. "A long time ago, some visitors from the stars, nomads arrived in Harvest- well, here specifically, landing in Kymraazistan. Their descendants filled out folklore and became treasured legends. Even so, nowadays very few of them survive here." She said, holding out a bag. "Purple zofafruit, the best one can buy from a good source. Just don't eat the seeds, they're a bit hallucinogenic."

"I cannot believe it... So there are Llavalites living even way out here. Aren't they dangerous?"

"People are people. Not good or bad." Amelie replied. "In our myths, they were thought of like goblins or imps- funny-looking people who came from, well from far away. In some stories, they're very good. In others they're very bad. In many, tricksters and mischievous spirits even. Rumors spread that these folks spread disaster to lands they inhabit.." She said, raising the hand to a young child who ran over to the pair, with green brows rising abit around her eyes.

She turned to Pixie. “In fact, all those Kurajahurst dances and songs, along the play you saw the other day? Those were originally Llavalite traditions they did! We kinda took them and blended them abit, but isn’t that fascinating how culture is sometimes? A little something here, a little something there, kind of like spicing up a recipe.

“The Kurajahurst was, taught from Llavalites?”

"Yep! But those were just dances and stories afterall. Nowadays, they're just trying to get by, living like anyone else. They don't reproduce the same way that, I suppose other people do, so it’s not in their nature to spread hurriedly, they're not really growing in number, just like we're not." She said, rubbing the child's head and giving her hand the purple fruit. "Kymraazistan is on decline. The Feyland folk consider it their home, not space, not anywhere else on Ambera. I worry what'll happen to them, and all other so called 'mystics' when this country fades.  Myth and magic aren't made by people, they're born from them. And now those people are struggling.."

"A myth, like you." Pixie said. "A druid, some sort of legendary age of the dirt."

"I've long left those days behind." Amelie replied.

 "I am what I am."

Pixie scratched her cheek. “But, you are Ualmuy from the story right? The one who first talked to the birds?”

Amelie chuckled lightly. “No dear, but, that is what we tell ourselves. My mother told me she was Ualmuy of the legend. And her mother before that. It’s a tradition for druids. There might not have been a real founder at all, or maybe they arrived from the other world said to have been our origin, but who knows? Myths always have an inkling of truth them.”

"Then why did you take the name of sovereign?" Pixie asked.

Amelie looked towards a stall by an old druidic church building- modern, sleek and covered in chrome panels. Larger than the church's front gate and covering it's mosaics, a man in a rubbery chrome suit and slick hair standing in front of it. The augmentations on his metal arms and hands were obvious, the glisten in his eyes. His metal mask had an illuminated glow in the back like a set of eyes glowing  in the dark. In front of him, a crowd of children, he was giving out lollipops and treats like an icecream man in a suit and tie. She looked over at him angrily. "That.. is why."

Her hands clenched. "They came here, because the rest of Ambera wouldn't fall in line or accept them. Also realistically, there aren't any champions, 'Ultras' in this country like there are there. No martial force, just small villages and starving people who cannot turn them away." The man gave one of the children a brochure- no doubt, an invitation to Kosmocorp's many employment and free education centers.

"And thanks to them, we'll be left with these soulless clones and silly metal hats and metal men.. In the last 50 years they've intensified their efforts to try to colonize and own this country. Not through force or labor, but commerce.”

The chrome-suited man had the kind of smile you could hang a lantern on. It never dimmed. It never wavered. It stayed, bright and identical, regardless of who stood in front of it. He knelt to meet the children at eye level, practiced and gentle, and the crowd of little hands reached for lollipops like sunflowers turning toward a fake sun. Besides him, a female holographic digital assistant floated in the air ready to dispense information for any questions, answers the AI could gleefully provide.

On the brochure, a logo flashed in clean, friendly colors.

KOSMOCORP.

“Free education,” the man said, loud enough for the neighborhood to hear, smooth enough that it put his chrome plates and rubber tux to shame. “Stable housing. A future. We’re here to help Kymraazistan thrive.”

“They don’t have to burn our churches,” Amelie murmured. “They can just build a kiosk in front of them. Buy our children, fill their heads with lies, make them forsake tradition for their noisy world. Then someday, they'll come back and turn that church into a corporate center, or a bank, or a school. Take those children and their parents to your offices, have them spend their days there, under the shade of a glass building that shines brighter than the sun on a cloudless day. They'll teach them to love their corporation, because if they don't, they can't live. People can be bought. They already control everything we own, everything not home-grown or that doesn't come from a garden.”

She raised her fist at the kiosk, but no one was paying attention.

"But they'll never own me."

Pixie nodded.

“That’s why I took the name Mother Sovereign.” Amelie continued.

They began walking, slow, toward the church gate and the crowd.

As they approached, the chrome man’s eyes flicked over them. His pupils dilated in a way that looked like a camera adjusting.

“Mother Sovereign,” he said, with flawless pronunciation and a respectful tilt of the head. He spoke her title like he was gifting it back to her, polished and clean. “It’s an honor. We’ve heard so much about your cultural initiatives.”

"Cut the crap." She said, his wide smile way too grinny and white for her tastes. “Kosmocorp, they're just openly trying to get people to sell their souls on the streets now? Why don’t you creepers get lost.” she replied, and it wasn’t a greeting so much as a threat.

The man laughed, bright and weightless. “That’s us. I’m Mr. Higgs. Community Liaison for Rural Integration and Youth Advancement.”

"Wow. A whole planet and you pick the one kingdom with no champions." Amelie’s gaze dropped to the brochures. “You’re handing these out in front of our churches.”

“In front of community centers,” Mr. Higgs corrected smoothly. “Places of gathering. We respect all traditions. We simply offer options.. Children shouldn’t have to pray for bread. By offering education, employment and opportunity we're uplifting everyone and giving them purpose.”

“Candy and options,” Amelie said. “Very sacred.”

Then Mr. Higgs straightened, clasping his hands. “Let me be explicit. Kosmocorp doesn’t hate your myths. We love them. They’re marketable. They create identity, tourism, cultural coherence. They’re charming.”

Amelie’s eyes narrowed. “Charming. Pray tell.”

Mr. Higgs’s laughter again. “Yes of course. We understand the optics. That’s why we’re careful. We’re not taking anything away. We heard you gave a rousing presentation of your traditions yesterday, very inspiring! We love a proud people, a good tradition drives tourism, it drove our stock right up."

Mr. Higgs nodded, as if explaining arithmetic. “And that charm can be leveraged for funding, international partnership, brand recognition. Your Kurajahurst ceremonies are beautiful content. We could sponsor them. Professionalize them. Ensure continuity.”

Amelie’s voice went very quiet. “You want to buy the night.” She walked up to him, tracing her finger down the glossy rubber of his suit and flicking his tie. "No one owns the night." Pixie’s eyes snapped to the chrome panel covering the mosaics. “You literally bolted over the wall.” She felt the urge to scream, to knock the brochures into the dirt, to tear the chrome panel off the church wall with her own hands. Mr. Higgs turned to look at it, as if he’d forgotten it existed. “A temporary weather shield. Preservation. We’ve had some concerns about erosion. Your older materials are, delicate.” The two folded their arms, making him feel as if he was on trial.

“We’re not here to buy, we’re here to give,” Mr. Higgs replied. “We’re only offering a place where they can stay warm. We’re giving people a chance at a better life.” He said. "With a career and a purpose. Kosmocorp is a name people trust. It means predictability. Stability. Consistency, as tomorrow, so tonight. The end of chaos.”

Chaos. One of druidic principle's most enigmatic and important principles. The upholding of the night, was never to roll a dice you could count on twice, Amelie recalled.

He smiled at Pixie like he was offering her a seat. “Children like stability.”

“Well, we all have to grow up sometime.” Amelie replied.

Pixie opened her mouth, then closed it. Her thoughts skittered. She imagined children lined up, learning new songs, new slogans, new calendars. A different set of gods, printed, laminated, and issued with ID cards. It caused her insides to boil and she ran to the kiosk. "Unbolt it, remove it! Right now!" She shouted. There was a subtle glow to her eyes.

Higgs tugged his collar. "Well aren't you a feisty one.." He said with a chuckle. "All of this can be yours! But we'll own it, if that's what you want! If you'd just listen to us, we could give it to you all!"

The chrome man’s gaze lingered on her a beat too long. Pixie felt her patience run dry. "IT'S ALREADY OURS!" She shouted. She ran to the back of the Kiosk and started to scream, pulling as her fingers gripped the edges. The entire bolted stand began to shake, metal construction material crushing in her fingertips. Metal plating ripped in the sides.

 

Mr. Higgs started to back away. The shaking tremor became a landside and before everyone witnessing, the entire kiosk was lifted off the ground. The bolts in the church's construction began to unwind and tear at the masonry, ripping directly with a loud SCREEEEEEEEEK. Pixie’s legs ran forward and started to push the kiosk on the corner to its side. "LEAVE THEIR CULTURE ALONE! LEAVE THAT CHURCH ALONE!" She screamed, pushing and tipping the entire structure over and breaking fractures of the wall behind her, then kicking the kiosk away like a toy block. Others screamed, the holographic lady attached to its counter began to flicker and glitch wildly. When the kiosk's metal edges flew past Pixie's outfit, they ripped off her top shirt and Amelie could see the digital circuits and markings in her backside, along with a blocky tattoo printed into what was clearly, not-flesh.

 

THETA-01

 

__________________________________ꕤ⎝ ༺✧༻ ⎠ꕤ  _________________________________

 

Amelie’s gaze went up, up past rooftops and banners and the chrome sheen of Kosmocorp’s paneling, into the open sky where the day was too bright to see stars, but the stars were there anyway, watching like they always had. Amelie blinked once, slow, and her voice dropped to the tone she’d used in the hut, when the room had been full of tourists and old gods and performance. "Who owns the night.." She said. She'd always thought, in all her sincerity that it was not the traditions, the clerics of even the gods in all their insanity.

It belonged to the children.

She grabbed Pixie's wrist and ran, trying to get as far away as possible. When she found one of her older orphans, Yokov, she got down and clenched her shoulders. "Yokov, where are the others?" Yokov pointed and guided her, and one by one she quickly regathered everyone she came with within the next fifteen minutes. Everyone absconded early, heading back towards the Duckling house and making sure the orphanage was locked up. Amelie peaked outside her window, as if waiting for a rude invitation and trying her best to hide from it. "Yokov, Pixie, can you two stay here? Look out, all of you be good and stay put. Don't stray too far off." They nodded with wide eyes, Amelie ran to the back yard and pulled a small dial hidden in the grass, twisting it until a gentle 'click' was heard below and an underground door yanked towards the sky. She ran down a flight of stairs quickly, entering with a torch she lit to descend below into the crevice of Ambera's subterranean. Once she found a chamber full of beds, cauldrons and shelves, Amelie went towards a closet, knocked three times and whispered an incantation. Then she pushed the wall forward and arrived in a dome-shaped trial room with high stone pedestals on every side, a chandelier directly in the disc-shaped center, directly over a small unpaved circle of dirt, taking both her shoes off as she stepped onto it. She took a needle from her pocket and jabbed her palm, letting dewy drops of red fall into the terran below. The lanterns around the room began to turn bright blue, until even the chandelier above ignited the same flames.

Amelie stood below it and clasped her hands. "I request a session of 'Sapience'." She said. One by one, 7 spectral sage figures appeared around the high pedestal seats around the ring, a court of spirits whose eyes glowed red and purple. Amelie stood in front of the ancestral elders and said, "The question of our day, the question of our destiny- Who owns the night? The answer is the same as it always has been."

"The night is owned by no one." The specters said in a chorus of voices.

"The night is itself."

"No, it belongs to the children." Amelie said. "But it won't for long. We're in desperate times.." She held her hands to her chest. "A child I took in.. Pixie. No, 'Theta.' She's one of them, one of Kosmocorp's. They'll be here to bring down the hammer soon and take her back, and do goddess knows what else to this country." Her voice cracked. "I don't know how to save our people, if they come to Kymraazistan.."

One of the ghosts, the matriarch of the group, glared at her with icy eyes. "That is not the night's answer. The night doesn't care, the night is neither good nor ill. What we own is what we have, what we make. What you are is what you have made.." She told her. "The dead do not concern themselves with the failings of the living."

"Failings?" Amelie replied.

"It's time we had the same conversation with you, yet again." The matriarch of the sages replied. "You took the title of 'Ualmuy' once, as all do who inherit the sacred line of druid's oath. But then you broke it- you abandon your post. You refused to nurse a child nor find an apprentice."

"Well yes, but I-"

"And worse." The Matriarch interrupted. "As the sovereign of this land, the heiress who owns its soil by blood, you refused the quarter or engagement with other nations."

"Politics, aren't really my thing." She replied.

"So run off to your orphanage, how could you have ever known abdicating would lead to this? We've made your decision easy, the decision to do nothing is just that." The spirit glared at her, and the rest of the assembled elder-gods nodded in agreement. "Return to the throne, take charge. Find a man and with him, he shall sire a child. Make him your successor, and then we may advise them inspite of your betrayal."

"I'm not going to marry some man to produce an heir!" Amelie objected.

The Matriarch stood and stared at her with scorn. "This is why your culture died, is dying, was destroyed in the first place. You can't make it through the next five decades, not with this self-entitlement and this weakness, this fear of the male sex, of producing an heir. It is why you are here now, why you abandoned the post to begin with."

"That has nothing to do with this!" She shouted. "I'm not going to marry anyone!"

"Then Kymraazistan is doomed." The Matriarch told her. "The night is dying. You should come to know its death as well. Your decision has tied our hands. We have no intention of counseling and advising a traitor. If you won't lead the way, we refuse to lead you. We do not counsel on a whim."

"You cannot blackmail your counsel on my womb!" She yelled.

The Matriarch’s voice was cold enough to frost stone.

“With no heir, your return is meaningless.”

“The oath doesn’t say the successor must be born,”

Amelie continued. “It says the successor must be made.”

The Matriarch’s lips parted a tad in exhaustion.

Amelie pressed on, voice building, each word placed like a stone in a wall and echoing back in the underground halls. “Kurajahurst is not blood. It's merely succession. I don't obligate you a daughter or child, just because I haven't birthed one.”

"Then why no apprentice?" The Matriarch asked with deep suspicion. "Is it that, orphanage you keep? Surely you've helped so many children over the last century, you must have found one viable candidate?"

"It's not for that! Okay, I've tried opening their minds and kept that possibility, but, I'm not ready to give it up." Amelie told her. "It's about ownership of our legacy. All I've seen with druidlore has been people dying, people getting used, everyone looking for some kind of answer or purpose that I don't have.. I can't be responsible for that.. for sentencing one of my children to a fate and responsibilities they don't desire." The Matriarch’s gaze flicked, almost imperceptibly, as if something in that struck a nerve she hated admitting she had. “You want a successor?” she said. “You want continuity?”

Her voice softened. Not weakness.

The softness of a blade being turned sideways and laid to rest.

“Then help me shield the children I already have. Maybe I'll pick one.”

The ancestors spoke among each other, each sage from another universe.

Orchid. Abyss. SS. Yokos. Bedlam. Xi. And druidcraft’s realm of origin- AU.

A phantom sage stood representative from every reality.

"If you're intent on picking a successor, one that is good enough- we will listen. What would you have us do? We cannot provide force, when it comes to these invaders. That corporation isn't in our power to interfere with. Our best advice- return to the throne, announce to the world your needs and look to your neighbors. There are powerful warriors in Ambera, some of whom can make war on the Kosmocorp with no effort. They will not do it for you for free, but if you open up Kymraazistan to them, they will come to your aid."

Amelie thought to herself. "They'll come. They'll come and they'll ask for money. For land, mining rights, resources.. so you're suggesting rather than let Kosmocorp takeover, I just surrender my country to surrounding nations?"

For a beat, no one spoke. The blue lanterns hissed quietly.

Then a different elder, a woman with spectral ink staining her fingers as if she’d written a thousand contracts, leaned forward.

“What is THETA-01?” she asked.

Amelie’s throat tightened again.

“A child,” she said, stubbornly.

The Matriarch’s eyes flashed. “A product. From the stars. She must be returned.”

Amelie’s head snapped up. “Not here.” Amelie said, remembering sordidly in her heart the last time visitors from the stars came and the people that demanded they leave. The Matriarch’s voice became a verdict again. “Kosmocorp planted it. A seed that breaks stone from inside. You brought it into your house.”

"She's not a spy or bomb!" She slammed her fist against a pedestal.

"She's just a child. Even if she's Kosmocorps-"

"Then give her back. Bargain and tell them if they want her, they must look the other way." The Matriarch told her. "Their golemn must be returned."

"I cannot do that. And they'll never leave Kymraazistan alone or stop coming, since I have no bargaining power it's not like I can keep Theta from them anyway. “Listen to me,” she said. “If you refuse to counsel me, then answer only this, how do I keep Kosmocorp from taking her without turning my country into a battlefield?”

The Matriarch stared at her, eyes like winter. The others watched, silent.

Finally, the Matriarch spoke.

“You cannot,” she said. “Not while you remain small.”

Amelie’s gaze hardened.

“So you’re forcing me to return to the throne,” she said. "Pass. I would like instead, to initiate a Blacknest summons. If I may."

The council looked to each other, then back to her. "You may, as is your right. Proceed."

"Shadows cast, reaching out into the dark." Amelie looked down at the dirt circle, at the blood she’d given, at the faint way the soil seemed to drink the shadows the same way it drank the red into its soil. She took a breath. "Let the world feel the touch of the void." She let her forehead tilt forward, just slightly, as if she were holding up the weight of an entire country with her neck, concentrating into the most obscure and farthest reaching ability of druid practitioners, to meditate and reach into the edge of reality's darkest store closet. She cast her mind into the void and called out into its solemn nests.

The void filled. And a swirl of raving darkness answered, rising up and spinning like a tidal wave of night, splashing out and then forming a single shape in the world below. The shape of a woman, black feathers along her backside.

Nurse rubbed her eyes slowly, yawning. The girl's mask glinted in the dark, a gown with bandages tied all around her body. "A raven. You have the floor.." The Matriarch said.

She walked around Nurse and took her hand. Nurse looked at her delighted. "Ayy, little Amy! You're all grown up, haven't seen you in ages." Nurse winked, stretching her arms playfully. Ravens, powerful servants of the void and those under the jurisdiction of Mother Raven, living far beyond where the moons and stars reside. Mystical, extraterrestrial protectors of the mystic folkland, not as angels or celestial hands, certainly not holy by any other hand. Givers from the dark, beings of the void. Tattoos could be seen along Nurse's arms, the kind no angel or heavenly being would ever be seen with, her hair in a punkish cut of bangs and fringes.

Amelie smiled, but the smile tightened at the edges. "It's good to see you again, old friend."

Nurse echoed, tasting the air like candy laced with cyanide. Not her favorite flavor, but it'll have to do. “You only say it like that when you need something horrible.”

Amelie let out a short breath that could’ve been a laugh in another life. “I do. Sorry to come begging on my knees to you like this." The Matriarch’s stare never warmed to a Blacknest call, even if it was tradition, her personal distaste for Ravens always chilled the blood in her veins, if her spectral veins still flowed with any.

“Counsel,” Nurse said, and her voice suddenly sounded less like a wink and more like a knife to the back about to jab in, hoarse and full of malice “Sure. First, I’d like to congratulate you all on the bold strategic choice of threatening a woman’s uterus as national policy.” A ripple of angry murmurs went through the court. One elder’s mouth tightened. Another looked away, as if it was too profane to stand.

The Matriarch did not blink. “Mind your tone.”

Nurse shrugged, bandages creaking softly under her gown. “Nah I won't thanks. Mind your century you old bag of dicks.”

The court erupted in angered whispers. Nurse turned her attention to Amelie. “What the hell do you want? I know we're not strangers, but you haven't summoned me in, waaaaaaaay long girl. Not even to hang, c'mon. If it's this serious, lay it smack." Nurse stepped closer to her, taking Amelie’s wounded palm and licking the blood off creepily.

“Okay,” Nurse murmured. “Show me the problem.”

Amelie swallowed. “Kosmocorp planted a child in my house. THETA-01."

"Oh, Kosmocorp huh. Those Xi'ans, yeah they're never fond of anyone from Harvest." She shrugged. "So you want me to destroy it? If it’s just a synth-"

"NO!" Amelie replied, before clearing her throat. "I want you to save it. That's what you do, right? Protect and save the damned?"

Nurse's eyelid flicked. "Protect and save your ass? Or do you want me to protect and save a kid?" She turned her head slightly, having no respect for those elders but questioning her motives.

Nurse’s fingers paused on the dried blood. “Oh. You love her.”

Amelie’s eyes flashed. “She’s mine.” Her voice trembled, emphasizing the last word.

Nurse’s mouth quirked. “Good. Possessive. That I can understand."

The Matriarch’s voice snapped like ice cracking. “The golem must be returned.”

Nurse looked up at the Matriarch, slow, deliberate, her sharp eyes like turning a blade to dark with piercing light. “Don’t ever call her that again.”

“She is an asset,” the Matriarch said. “A product. A-”

“A child,” Nurse cut in, and the word came out with weight, not sentiment. “And if Kosmocorp can claim her, then congratulations, you’ve just proved their method works. If they can take that child- they can take any child from your, culty religion or country and you cannot do shit about it, are you fine with that precedent?”

Silence.

Amelie felt her throat tighten. “Can you help me hide her?”

Nurse exhaled through her nose, amused in the bleakest way. “Hide her? Sweetheart, they already know she exists. They already know where she’s supposed to be."

"Then take her to the void, or, where Ravens are from, whereever." She begged. Nurse sensed her fear and sighed. "I would, but, I cannot. Not really Raven policy to do that, besides, she wouldn't be happy there anyway. Trust me, you don't want me to take her there.” Amelie’s shoulders dipped, the tiniest surrender. Nurse squeezed her hand.

“We don’t hide her. We fight back, buy some time.”

Amelie blinked. “Then what? Kosmocorp has an army, a whole galaxy backing them. Spaceships, synths, drones, missiles and armadas. What can I possibly do?”

“THETA-01 has a signature,” Nurse said. “A call-and-response. Kosmocorp pings, they know where she's at right?” Amelie’s stomach turned. “Yes.”

Nurse lifted a finger. A single black feather peeled off her back as if gravity had been graciously let go. It floated down and landed in Amelie’s bloody palm. “Tonight,” Nurse said, “We cut the response. I don't know much about mechanics or artificial lifeforms, but luckily, you grewup in a world that does."

"You want me to, take her to the circuits?" Ambera, Amelie realized could hide her. Take out their tracking or whatever was signaling Kosmocorp. But it'd be the same as having to make a concession. She didn't have any friends outside this country, she never communicated, but she knew there were scientists who could work miracles. Champions that could defend her, labs, researchers, resources. None of which existed in this backwards country. "But if I do that- what will they do to her? They cannot be trusted."

"You have a child, Amelie.. And it sounds like she's just what the doctor ordered, for you to return to the crown. If not, you have to make a housecall and call the redlight." Nurse said. "Take her to the circuitry- like a newborn or a baby in need of nursing. If you don't, Kosmocorp won't hesitate. And in exchange, I'll protect her. I'll make sure Kosmocorp never takes her, and the rest of Ambera plays on fair terms. They won't hurt her. We don't have a lot of time, Amelie."

"I don't know what to do.." Amelie replied. This was why she ran from the royal house, there was never anything worse for her than a crisis. She felt like she was playing with fire. "You can really sever her from Kosmocorp?"

Nurse snorted. “I can stitch or sever anything." She took a needle and dangled it by the pin. "I'm Nurse. It's what I do." She looked at Amelie. “But you have to do the ugly part. Get help. And tell them, the rest of Ambera to stop letting Kosmocorp on Ambera’s shores while they're at it.”

"They're not.. ‘Amberas’ shores. It's Kymraazistan shores. My shores. Our land, our country and people. That's the real world we're talking about." Amelie argued.

Nurse rolled her eyes. "Enough of this sentimentality. Kosmocorp, their machines are all very nice and shiny, but that's the whole reason they feel they're entitled to your hang, y'know?" Nurse explained. "You don't consider it apart of Ambera, so they don't either. Until you open up the country to the world, they'll do nothing but treat it like a giant piggybank. They'll never stop coming." She took another look at the matriarch. "They'll never stop threatening your tiny kingdom. So yes, you have to end the isolation, or don't! But I cannot protect a whole country for you. So for now you have to go. And go fast." She held Amelie's wrist. "I'll go with you." Nurse’s grin flickered back on, bright and wicked.

Nurse tilted her head, listening to something only ravens heard. “They’re already outside your orphanage."

Amelia ran out the chambers and soon rushed back to her back-garden. The coops were full of wildly honking geese in the purple glow of the afternoon, dusk soon to arrive. Nurse followed behind her, not running but strutting friskily. When they ran to the front, Theta was standing in front of the Duckling house orphanage looking up. Ships, in magenta, lime and cyan shades were already arriving and beginning to descend towards them.

Amelie felt a lump in her throat. Nurse's wings were twitching, her red eyes were like stars as she listened to an invisible signal others couldn't hear. She adjusted her own internal biometrics- radiowaves, lightspeed signals, gamma and alpha channels, electronic signals and everything else that comprised communication ran through her nervous system. She started to focus in on it and looked towards Theta, going over and concentrating on where the signals were honed most- around Theta's nape. She poked the kids neck. "There's a locator chip in her neck. The ships above are just closing in on it."

"Can you take it out?" Amelie asked pleading.

"Not really, my specialty is organic life. I wouldn't know how to remove it without injuring her. I could if I had some help and time, but in an emergency like this.." Nurse replied. "At the moment, the fox is at the door. Look, they're already here, even if I could it wouldn't do much good." Nurse’s feathers seemed to glow like an ember as they listened to the frequency and her wingtips twitched. She smiled. "She's a hard nut to crack. There's some strange frequency she's emitting."

"Frequency?" Theta replied.

"Yeah girl.. sounds like anger." Nurse took out a thread, licked the sharp pointed edge and with a flick, threw it sky-high. Then a second and a third. She widened her arms as if about to give a sermon, before clapping her hands together. Invisible threads tightened between the colorful Kosmocorp survery ships above, and they tightened and crashed together rapidly and then snapped, exploding in the impact. For a heartbeat they hung in the sky like bright paper lanterns, their magenta-lime hulls suddenly webbed together by nothing at all, then the invisible threads cinched tight as the interstellar machines slammed into each other with a sickening crash.

The village screamed far anyway. Throughout Ambera, other countries, agencies and organizations were watching through satellite feed.

Amelie’s chest seized.

“Nurse,” she hissed. “You, you just..!”

“Just survey craft,” Nurse said, almost casually. "They'll be sending the real deal within minutes. Stronger ships, and more of them. I don't know if I can stop them if they begin dropping a fiery payload on your home here." Theta stood in the yard as if pinned there. Her face was pale, eyes wide, jaw trembling. The glow at her pupils stuttered, digital rings pulsing with light. “Why did you do that?” Theta whispered. “Because they came for you,” Nurse said. Up above, a new sound rolled in, deeper than the survey craft. A bass note in the sky. Something heavy enough to bruise the air. “Nurse,” Amelie warned, looking up at the approaching drones, “if you start a fight here, the whole village will be collateral. Maybe the entire country if they consider Theta more valuable.”

More ships soon arrived. Bigger ones. Large turrets and silos on the bottom of ships meant for dropping nuclear supermissiles and massive firepower down from the sky. All of them aimed at the orphanage. Amelie’s heart pounded in her chest. She'd never seen this many starships, hundreds appearing in swarms over Kymraazistan skies. And they only needed just one shot to turn her beautiful country to glass.

Amelie turned to Theta. “We’re leaving. Now.”

"Where?" Raven scoffed. "Where are you going?"

"I don't know! Another country, to Shi Shang, Estato, anywhere. The Ultras will-" Her voice cracked. "Just buy us some time, fight them." Amelie’s voice cracked. "Can you do that? Please.. protect us."

"No, I can't. There's no way I can stop that many and keep your country intact. People are going to die at this rate."

Amelie swallowed her next words. "Then.. take her to the Void."

The village’s afternoon light turned strange as shadows passed over rooftops, and then a voice boomed from hidden speakers, clean and friendly in that way that made your teeth itch.

“Attention residents of Kymraazistan. This is Kosmocorp Security and Compliance. Please remain calm. A lawful corporate retrieval is in progress. As long as the offender complies, this retrieval operation will go quietly. No one needs to get hurt.” A carrier craft drifted into view, all smooth chrome curves and bright corporate colors, too cheerful for a thing that could carry an army under the Xi'an flag. Under it, smaller cybernetic drones spilled out like beads from a broken necklace, each of them like bulky walking tanks with a crane for one arm and a pincer for another.

Raven took out more thread, ready to act if necessary. The drones carefully landed around the Duckling orphanage with a loud THUD, surrounding them. All of the children in the orphanage watched from the windows behind tugged curtains, Theta's own systems beating like thunder about to crash. "It's okay to be scared.." Amelie said.

"Come with us." The automated robotic voice of the drones demanded.

Theta’s expression turned from horror to shock and then finally anger. She started to pull away from Amelie's hand, walking forward then stopped, staring at the drones in front of her. Her hands went out, as if in surrender. Amelie held her breath, she couldn't lose her. Not like she lost her own mother, the memory of the last Ualmuy dying against that Ultra scum who tried sneaking past the borders on another nation's behalf. A part of her heart wavered, had her grudge blinded her? If she'd opened up their borders, if she'd gotten help sooner would Kosmocorp have- she couldn't bother to think of any Ifs or Buts in that moment.

 

In that moment, there was only Theta and the oceanic horizon from which all else stood.

The drones, like a herd of oxen drudged forward and surrounded Theta, they waited for the word from the drone in front. “Take her.”

Amelie felt it more than saw it, a sudden tension in the atmosphere, a tightening of the world about to set off.

Theta's eyes lit up again, and then that peaceful horizon turned into a bloodbath on sight. Theta's footstep turned into a surge from her toes, her fists started to move like her own green digital wings would appear from nowhere, only it wasn't like Nurse's glossy black ones. It was a frenzy, a blur that Amelie couldn't comprehend. The mechroid accelerated, and in the next moment she was behind the drones by dozens of meters with her fist forward- all of them cranked, twisted like crumpling like paper in an instant. Like they'd been struck with a great hammer. Then, they exploded. Drone after drone exploded into the ground. Theta then jumped, no, soared as if leaping for her life. Her trajectory threw her into the sky and shredded the air with her green trail of light for a mile radius behind her, leaving the children of the orphanage frozen with their eyes covered. She seemed to disappear.

As plasma beams from the ship started to fire in the sky, Theta caught the thrust and turned in sharp angles impossible for any ordinary craft, slamming her fists and body into the armada one ship at a time.

Amelie's eyes went wide. "Theta!” Theta's body was shattering the sky around her, sonic booms crackling with every turn. She bounced like a pinball, crashing herself into ship after ship and annihilating every one she pierced herself into. The systems attempted to countermeasure, targeting onboard locating Theta but her speed outpaced every attempt at even computation. She was everywhere and nowhere, then suddenly right on top of them, and already onto the next.

Fleeting shadows danced past as she dodged the ships beams. Her body's light reflected off their hulls, like a thousand prisms smashing in the dark, a storm of light and chaos blinding Amelie as she ran through the yard, ducking and hiding as the firefight passed over. She didn't know how to explain Theta's powers, outside where she came from or who created her. When multiple cannons aimed towards Theta and shot an array of nuclear missiles, high in the sky, Theta leapt atop a ship as a platform and swept high into the sky. She waited for them to follow her in the upper atmosphere, aimed her palm and created a tri-shaped green beam of energy, light that cut through the upper atmosphere in perfect, clean angles, and aimed for the oncoming ships and their projectiles. The sweep immediately destroyed everything it touched, irradiating. The whole village started screaming, running from their homes, Theta was like nothing they'd ever seen. Within 5 minutes, she'd destroyed the entire fleet sent.

And just like that, the battle was over. The armada screeched into rubble and became a pale falling rain of metal and ash. Amelie stood, her mouth agape, drenched in sweat and confusion. She couldn't believe what she'd just seen.

Theta soon felt her energy drained, and she fell from the sky, plummeting below. While descending, Nurse's eyes went bright focusing miles above, then flew up in a rapid pace to catch her. "Easy kiddo. I've got you." She said. Amelie was still gawking, watching for several minutes before Nurse brought her back down, letting her rest easy. The kids were all sobbing in the orphanage, hugging each other for comfort and trying to grasp what had just happened. Theta was breathing normally again, her chest heaving.

"I'm sorry." Theta muttered. "I lost control."

"W-why did you.." Amelie's heart throbbed.

Theta smiled.  "Because.. sometimes, you’ve got to let go of the goose." She fell unconscious after.

Amelie held her hand. No heartbeat. Mixed emotions surged through her mind. She didn't have time to explore them, as another dropship fell, this one without turrets or weapons, only the size of the orphanage itself. It opened up a hatch and out came five black-suited men and a gaggle of cybernetic beasts and machines. They came with guns out, but not firing as they disembarked. They had orders, and they obeyed them. Nurse stood protectively over Amelie, standing guard and taking out her needles in defense. Amelie couldn’t understand their words, they were all in the Kosmocorp language. They seemed to know who Amelie was, and who Theta was. Cybernetic hounds, low to the ground, shoulders like pistons, eyes a flat white glow growled mechanically.

“Mother Sovereign. Raven-class entity.” A pause, like the bot checked the proper title in its registry. "Ambera is in violation of many security and protection laws. All citizens are subject to a lawful extraction." One of the robots with a dome-shaped head and 6 holes in its droney silvery mask replied.

Amelie bent, pressed her fingers to Theta’s neck again.

Nothing. No pulse. Her breath stuttered.

Nurse noticed. “Amy.” Quiet, urgent.

“Stop. You’re going to scare yourself into stupidity.”

“There’s no heartbeat,” Amelie whispered, horrified.

Nurse crouched, two fingers at Theta’s throat, then at her wrist, then she snorted. “Because she doesn’t have one.” A voice, nasally but husky and female said from behind the extraction squad.

Amelie went cold, turned and stared. The security drones, suited men and hounds moved out of the way for someone to make their way forward. They shuffled down the ramp, as if walking on a tightrope,  "Amelie. My Lady of the duckies." The woman stood with a rose pink skin and royal-purple hair tied into a bun, her eerie white smile oddly endearing. The sheeny business blouse and skirt she wore almost seemed silly in its highcontrast gloss, but her eyes behind cats eye glasses were sharp and she could see how Amelie might see that woman as being someone who would rule the world with her.

“Head Executive Kosmo. Permission to transport.”

"Permission denied, shutup ya looney cranks." Kosmo said to the bot. They turned to Amelie. "Are you the one from the feed, the play? That was performing the ceremony the other day?" She readjusted her glasses abit." You’re the Ualmuy who escaped her crown. They said they’d send you."

“M-I'm no one of importance.” Amelie replied.

Kosmo snorted, as if Amelie’s humility was amusing.  “You're the Ualmuy who escaped her own family.” Amelie felt warm, turning from this woman's dark plum-painted lips, her eyes flicking to Theta's. Kosmo’s smile turned delighted. “I respect a woman with hobbies.”

Nurse stood up. "I won't let you take-"

"I don't care about the kid, she's always running off. So what. I'm here to deal with you." Kosmo said, striding forward, unflinching, and then looked to the orphanage and nodded in silent appreciation for the view.

"What do you want from me?" Amelie demanded, glancing over her shoulder at the silent bot crew. They seemed to be waiting for the Kosmo woman to order them to open fire, as if any second now their weapons would flash. "Can you perform that ceremony again? Or, any others?" She asked.

"W-what?" Amelie was so confused. "I already told you guys, I'm not going to sell out my culture to your dumb company!"

"No no, not for my company." Kosmo cleared her throat. "Just.. for me." She lowered her lenses. "Over dinner, perhaps?"

Amelie, suddenly blushed.

No, she couldn't be! The thought was so ludicrous. "I'm a monk.. kinda." Druids weren't actually supposed to marry, although her royal situation made that difficult, she kept to the edict over any national or reproductive obligations.

"I know what a Druid is..  but I'm not interested in only your spiritual life." Kosmo said. "I’m talking about.." She held Amelie's hands. "A date."

Amelie's heart pounded. The people in the village outside started shouting and making a scene, Nurse held them off. "Why are you here? Not that I don't like it.." She glanced down at the robots with nervous uncertainty. "But why?" She whispered.

"I must, apologize for my security's behavior. They have automated protocols, you see I didn't command them to do what they did. But my transport was late and they acted on their own, you can keep the kid or let them off, I don't really care about that old prototype. They don't know how to deal with her." Kosmo said, looking to the orphanage as if she too felt a little sorry for the village's reaction. She turned to the woman in her hospital gown.

"And who might you be?" Kosmo said. "Nurse." She said, smiling.

"You her squeeze?" She asked.

"No, nothing like that." The raven replied.

"Okay, so if you’re not married to her, stop looking at me with a stick up your ass." Kosmo waggled her finger. “We can transport her safely, or transport engineer help for Theta” She said. “She requires service. Her locator node is compromised. There is risk of cascade failure.”

"Cascade failure?" Nurse asked.

"Yes, she runs off a specialized Kosmocorp patented Cascade engine. It’s a self-correcting temporal and kinetic converter. I suggest we get her tuned up, less you accidentally want this village exploded and sent temporally a millennium into the past by accident."

Nurse’s voice went quiet, dangerous. “You built that into a child.”

“I built it into a prototype,” Kosmo said. "So what. Don't judge me, feathers."

Amelie spoke up. "You're s-saying, you're not here to take back Theta, or destroy my orphanage?" Amelie asked, trying to ascertain what this spectacle was about, and why her heart beat and felt flustered around this woman. This woman.. Kosmo. The Kosmo Kosmopolis. The actual head of Kosmocorp?

"No, that's not why I'm here. And.. and it's not so much them or your little bird-messenger. And it's not about them either." She pointed to the villagers. "It's not about the orphanage. But it could be. I'm here to help you." Kosmo spoke.

"How?" Amelie asked.

Kosmo got on her knees, kissing Amelie's hand gently. Cordial, leaving a stain of purple lipstick where Amelie had just stabbed herself earlier.

"Let's discuss it over dinner."

Amelie didn't know what in the world to say. Worse, she'd never wanted it more. It made Amelie want to laugh and scream at the same time.

Her mouth opened. Nothing came out. A silent scream was all she'd be giving, before a very loud one of ecstasy she'd be giving later that tonight.

“Dinner,” Kosmo said, voice brightening deliberately, as if choosing a lighter mask for the room. “And after dinner, we draft your charter.”

"My new charter? For what?" Amelie asked.

Kosmo smirked and rubbed her hands together.

"Wouldn't you love to find out?"

 

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And so, even prior to the inception of Ursula and her leadership in the largest nation known as Greatland, Ambera received a great shift in its geopolitical axis. The first country in the world supported by an intergalactic corporate superpower. She who once was known as Kosmo Kosmopolis, the head executive for Kosmocorp. CEO, ruler of all vivid mirth and technological wonder. And her wife, was once known as Amelie ‘Ualmuy’ Kym-kazmiria of the royal house of Kazmiria. Within a year, she became "Amelia Kosmopolis."

Her people would come to be known as Kosmopolis, the technological capital of Ambera.

Amelia Kosmopolis, dressed in a yellow sunhat and apron perfectly fit for a housewife of her sunny deposition and statue closed the book, her daughter Penelope "Pixie" Kosmopolis in bed looking up. "So, oooOo what happened to, Theta in the end?"

With a throwback of her head, Amelia laughed. "She ran away, she does that. It's okay, I kept true to my word to her anyway, so I'm not sad about that. And I ended up finding something, someone even better." She threw her arms around the royal castle, which had been converted into a gigantic technological tower of a palace, the crowning jewel of the citystate of Kosmopolis. "A family."

Penny rubbed her eye abit. The Mechroid was a newer model, a breakthru gen that put Theta to shame, what lied in her chest was more potent than even the cascade engine her predecessor possessed: The heart of Pink Nebula herself.

"She just, ran away?" Penny asked.

"Yep, hopefully she's doing alright now." Amelia rubbed Penny's pink pastel hair.

"And the orphanage?"

"The building itself is a tourist spot and cafe, Kosmo did well to preserve it, just like she said she would. And the kingdom.." She went over to a window, a sparkling metro city engraved in the planet high enough that it was the jewel and envy of Ambera. rail-lines like silver stitches, rooftop gardens like green freckles, glass towers wearing the sunset the way a crown wears jewels. The old castle’s brick bones had been kept, but now they were threaded through with startling circuitry and computerized screens, new plastic and chrome architecture had gone over it. Beyond the metro, one could still see the darker quilt of farmland and windbreak forests, and the old grain silos, preserved like solemn monuments pointed at the sky. She smoothed Penny’s pastel hair between her fingers, that soft cotton-candy pink that never quite looked natural and yet somehow had become the most natural thing in Amelia’s world.

Penelope’s eyes slid to the closed book in Amelia’s lap. “And everyone from the orphanage runs Kosmocorp?”

Amelia made a face. “Not everyone. Some of them became engineers. Some became diplomats. Some became chefs, whom I taught personally. One became a professional goose-wrangler, and I’m still not sure how.”

Penelope snorted. “Geese are scary.”

“They are,” Amelia agreed solemnly. “We respect them. Mighty fearsome warriors.”

Amelia’s eyes drifted to the window again, to the glittering city, the old dark fields beyond, and the invisible stars behind the last blush of dusk. "And Theta, she just ran away.."

“Yes,” she said simply. “And I’m proud of her for leaving.”

Penelope looked confused. “Proud, for leaving you?”

Amelia brushed Penny’s cheek with her thumb. “Proud for leaving anything that tried to own her. For leaving the web of dependency. For making her own choices."

“And me?” she murmured sleepily. “Do you own me?”

Amelia’s eyes softened so suddenly it almost hurt.

“No,” she said. “Not at all, if anything my heart belongs to you a little. I'm your mother. That’s different. The way a lighthouse belongs to a shore. But one hoping to raise a child that she knows will one day set sail and leave her shore.”

She kissed Pixie's cheek and then plugged a recharging port into her backside. "But you’re free to run off and leave me, at any time, if you ever want to."

“Any time,” she agreed.

"Yes. Any time you’re ready. And that will never, ever change.”

She closed the book, a smile on her lips.

Penny's mechanical eyelids drooped. "Any time." She said. "I love you too." She yawned.

"One more thing mom.. why is that book you always read me mostly blank?" Pixie asked her mom, Amelia.

Amelie chuckled. It was the same book she used to read to her orphanage. "My mother told me it was a magic book. Something called a 'Recipe Book.' She told me Druids use books to record insights and meditations. It followed me.. and wrote in it all the old countries treasured recipes and favorite dishes, little else." She looked at the book. "If it's supposed to transform whoever uses it and their world, I cannot say where I saw that happen." She put the book down.

Amelia Kosmopolis, and Penelope Kosmopolis, her sister Nisha Kosmopolis all slept peacefully that night. The entrepreneur of the stars and CEO of Kosmocorp, Kosmo herself stayed the night, standing atop her tower and thinking of her legacy, her family. Her torn loyalties, her troubles in both Xi and Ambera, She patted the air around her, smelling the wind, feeling the dark sky’s pressure on her shoulders.

"Ambera." She murmured. "My home." Her heart beat slowing. It had a funny ring to it, this strange world of Harvest. But with the wars and razorwire in Xi at the moment, this was the point of surrender she'd come to. Across the skies, the wars of Xi and XU were of no concern to her.  What mattered was the night sky of Ambera, the quiet darkness of her daughter's soft purr and that of the machines. And how it'd be her daughter, not some old mechroid from a long ago, who would be the next CEO of Kosmocorp. She'd decided that much.

For once, for the first time in centuries, and she could breathe.

 

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Years later Pixie along with S.A.M. and Kaya stepped into the old Lighthouse on the shore of Cucuford village. The small isle was remote, hundreds of miles from Kosmopolis they'd run from. She, with two hands in her hoodie walked floor to floor, examining the dusty old machinery, radio equipment and star memorabilia that Terra had left behind. The Lighthouse was still operational, but nobody ever came here. Pixie, now a teenager had run off from Kosmopolis exactly had she said she could so long ago. Her mother, in her yellow sundress and housewife getup for years had cooked her breakfast, seen her grow and never been more proud of her. The day Pixie ran off, Amelia sighed and muttered to herself that 'it was just her time.' Kosmo, was entirely unsurprised, saying it was just a phase- she’d come back and embrace the company someday. Nisha was furious. To Pixie it was the advent of her own independence, away from the corporate dynasty of her family that she vowed to fight against.

They went to the upper chamber.

Pixie looked at the old radio transmitters, old receivers. The small generator. The old telephones that had never been used. “Mom had this place pictured in a drawer,” Pixie muttered. She took out an old photograph, the lighthouse viewed from outside with some sharp marker writing on it.

“I never pictured you running away from her,” S.A.M said. She'd brought S.A.M. with her, the old prototype Facility droid who had occupied the Kosmo towerpalace and been her friend and companion since she was young. With his generator disguise, he took the form of a rather shapely bearded man in a navy blue sweater, brown pants and ankle length boots. S.A.M. reached out a finger. "Your mother is a strong, strong woman." He said. "She'll miss you."

"She's a glorified housewife." Pixie shrugged. "What does she even do all day? Cook, clean, bother us while Kosmo runs the city? I'm sorry she'll miss one more bot from the countless she has to keep her entertained."

"This is not fit for a home." Kaya replied from the staircase. "The basement has to be renovated. I will start with the reconstruction." She was, as always, immaculately dressed in suit. The blackwind agent adjusted her gloves, her draconic horns hidden by the cloak underneath her tailored suit. "We are not here to play around, mistress. Perhaps we should find another suitable housing for your operations."

"No. It has to be this place." Pixie insisted.

"You think the Lighthouse is the better option?" Kaya asked, bemused.

"It's better than Kosmopolis!" Pixie exclaimed, looking at her fingers with a grimace. "And I've had enough of that! No more running off to my mother!" She huffed. "I need to be where my heart is. My destiny, my will. Not my mother's."

“And where is that?” Kaya asked, pulling a large lever. The light from the tower's flasher turned on, and the lighthouse shone into the town across the horizon, pointing to the home where Lincoln Loud and his family lived in.

“I don’t know.” Pixie replied, looking down at the floorboards. “I just, I just feel like I'm missing something.” She looked out the window, seeing Linc's house in the great distance, shone on as one among rows of others, avoiding a reaction of suspense or curiosity that beckoned to her. "I need something more."

Kaya looked out the window as well. "You feel like you're missing a family."

"I need to find a real place to belong, and somewhere there, with people who know me, and understand me."

She looked down at the photograph again. The lighthouse, shot from outside. The marker writing on the bottom edge, was not Amelia’s handwriting.

On the front of the photo underneath the lighthouse read “If you ever need to be nobody, come here and find me.”

She took one last look at the house ahead, before Kaya pulled the lighthouse's switch back off. 

Under her ribs, the Heart of Pink Nebula gave a slow, steady pulse.

"I just, feel like I belong there."

She stopped at an old cabinet by the radio equipment, yanked it open, and there, wrapped in oilcloth like a relic, sat the book.

The same one. Almost, this book had a red cover and metallic stars printed on its binding, but it was the same shape and size as the one Amelia had.

The one Amelia read from even though it was mostly blank. Pixie flipped through it.

Inside, Pixie gasped. The book was full of coordinates for stars.

 

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No-time, nowhere

In the here-after known as Recipe World

 

Amelia 'Pureheart' as she went by in Recipe World, began her tenure as an educator, long after she’d accepted Kosmo’s hand in marriage and a ways before Pixie would come into being.

In her younger days in the old country of Kymraazistan in Ambera, she was a princess for a dynastic druidic family, whom was from a long line of Ualmuy that followed a tradition from another universe, one called Druidcraft. There were many crafts in this universe- Alchemy, Druidcraft, Vowcraft, Starcraft, Soulcraft, Geocrafts, all acts of creation, intense vision and inspiration. A long time ago, so long ago it was all but forgotten, she'd wandered into the woods and committed to her first meditation to discover the insights of how the world was, and how it worked.

She found a single thing when she closed her eyes, and focused on her heart. A feeling of unity and oneness and love with all things. A sensation she'd never known before, of her own divinity, godhood, her own power. She was struck with wonder, and then it passed.

She sought a meditation with the legendary Mother Raven herself, but never managed to summon even with the deepest Blacknest calls. Instead she'd called forth another Raven, Nurse, who taught her much and shaped her ways and views of the world. These views, on freedom and the necessity of peace and justice would lead her to be the champion of oppressed minorities, the Feyland folk. A people once known as Llavalites across the galaxy, they came to Ambera as strangers, cut off from both their own traditions yet denied the unity with Kymraazistan. Not merely them, but all mystics in the country had become a spectacle, exploited and kept captives but the native people that called the country their home, this became Amelie's deepest shame. The activity that hurt her heart most was the teaching of hate to the children of her country. The Llavalites were not only the ones most hurt by this discrimination, it was Nurse who convinced Amelia to take action. To change and inspire the people.

And so she did, using her knowledge as a druid to start an uprising. With the help of Raven and the mystics she managed to begin a rebellion. This insurgency caught the attention of other countries, other champions who believed some new type of Nobu were invading. Such a champion sent to the royal family to negotiate, ended up dragging Amelie back to her throne room where after an ordeal and misunderstanding, she watched this Ultra kill her family. The trauma of this made her go mad, and she was sent to the asylum. This event was the first and most notable event in her life. To her, life split like a fork, into a life before and after this incident. One had she been her old self, the princess of the Feylands and not her own people. The other, where she was a mad, unperson, disgraced. A woman who abdicated and denounced the throne she came from. She escaped capture and ran away. Soon she turned to her ancestral druids, but the spirits offered no help, demanding she go back and take charge of the nation. As the royal family fell to ruin, the country soon decayed into obscurity. The only comfort Amelie found in the centuries of life, prolonged by her mother's magical book, was a small orphanage she saved up for and built. Reading old fairy tales to children brought her simple joy, and that it meant to her enough to make up for her failures. This is how she came to know what she knew, a broken, confused woman with only her memories and heart to guide her. To her, that was enough. When Kosmo came and offered her the role of a wife, as one to mother the nation to a new industrialized age and to leave the past behind, she decided that was finally best. To leave the past in the past and start a new family for a new age, and lead the country into a rebirth to save it from ruin. The last thing she had, was a surrogate child in the form of Theta. Before long Theta ran away after many years, just as Amelie had ran away from her own mother and family.

This left her terribly lonely. The orphanage, now run by the state couldn't be nursed anymore as it had. Kosmo promised to work on new prototypes- some mecharoids designed and programmed to leave her as Theta had, and they did. She never learned what happened to them. Some, programmed to say and love her- these ones made her lonelier than even the ones that left, for there was nothing she could depart onto them that wasn't already decided in advanced, programmed obedience kept her love as a shadow from their pale hearts. She felt like the book her mother had given her was the last relic she could own that even now held the power to take her back to her past, to that world of her memories, and take her out of the modern world, like a magic doorway.

The next generation of mechroids had Kosmo understood deeply her feelings and work towards a new project- a creation with freewill that could choose as it grew.

While Kosmo worked on promising her the next gen of creations, Amelie, now going by Amelia, Kosmo's simple wife, accepted her books summons one day. It took her to another world, a magical world where girls were taught Recipecraft within the realm of Recipe World. Amelie, seeing it as an opportunity to teach and fill the void of her desire for connection and children once again, took up an offer there.

As a teacher, a ward of a classroom, she began to do as all druids before her had.

Yet, this time it was different.

This time she had a disciple, a student, Terra. The kind her ancestral druidic spirits and sacred sages begged her to take on so long ago.

She watched the brilliant redhead scribble charts of stars in her recipe book, as if the stars themselves would appear when she looked up. Amelia had nothing but affection for this girl, who told her that she'd lost quite a few years since she'd came here. Maybe she wasn't truly a kid, rather an adult in a child's body. For Amelia that felt like it suited her just perfectly.

She'd always felt like a child in an adult's body afterall.

So she taught Terra. How the stars worked, how stars were the building blocks of the universe, how they were made and how they fell apart. She taught Terra about stars, how they were alive and one could even speak to them, if they knew the right language. Terra, for the first time seemed to truly feel that spark of love she knew the stars gave.

Terra, was not unlike Amelia, in many ways. She ran away from Recipe World, for one. So many years later when Terra returned, now aged and an adult, or rather having recovered her original form and years, she reunited with her teacher. The two were more than fond to reunite and catch up. Terra had many stories to tell about her adventures. Amelia for her time in Recipe World, had grown cynical and unhappy with her tenure as teacher, finding the structures here unraveling and the overarching authority stifling and unhelpful. While she loved teaching children, she missed her old life and sought to retire soon. The two hugged and wished each other the best, beyond the reaches of time. Giving her something to remember her by, Terra gave Amelia her recipe book. Amelia found in her book a message, written on a photo of the old lighthouse Terra used to occupy. When Amelia returned to Kosmopolis, wearing a slick starched labcoat and glasses, she would one day look at a small watery tube where the the biomechanical creation of her and Kosmo's hard work had come to fruition. The advent of a new Mechroid- The birth of their new daughter, Pixie.

 

 "If you ever need to be nobody, come here and find me. "

Pixie held the photo in the lighthouse's dim moonlight, reading the back of the photo.

Amelia had written in her handwriting a small note, in a single line.

 

"Sometimes, you’ve got to let go of the goose.."

 

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Tina, held closely by her older sister who walked forward-front, entered the Duckling orphanage. An usher at the front desk greeted the Donna sisters, affirming their reservation. The old kindness and gallantry of the place had stayed, not unremoved from time but renovated and kept pristine by Kosmo and Amelie thru the ages now, keeping it as a museum, a tourist hotspot and an exotic diner to the old days of the country and time of war with Shi-Sang. "They have a giftshop! Can we go in?" Tina asked, excited. Prima pulled her along.

They reached the main room, where old timey music played and a few dining tables with patterned clothes sat in what was a lounge with a rocking chair in back. Mama Might, holding a bottle of ol'Kymraazistan's finest scotch jingled her glass to them and waved. She smiled seeing her daughters pull up a chair and gave Tina a pat on the head. When she tried to give Prima a hand, the girl growled at her and she backed away.

The fireplace kept the room authentically warm, and wafted the scent of pinewood, old stone, and something simmering sweet in the air, like maple syrup mixed with ivy.

"Check out this place. Really let's your ass breath, right?" Mama told them. "Shame you girls are in such a hurry, am sure you would've loved the audio tour. They even show you Lady Amelia's office."

Past the rocking chair, they saw the back of the house where an old radio set sat. The kitchen was past that. The waitress, a woman in a red vest and overalls and a single artificial cybernetic arm came to take their orders. "What may I get you? May I recommend-"

"No food, I don't eat well I'm here." Prima immediately announced. "Okay, I'll take a glass of orange juice."

"They'll have the cottage-cheese muhrmishka and potato fritters with the grand meal bowl sampler platter, plus a stack of fried horsecakes. I'll get a bowl of bumblebee soup. Actually, get a cup for them too." Mama Might said.

"That dish is alcoholic. m'am. It holds a hint of barley brew that-"

"Then get'em it! They're big girls. I'm paying for this whole place, ya gonna card me little lady?" Might asked, poking her finger in the waitress' chest.

"Certainly not!" The waitress retorted.

Tina made a sound halfway between a cough and a laugh. Her stomach did a small, unpleasant flip. Prima did a small, unpleasant flip back, groaning.

"And you! Get the drinks out here before me my thirst dries out!” She howled.

“I'm paying, ya don't like it?"

"Yes ma'am." The waitress said, going away.

"See? I told ya." Mama Might whispered to Tina. "I can talk my way out of anything. You kids can handle a little alcohol right? It'll be no big deal, like grandma used to say."

Prima barked an ugly laugh, like a flock of geese honking in offense. "Like we'd know. She’s dead.” Prima muttered, with her arms and ears slumping down.

“We’re all friends here,” Mama Might said. “No need for hostility. It's a vintage spot, lots of historical value. The musics relaxing, the food kicks ass, I took my medication, what's the fuss? You two aren't gonna be so shy and grumpy everytime you come to see me are you? Not gonna stay on Kosmopolis like pussy-cats, gonna be all grown up and tough-ass like your pussy-cat mama might?"

"No!" Tina replied. "We'll come back, we promised."

"You're an international celebrity. An A-rank, you're frontloaded." Prima said, sounding bitter. "You can play us for all the attention and fame you want, but it doesn't change the fact you could've come and visited anytime. But you left us on the streets. I'm not talking with you." The air went dead silent.

Prima caught her sister's wrist. “Tinny.” Tina’s eyes were bright, too bright. They turned to Prima. "Y-yes?"

"Why don't you go check out the giftshop. The food will take abit to get here."

“The giftshop?” she repeated, soft.

Prima didn’t look at her. She kept her eyes on their mother.

“Giftshop,” she said again, making sure the meaning wasn't misunderstood. Leaving them to their dynamic, Tina scooted off like a mouse and headed towards the giftshop, looking around at collections of dice, blank tomes sold on the shelves and old druid memorabilia.

"Look Prim, I know the cameras sell you a rather glamorous image of shaolin travels but believe me-

"Don't start." Prima interrupted. "You listen to me, you're just talking to get on her good side. Just because it sounds nice and all but I'm calling you out and I'm not the only one. You're not doing everything for me just because you love me, you're doing everything because I started getting notice for my achievements, and was found out connected to you. You cannot have the media report on you as a bad mother."

Mama Might threw her muscled arms around the back of her neck and leaned back. "You listen to me for once. You're the one acting like a brat. I didn't get this place on my own. I don't give a single shit what the rags say. You don't know the half of it.. Like you're so clean, your life's been a bed of roses hasn’t it? Why are you complaining?"

"You could've kept us off the streets, could've gotten us a real home, could've been our mother." Prima grabbed the juice from the tray of the waitress, allowing her to set the rest.

"But you didn't. Because you're not as strong as the world thinks."

"Prima, come on." Might said, raising her voice and her glass with it.  "That's all I ever need to know, that I can put you on a leash and control your life, right? Do you know who my mother was?" Mama Might's eyes followed the room, taking in the orphanage where so many kids were raised from rags to luxury and success. "Some backalley street cat. She worked her way up and became a pimp. Wanted me in her trade to pull tricks, so I started as a hooker. When I was a kid. I didn't know better. I had to deal with violent customers, men two or three times my size. So I started taking self-defense lessons with a little old lady in a teashop, as modest as this one. She taught me things I could never have learnt from any book, and she wasn't just a nice granny type, she was a real asskicker. I kept practicing and fighting and beating up men until I didn't need mom or her sluts anymore, and then kept fighting my whole life. I worked my way up the Ultra Association, and now I don't even need them either."

Her daughter folded her arms over her chest, unconvinced.

"Prim honey, I know that you know me better than most. Do you know what the world does to women like me? Just because I'm famous and I've found success and you haven't. I know how the world sees me, not as a person but as a commodity, a body. Just like they did me then, they'll do it to you now. They'll take you and squeeze your worth out of you like a lemon till there's nothing left. And if I had raised you under my thumb, you'd have had no choice but to play the game, as much as they did me."

"It's different. You're stronger." Prima said. "I saw the fights. You split a mountain in half last month."

"And yet, you've done perfectly fine on your own kid. If I had raised you, then what? You learn my technique? Be my successor? You'd hate it."

"I'd have a roof. We, would have a mother." She said.

"God, you sound just like your father- don't ever ask about that one." By the time the waitress finished, she'd left a huge silver platter of food, bountiful over the table.

"You don't know me. Maybe you could be my successor, Mama Might's shining heir. Her little boo-boo muffin trying to surpass her legacy." Her booming voice caused the fire to rustle.  “People die rushing to please their parents. Some are pretty good at it or even succeed. But, it doesn't always end well for the one trying to be better than the parent. Especially when 'being better' means fighting and surrendering to violence your whole life. I didn't want bloodshed for you.."

"I like martial arts. You kind of have to learn how to fight when left for yourself."

 Prima snarked.

She tried to place some horsecakes on Prima's plate, only for her to smack them away.

"Tsk. That's enough drama. You don't need a mother who beats your ass down with a belt, like some low-rent hooker-girl from back in the day. You don't need a mother who pretends to be someone they're not either and gives up on who she is just to play housewife.  I would've given you everything I had in the world to protect you, but in my heart I know the life I've lived, I'm scared that your life would end up like mine. I was hoping that by leaving you two, you'd choose to never become like me. You can be a success in life without following in your parents footsteps, Prim. I just wish you'd realize that. It sucks that I didn't do better by you, but here you are. I can't take that back now. Not without losing myself. So I’m not gonna apologize for it. I'm not sorry." She took a bite of a boney stick of meat from the appetizers, like a brute biting out of a boar. "I'm not here to apologize. I'm here to get my meal. To eat good."

"Are you done?" Prima asked. Her heart trembled. She was prepared for this schlock, but not how hard it'd hurt.

Prima looked at her food, her mouth watered. Giving in, she picked up her fork.

The two, ate in silence.

After a few minutes she continued. "Would you have wanted that anyway? To have been raised, and have to be a mini-might?"

"You're insufferable. After seeing who you are, of course not. I'd rather be a successful woman who's fought her own path in life than some pansy-baby who depends on her mama for everything. You're the one who made us orphans, afterall."

"You know I couldn't put myself second." Mama Might told her. She said, taking a bite. "Maaan, that shit tastes like some good ol' timey shit."

She looked at Prima. "Speaking from the heart- that's the one part of me I hope you took after."

"That I taste good?" Prima bit back.

"No, that you're not afraid to put yourself before everyone else's needs. There's in old saying Shi-Sang. It’s roughly, The blood of providence burns brightest when bled from one's own hands, not handed down."

"If that's what you hoped for me.." She looked over at Tina, whose eyes were a wall of joy as she came back with a tiny plush gosling in her hand attached to a keychain. "Then I'm not impressed. And I’m afraid you’ll be pretty disappointed."

Tina sat down.

She held her sister's empty glass. "Can I ask you a question?" Tina asked. "You're our mother, right? You're in Shi-Sang now?"

"Of course I am."

"And we have a new family there, right?"

"Nobody besides you two. No."

"Can we come back?" Tina asked. "We want to come back. We don't want to be left behind. Please, can we come back home?"

"I don't have a home." Mama Might replied. "My home is only my next fight. I've only ever known fighting."

"Then.. can we come with you? Fighting, traveling- you are our mother afterall."

Mama Might looked around the room, tugging the collar of her stretch uniform. "Uhhh.. well um, you see I'm kinda busy and all.. " She said, fumbling. "Can't really bring a little girl and a teenager traveling to my fights.. you know what I mean?”

"I'm 12." Tina said. "And Prima's 14. Plus she beats up her classmates and students everyday!"

"Sorry kiddo. But I will come visit, of course." Mama Might said, quickly. "You guys take good care of each other. Okay?"

Tina held the little toy gosling to her chest.

Mama looked at a small sign overtop the rocking chair, squinting and reading the words Amelia used to say.

"Sometimes, you’ve got to-"

"Oh shutup and let us eat." Prima groaned.

Tina looked at Prima, holding the toy in her hand. Prima put a hand on Tina's knee in affection, being her anchor. They looked at each other and gently laughed.

Their mother took a slice of bumblebee soup with a spoon and dipped into it, a slice of horsecake between her thumb and finger. With a grimace, she dipped it in the bowl and ate rapidly. Tina took some biscuits made of fried dough and started munching away. The soup steamed in its wide bowl, golden and thick, the surface shimmering with that faint barley-brew sheen filling the room with a pleasant meaty aroma.

The two ate as if they were at a banquet.

Mama Might turned to the two after they'd cleared out half the trays, if only due to her and Prima's rancorous appetites. "I've got a little something for you two."

"If it's money, forget it." Prima replied hastily.

"Nah, nothing like that. Better. Think of it as a heirloom.." She took a huge tome and placed it on the table.

"A biography?" Prima said.

"No, I'm not that important. This is, I was told by a monk on my travels a special book of sorts. It appeared while I was still perfecting my Windbreaker God-fist technique, and seems to have followed me and teleported everywhere since.  It was originally from an archive of the library of the monastery of Reksharma in Shi-Sang, which was raided by Shi-Sang in a failed attempt to assassinate the monks. So I've had it for some years, and figured you two might've appreciated it." She said, taking the book and giving it to the girls, looking at Prima first and then Tina. "The monk told me these sorts of books record and transverse, those that open and hold onto them transform into their fantasies, get special magic powers, and those who take the book can become powerful. Don't know how they work but, I've never been interested in cheating my way to power or anything like that."

"What?" Tina asked. She flipped the cover. An ornate tome with metal-coated pages, it was bound by a leather strap. Diagrams and Shi-Sang writing of sophisticated martial techniques were recorded across the pages. "WOAH, you wrote down all your moves?"

"Of course not." Might said. "I've never even opened it, let alone written in it. It’s a magic book.. it writes in itself. Apparently when some of my students found it, they said it was the holy grail of my techniques, something special- good for them. Can you imagine, a book stalking me all that time? But I forbid them to learn from it or in any way but witnessing me. I won't have cheaters for pupils."

Mama Might told the waitress to pack the leftover food and Tina asked for some take-out boxes. Prima took one glance at the book, and then slammed the cover. "Well good. Because we don't want it either." She tried to shove it back.

"That book is my treasure, it's sacred. You sure?" Mama replied.

"We'll burn this.." Prima slammed her fists on the book. "BURN IT YOU HEAR?"

"Mama, I'm so sorry-" Tina said, picking up the book. Prima reached across the table, snatching it back.

However Mama Might's face slowly turned to a smile, an elation of pure bliss as if she'd truly found her kin. Few words had ever made her happier than those her daughter had uttered. She was about to say something- when Prima stood up.

"I'm not a cheater." Prima said, taking the book and slamming it shut, her hands going tight around it. "I'll be a champion of the fist, and I'll get all my secrets myself, one step at a time. And if you die in the process, then good. I don't want to follow in your footsteps or learn even one single thing from you, so take your dumb book back this instant."

Her words, became music to Mama's ears. "Atta' girl."

MM's eyes twinkled, bright with the hope in them.

 

 

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Somewhere in HVN, Harmony stepped into a labroom, the cyan circuitry along every glowing white wall giving her a headache. Color-theory aside, Intellica's institutions always had a certain unnatural air about them. The surgical smoothness of every surface, the clinical silence that echoed each step, it never sat right with Harmony.

“I’m sorry,” she said, placing down the metal disk which read her biometrics and haptic feedback to apply her sensory data to the database's. “I’ve had a long day.”

Intellica stood, not looking at her. Her gaze was aloof at the article levitating above the techno-pedestal connected to atleast 512 different sensors in the room. She wore a white jumpsuit with cyan piping, with her arms folded behind her. She did not smile.

“Harmony,” she said, turning around. "Do you know what this is?"

Harmony leaned down to look and then straightened her spine. "Looks like a Recipe Book.” She held up a hand, data query's and infographics rapidly flashing as she waved said hand sorting through it. "Why are you researching this?"

"I've been using it recently, to collect information on Harvest. Most Sentrimates are rather, repelled from there. Ravens seem to keep them out quite readily, even from the outskirts of Orchid and Xi. However, I'm seeing many that have shown up recently.."

She said, fiddling with the display. "The data's been rather scant, but from what I can gather the recent arrivals seem unusually connected to our enemy." Intellica turned to Harmony, her expression in the same stark severity it always was. "That is our charge, is it not? The ones we've been using."

"Of course. But, we've got a good system. One that will take care of the problem. It's all on its own, there's no need to meddle." Harmony replied, her words as calm and collected as the other's had been stoney.

"I see." Intellica said, her eyes narrowing. "That one seems rather suspicious. Perhaps we can gather more from her?" She asked. "From my proxonium. From Terra.  Do you think you could get the information?"

Harmony's eyes went to the machine above, the scans of the woman she knew and thought she'd known, a woman who'd been a mother to many children once.

"Yes, I think I can do that." She replied, in the same calm she'd used before.

Intellica did not respond immediately.

“Is this a problem?”

Harmony turned to her. "If I may ask, I'm a little short on understanding the usage of these. I thought Recipe Books had a rather narrow field of discretion. Why are these-"

"Harmony, do not be so baroque." Intellica told her. "A recipe book is merely a combinatory datakeeping entity of writ and cascade, its consciousness is not limited to the culinary skillset. Anything can be a Recipe. Star keeping, biology, crude construction.  Combat. Linguistics. As long as information is systemized. You'd be surprised- some Recipe Books quite literally, record recipes for disaster. Others became holy texts that converted whole worlds in rapid succession. Some merely became glorified personal calendars or diaries. The only limit is in the information, how it is applied, how it's combined, and the potential which it is synthesized."

"I'm not sure I-"

"Do you have a question about a recipe? About her?"

"Yes, I'm curious why you have such interest in this Sentimate?" Harmony said, her eyes going from the database to the one who'd created it. "What are you trying to find out?"

Intellica stared forward, her voice clear and direct, like a computerized processor going off-tone. "Recipe Books exist to extract data and replicate it, record mutations, heuristics, every possible permutation. Not unlike a genomic, genetic code or computerized replication. Algorithms of all sorts. That's their specialty. Recipe Keeping."

She was silent.

"Has any Recipe Witch ever been duplicated or recorded the same information twice?"

She asked.

Harmony shrugged. "I couldn't say, not my area of expertise. I'd assume not?"

Intellica was cross. "Why not? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of copying information? Copying and cataloguing all the data? No two Recipe Books are alike, are they? Because that's the other part. Recipe Keepers' are always unique. Every Recipe is unique in its essence, no two records can be the same."

Harmony thought. "I suppose, you could say it's like trying to duplicate DNA- you could, but then you're not getting a true copy and it's merely just a facsimile, and you're just getting a randomized genetic profile with a mutation-error, as any copy would. Every new instance of an offspring is always their own thing, and has to exist for, whatever  purpose it has. The 'recipe' can only be recorded in that unique form. Do you understand?”

Telli said nothing. "Elaborate."

Hating having to spell it out, Harmony continued with two words. "Like children?"

Silence filled the room for several seconds. Than those seconds stretched out into an awkward moment.

“You may tell me, Harmony, what of this is your business?”

Harmony took a step back. “Whatever, I suppose it’s not. I am not your labmonkey, Intellica. This is why you have assistants.” She started to head out the room. "Maybe let one of them explain it to you, if you can be bothered to listen. If you are doing your job, you shouldn't need me.”

Intellica did not make a sound. "As you wish." Her hands stayed unmoved behind her back as Harmony exited the door and it closed behind her with a gentle click.

Intellica spoke to the empty room.

“Record: Attempted clarification, refused.”

A light blinked on a console. An assistant AI chirped softly, compliant. Intellica’s gaze never softened. Then she stepped forward and placed two fingers near the book’s edge, not touching it, just close enough to insult it with proximity.

“Repeat a recipe.” she said.

Then, in the margin, a single sentence began to record onto the page.

 

NO RECIPE TRULY WORKS TWICE.

 

She leaned closer. “You are a combinatory catalog. A machine.”

The page rippled. A new line formed.

 

AND YOU ARE ONLY A WOMAN PRETENDING TO BE ONE.

 

Intellica straightened her jumpsuit and waved her fingers downwards. The room’s lights dimmed. “Terra,” she said, almost to herself. “If you’re the one who taught it to bite, then you’re also the one who can teach it to repeat. That much I'm sure of.”

She walked out the room and left the book to the darkness of fate. In the dark with nobody watching, the recipe book rewrote on its pages a repeated sentence across its middling pages.

On the page was an illustration of a single lighthouse.

 

IF YOU EVER NEED TO BE NOBODY, COME HERE AND FIND ME.

 

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Dave Strider looked up at the towering building above, its light beaming across the shore. He'd brought the two and had led them to an old diner, not too far from the house of the old man who ran it. Terra's late father, whom had found Dave so very long ago and took him onto his farm, when Terra was just a little girl. The two lovers were snickering and oogling one another in their usual lovey-dovey fashion the entire way thru, which lead Dave to believe he was brought as a chaperone to a date he didn't know he was on. They had something private to do in the old lighthouse where they visited and grew up, telling him to weight outside for just twenty or thirty minutes. That was an hour ago. When the light turned back on, he knew it was the signal that it was okay to come up.

The sky was deepening, twilight's creeping closer to darkness. He figured if he wanted to get a good look at that monster and his lady, this was a good chance. He came in, walking up the ambient stairs to the upper chambers. The lighthouse was a strange old dome, the tower on it like some ancient castle of mages. Not that he'd ever seen an old mage castle before, but there was a magical feeling to the place, and something else he couldn't put his finger on. A whiff of something he couldn't quite place. Dave finally reached the top door and knocked. "Come in." A female voice said. He pushed forward.

There sitting on a chair was Terra, she had a giddy expression on her face like he'd just done something really cute. "Dave," she said, looking at him.

Dave looked around the small room. It had been a long time since he'd come here, and it felt like a lot of time had passed since he'd been up here. "Uh, hey. Did you guys get done what you wanted or whatever? Cuz if you need more time to be weirdos that's cool." He'd always known nothing was normal when these two kids got together. Right out of college and they were still a bunch of nerds in love.

However..

There was a new presence in the room that wasn't there before. Terra's glee gave it away. She raised her hand, showing her ring finger.

There was an engagement ring on it, jeweled. "He proposed! Up in the lighthouse. We want to start a family."

Dave turned his head and looked at Zack. "Have some kids, y'know?" The man with horn rimmed glasses said. He nodded to Terra. "She wants to stay in her hometown, and be a mother. It's what she wanted. She's been bugging me about it for months, so I just decided to tie the knot and propose. She kinda figured it out back at the restaurant, we just came here because we thought it'd be lovely and more romantic."

"Yo. So that's why you were all weirdy with it." Dave said. "Congratulations then?"

"She just wanted to tell you." Zack said, moving behind his fiancée. "Zack and Terra. Engaged. Would you look at that." Dave shuffled his hands through his pockets casually.

Zack had been a great friend to his surrogate daughter-figure, the only one she ever really wanted, and Dave had always kinda liked him. He never really figured out where he came from or why they grew up together the way they did, but having a boy around made helping to raise her a much easier task. "Alright, alright, whatever." He told them. "Happy for you two."

"Ooh, wait until you find out where we planned the wedding! It's the best place." Terra turned to Zack. "Should you tell him or should I?"

"Let's say it together sweetie."

They timed it and after 3 seconds, cheered it out loud.

Dave’s eardrums burst.

 

"THE DUCKLING HOUSE ORPHANAGE IN KOSMOPOLIS!!" they said in unison, clapping their hands.

End