Chương 174: 172. Monsters and Mortals

"Well," Penta sighs, brushing a goopy lock of faux-hair out from in front of her faux-eyes.

"It would seem that Vita is back." I have no idea why she does that. Her 'hair' is just the same substance as the rest of her, so she could move it with pure willpower. Of course, there's no need to, since her 'eyes' don't work anyway. There's probably a half-dozen other layers of pointlessness for that motion, but I still notice Penta doing weird things like that all the time.

"Finally," Margarette moans.

"I was starting to worry it was going to be years again."

"I do like the fuzzy moth lady look more than the bloody tentacleth look," Xena muses.

"Vita theemed really happy with things, too."

"Good for her," I mutter somewhat more forcefully than intended.

"Are you alright, Lark?" Penta asks.

"I know you haven't exactly been looking forward to Vita's return."

"What about you?" I counter back at her.

"Didn't she leave you to get tortured the same day she brought you back to life?" Penta affects a sigh, making the noise for one even though, again, it's a meaningless action and she doesn't breathe.

"We have, apparently, drifted quite a bit apart during the two years I was dead, I'll grant you," she says.

"But Vita made good on her promise. She revived my people as individuals that don't rely on parasitism to survive. I don't think we're friends anymore, if we ever even were. But I don't have any problem with forgiving her for that pain."

"Uh, I'm gonna step out of this conversation," Margarette says hesitantly.

"Sorry. It's hard not to butt in and defend her, and I don't think you guys want that, so… I'm gonna go find her I guess. Um. Sorry." I grit my teeth and say nothing, since I don't want to butt in there and point out how messed up it is that Margarette can't even stand to be around people insulting her 'master.' It's terrifying. Everything Vita touches is terrifying, and now she's back.

"Bye, Margarette!" Xena waves to her, picking up my conversational slack.

"Have fun!"

"See ya later, everyone!" the vrothizo-boned skeleton answers, skittering off. I twirl my sword impatiently, managing to at least offer Margarette a smile and a nod. I like Margarette a lot, which is why it hurts to see her so… well, actively mind controlled. It feels so, so wrong, but she insists she's happy this way, and that just feels even more wrong, but who am I to judge her, and… on and on.

"You guys wanna keep sparring without her?" I ask, restless.

"Thure," Xena shrugs.

"Penta?"

"I've no objections," the slime shrugs.

"We'll be at a major disadvantage without her, though."

"Eathily tholved. Hey, Bently! Come on, tag in!"

"Now Xena, pronounce it carefully," Penta chides.

"You need to practice."

"Ugh, fine. Eaaaasily. Ssssolved. There, happy?"

"Good," Penta nods.

"You'll stop cutting your tongue soon enough."

"Alas, the indignitieth I put up with to make myself into a hot monster girl," Xena sighs.

"Don't you keep telling me not to call myself a monster?" I ask Xena.

"You're not allowed to do it if I'm not allowed to do it."

"Wrong!" Xena grins, showing off her sharp white teeth.

"You're not allowed to do it because you use it as an insult. I'm allowed to do it because I use it for thelf-empowerment. I think being a monster is fucking awesome, so it's totally different."

"You are incredibly strange," Penta comments, though she's smiling.

"I am and I like it that way!"

"I heard my name?" Bently says, jogging towards us.

"Bently bear!" Xena squeals, jumping on him and giving him a huge hug.

"Wanna help us beat up Lark?"

"... Are you asking if I want to join you in getting your butts kicked by Lark?" he asks.

"Well we'll certainly get our butts kicked if you go into it with that attitude!" Xena mock-pouts.

"It's okay," I assure Bently.

"I have some rations nearby, so you can go all-out if you want."

"I don't particularly want," he answers.

"I don't like fighting the way you and Xena do. But I suppose if she's insistent, I can help out."

"That's the spirit," Penta grins.

"It'll be just like old times. Ready for a hypermetabolize?"

"It's not really 'just like old times' if you were never the person who actually cast those spells on me."

"Details!" Bently sighs, rolling his shoulder and raising his hand up to the sky before sending a crack of lighting up into the air. Moments later, a pitch black scythe spins through the air and lands in his grip, a bone-carved chain winding out from the shaft to wrap around Bently and squeeze.

"Huuugs!" Norah cheers.

"What's up, Bently?"

"Lark said to go all-out for a spar," he answers flatly.

"You wanna help?"

"Oh, fuck yeah!" Norah agrees emphatically.

"I'll get you this time, kitty!" I flick my ear in annoyance. I'm not a 'kitty.'

"Remember, Norah, one limb limit," I chide.

"If you remove a limb, you win. Don't keep going."

"Yeah, yeah," the scythe answers, waving her blade dismissively at me.

"Look, it was one time, okay? And in my defense, you don't actually get put down from just losing a limb. How was I supposed to know?"

"Protesting does not make you look better, gore girl," Xena prods.

"Anyway, since the rest of you can't survive the injuries I can, a clean hit means you're out, okay?" I press.

"I simply disagree with your definition of a 'clean hit,'" Penta protests.

"You've never caused any appreciable damage to me."

"I cut you in half!"

"Which causes no appreciable damage to me, yes. Please keep up." I groan.

"Why do you all do this to me?"

"Because we can't actually beat you, so it's important for our morale to get as many thmaller victories as possible," Xena answers cheerfully.

"Now are we starting, or what? We know the rules."

"Fine," I grumble, deciding to get in a 'small victory' of my own.

"Begin." Before giving them a chance to react, I fire webbing from my lower pair of arms at Xena and Bently, cutting it short and flicking the other end of the threads at a nearby tree to anchor them down before rushing straight at Penta. These spars are enjoyable because of the sheer physicality of them, but they're also immensely helpful for all of us. Well, not Bently and Norah, I suppose, but they're just here to make things a bit more fair for the others.

Penta's body is consistently putting on more mass, and she's trying to get faster at casting her spells in combat scenarios using a unique style of casting she's developing to work with her biology. She wasn't kidding about not being harmed due to bisection; cutting her in half was entirely pointless, as she could harmlessly re-absorb the removed part of her body, including whatever sliver of soul left alongside it.

Though I suppose she arguably cannibalized her own child to do so, considering how ozoids reproduce through fission, but if she's not bothered by it I don't see why I should be. It's not like parts taken off of her have the ability to think. Xena, of course, needs to constantly adapt to the changes of her new body too, and spars work as well for that as anything. Margarette just wants to learn to fight, since she didn't have any experience with that until I extended the offer to her.

What I get out of it is more or less all of that put together. Norah whips around to slice the threads before they connect, but I've made them extra-sticky in anticipation of that and they gunk up her chain, slowing her down. Xena squawks and flails as my threads trip her, but she still manages to fire off a bolt of pressurized water at me, which I block with my shield. I am, after all, carrying my usual Templar weapons, even if I no longer bother with the armor.

It's restricting, and there's no need to fight like a human anymore. My reason to spar is simple: I'm developing my own style of fighting. Something that takes advantage of everything I'm able to do, something that implements the methodical, defensive style of the Templars with the brutal, high-speed savagery of my heritage. Just following my instincts in a fight makes me an uncontrolled beast, effective but inefficient.

Yet using the sword styles designed for two-armed creatures with no natural weapons that can't even come close to my speed even when magically enhanced is even more inefficient. I have to learn why the techniques I've been taught work and adapt them to a completely different context, making something new in the process. Relying on my vrothizo constitution to carelessly soak up damage and heal it back is stupid, but so is ignoring the fact that I can do that when needed.

It's about balance, it's about judgment, and for the first time in a long time it's about keeping myself alive. I'm going to keep myself alive. Jelisa made me promise, and I'm finally starting to see why. Bently barely steps in to intercept my strike on Penta, who seems to have anticipated my underhanded tactics and prepared her combat-enhancement spell in advance. With Bently powered up and wielding Norah, he's by far the most dangerous opponent. … Which means I should ignore him, at least for now.

The thing about having the speed advantage is that I get to set up the battlefield and engage however I please. Since Bently is protecting Penta, I dig my talons into the dirt and snap my body into a course-change, bursting towards Xena instead. More water pours out from her horns and fires towards me, but I just adjust my approach slightly and let them pass me by. She won't be able to change their course quickly enough to— agh pain!

A flash of light and a burning sensation coursing through my body quickly paint me as a fool. Xena wasn't aiming for me, she was aiming for Bently! Electric bolts arc down the streams of water, passing through me as the quickest path to the ground. A growl escaping my lips, I do my best to fight through the spasms, my burnt flesh shaking with violent energies as I lash out as best I can.

Xena's enhanced body can keep up with me when I'm mostly disabled, however, and I fail to land a blow quickly enough to make fighting through this worthwhile. I break off and retreat. It's funny. Last Hiverock night, I was fighting alongside most of these people, fending off a full-fledged invasion.

It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense that I'm just casually sparring with allies during this traumatic time, but apparently one of the major advantages to being a small town in the middle of the forest is that Hiverock has no idea we even exist. They don't attack the entire island at once, they target strategic areas to drop troops on and we're just… not one of them. There was some tension, some readiness, but… well, at the end of the day, we have Lady Vesuvius here. We have Altrix. We have an undead army.

Hiverock is not really a thing we have to worry about. And now, apparently, the very last Hiverock invasion has completed, and it's Vita herself. And that's… probably, technically, hopefully not a bad thing, I guess. Now's not the time to think about that, though. I have a spar to win. Inhaling deeply, I pull mana into the edges of my soul and start to cast with my lower hands, launching my body back at my friends. Margarette's pseudo-mother, Theodora, had a field day with Bently's talent when she saw it.

It is, apparently, part of a yet-unknown school of magic which manipulates a force that we do not understand. In fact, the only other time she's seen it was Melik's talent, though I'm not currently in a position to properly think about everything she seemed to go through after learning Vita killed him. The point is, she went and figured out a few spells in this unknown magic school, and being what I am, I didn't have any trouble learning them.

'Electromagnetism,' she called it. Interesting stuff. Bently can generate absurd amounts of energy, but he struggles to direct it. Xena makes up for this weakness, but proper spellcraft can outperform whatever aqueous solution she uses to help channel the lightning. Redirecting the electrical current away from me, I charge through the ropes of water, finally tagging Xena with a clean hit and putting her out of action.

I deflect a few strikes from Norah, being careful only to touch the flat of her blade, and advance on Penta as a feint. I strike preemptively as Bently moves to defend her, taking him out of the fight and scoring a hit on Penta soon afterwards. Norah hasn't technically been hit, but spar rules say she loses whenever she's the last one up. So… I win. Not bad, but I probably could have done it faster if I was less distracted.

"Does this really help you, Lark?" Bently groans, rubbing his chest where I probably just gave him a nasty bruise.

"Smacking us around like this?" I blink.

"I… yes, of course it does," I assure him.

"Um… think of it like my equivalent of drilling? I don't get better from doing the same thing over and over again, that's the default for me. I only get better by doing something slightly different each time and figuring out where it is and isn't working. I need… variables, I guess Lady Vesuvius would call it."

"Alright then," he sighs, causing a bout of sympathetic pain to flare up in my chest. He's been pretty melancholy for the past few months and I don't have any idea how to help. I feel horrible about it.

"Eh, yeah, I know I was excited for a bit there but I can't focus at all right now," Xena sighs, laying back in the grass.

"I mean, Vita's back, and she's some kinda moth lady now. It's fucking wild."

"Vita's back!?" Norah shrieks, floating up in the air.

"Oh fuck! Oh gosh! I… I gotta… where is she!?"

"She went that way," Xena points.

"I-I… bye!" Norah yelps, shooting off in that direction. I grit my teeth and ignore it, but Bently watches her fly off with a pained expression.

"... I think she's going to go apologize," he says quietly.

"Huh?" Xena asks, sitting back up.

"For what?"

"For letting her die," Bently answers.

"She's been tearing herself up over it this whole time. Just… in a really bad state. Hurting herself. Hating herself. All because she couldn't keep her own killer alive against Galdra."

"Are you serious!?" I hiss.

"That's… agh, that's disgusting!"

"Don't tell her I told you," Bently mumbles.

"It was supposed to be a secret, it just… it hurts to keep it in. I hate how she's… she's Norah. But not quite. You know?"

"I didn't know her before," I say.

"But yeah, it's… it's messed up."

"I… I dunno, I mean, I'd rather be undead than dead-dead, personally," Xena shrugs.

"I kinda like having her back. It's like… life insurance. But more literally."

"You'd be her mind-slave!" I protest.

"Well, yeah, but at least her mind-slaves usually seem pretty happy?" Xena points out.

"I mean like not all the time, but… in general. That's better than a lot of people get, y'know?"

"Xena!"

"Hey I'm not saying you have to like it," she backpedals.

"To each their own and all that. I get I'm a weirdo among weirdos, it's just… I don't know. Wouldn't you want to live for someone? Make the world simple and beautiful for once?"

"The world is simple for once!" I insist.

"I kill and eat monsters to protect people. No corrupt organizations, no heathens and heretics, no greater goods and certainly no lesser evils! I have friends and a community that respects me and I protect everyone. Everything should always be this simple!"

"I don't think Xena disagrees with you, Lark," Penta answers.

"It's just the unfortunate fact that reality does." I scowl, thrumming my quills and letting a surge of comforting warmth flow into my back as my talons deeper into the dirt. It's calming. I need a bit of calming right now.

"I'm not stupid," I say.

"I get that… that the world is messy. I just don't like it. And all Vita seems to do is make things messier!"

"You guys talking about me? All good things, I hope." Vita approaches us with a friendly wave, or at least what I assume is friendly given her creepy, expressionless doll face. Her glimmering cerulean scale armor covers her entire body, only having weaknesses at the usual joints, plus a few vents on the sides of her torso where I'm fairly sure she breathes from. A belt of what looks like pure metal daggers hangs on her hips while Norah rests casually over her shoulder.

Margarette skitters giddily behind the two of them.

"Hah, I get it," Xena says, grinning at her.

"Empath joke, right? You know full well we're talking shit."

"I do sense some distinct bitterness, yes," she confirms.

"But that's fine. I can't say I don't deserve it." I bristle a bit at that, extending my quills further. I've gotten tired of keeping them flat against my back all the time. They're dangerous, but I love how they feel and Jelisa says I'm observant enough of my surroundings that I shouldn't ever have to worry about stabbing someone with them on accident. So again, I let them hum, feeling the warmth run into my bones and the light around me get just the slightest bit dimmer.

"What do you mean by that?" I ask her. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Margarette, Norah, can you go let the others know I'm here?" Vita asks, seemingly ignoring me.

"They don't have to come find me, I'm going to be making the rounds."

"Okay!" Margarette agrees immediately, rushing off as Norah flies out of Vita's hand and goes spinning away in the opposite direction. Vita watches them rush off for a moment before turning back to us.

"Sorry about that," she says, and it sounds genuine.

"I appreciate that you've all become such good friends with them. Thank you."

"You say that like you're their mother, or something," Penta scoffs.

"Well in kind of a messed-up way I sort of am, don't you think?" Vita asks, tilting her head slightly.

"I feel responsible for them in that way, if nothing else. And it makes me happy to see that they've been happy without me. So again, thank you." Bently and I both glance at each other. We didn't expect to be having this conversation, but if we had this certainly isn't how we'd have expected it to start.

"We're their friends, yeah," Bently confirms.

"But we're nothing to them compared to you."

"Do you need to be the most important person to them in order to have a meaningful relationship?" Vita asks quizzically.

"Do you?" Bently counters.

"Are you going to keep them like this? There's no way you can't figure out a way to fix them." Vita actually looks away at that, as if embarrassed.

"... Would you believe that was the original plan?" she says.

"Unfortunately, it's not that simple."

"Just undo it," Bently presses.

"Make her like she was!"

"It's not that simple," Vita snaps.

"I mean, for starters, recent events have kind of had a serious impact on my answer to the 'if you change a person, are they the same person' question, Bently. I'm not sure if you've noticed, but Norah isn't the only person who's been severely fucked by animancy around here! But even if we set aside all that baggage, I can't just 'undo it.' That's not how it works.

If someone is still alive, and they have a working brain, and the animancy is recent enough to have not significantly affected that brain, then you can undo it. It's just a simple spell to lower the soul's influence on thought and accelerate the rate at which it updates its information until it matches the brain again. But surprise! Dead people don't have brains. There's no record of who they used to be left, because it died. I can't reverse changes to undead, I can only apply changes.

So what would I change her to? What counts as Norah and what doesn't when Norah has been fucking dead for nearly three years now!?"

"That is Norah," Bently growls.

"I fucking know it's Norah! I told you that on the battlefield and you disagreed with me, you dipshit! But she's different now, and she doesn't want to be changed. You want me to just rip her love for me away? I just talked to somebody who had that happen, and it was kind of a major traumatic experience for her!"

"Vita—" Penta tries to butt in.

"It's Princess Vita," she hisses.

"Princess Vita," Penta continues, undeterred.

"Peace. There's no need to raise your voice." To my surprise, Vita actually listens to her, relaxing her body and taking a moment to calm down.

"... You're right, sorry," she says.

"I just don't appreciate self-entitled moralizers making demands about things they don't even… Ugh! Sorry, sorry. Look, can we start over? I stop being able to try diplomacy when I get mad. Fucking Lich's bad habits." We all share a few concerned looks at that.

"Uh," Xena says, clearing her throat.

"Are you not the Lich in question…?"

"Of course I am," Vita waves off.

"I'm just also someone else. It's complicated. I'm sort of a… personality stew right now, if that makes sense? The ultimate result is a delicious, complete meal, but it's a bit difficult to tell which parts came from what."

"Huh," Xena muses.

"What was your other name? Mal… I mean, Princess Malrosa?"

"That's me, yep," Vita shrugs.

"Heh, that's kinda funny," Xena says.

"You kind of have more in common with Altrix now, right? Your birth mom?"

"I don't think my situation is quite like hers," Vita muses.

"She's three people, but I feel more like one person made of three people. Since, y'know, Melik's technically a bit of seasoning rolling around in the head stew. Sometimes the disparate parts of me conflict but that's about the only time I don't feel like just… me? If that makes sense? Also, Altrix is my first birth mom, but I've had like four of those now and Lyn still beats all of them. She's a solid second place, though."

"Oh wow, you have, like, a mom ranking list. That's, uh. Hmm."

"I've gotta keep track of them somehow."

"I mean that's… no, but okay."

"Look, don't worry about it," Vita insists.

"Anyway, before people started trying to make demands of me, I think I was trying to apologize for something." She looks towards me as she says that, and I immediately tense up. I've been… pretty content to just not engage with this conversation. I don't want to engage with this conversation, I don't want to think about this conversation. I just feel… fragile. Because just when I've started to be happy somewhere, Vita shows up. And that means she's probably going to destroy it all again.

I know she didn't kill August. I did that. But it wouldn't have happened if she wasn't there, if she hadn't nearly killed me. Likewise, I was learning to be happy with the Templars, comfortable with my friends, and then suddenly she's becoming a problem and I have to fight her to the death and Melik dies instead of me and I just… everything broke again. And now she's back a third time, right when I have a purpose. Right when I'm feeling stable. Right when everything was going well again. She's back.

"And that's what I have to apologize about," Vita says, her insectoid eyes burrowing into my soul.

"I was riding kind of a power high back in New Talsi, Lark. It took me too long to figure out you weren't the same person that ripped my future girlfriend's throat out, and once I did it was only after tragedy struck. Which I then handled in the worst possible way. I just… I struggled to really get that, for the longest time. All the fucked-up stuff I said and did… I'm sorry." I open my mouth to respond, leave my jaw hanging for a few long moments, then close it. I… I don't know what to say to that.

I don't have anything to say to that.

"I've heard from Margarette that you've been doing an awesome job keeping this place safe for everyone," Vita continues.

"So I want to thank you for that, too. You were kind of a horrible terror when we first met, but… you've ended up a way better person than I ever was. I think that's absolutely incredible. It honestly makes me jealous of you, in a lot of ways." Why is the only person I might actually hate complimenting me!? Aaaaaagh! Am I blushing? Stop blushing, you stupid body! She's why August is dead! She's why I betrayed the Templars! I mean, neither of those things are totally true, but they kind of are!

"As for you, Bently," Vita says, turning to him.

"I was gonna apologize to you, too. But right now it'd be disingenuous, so I'll just say that if you still consider Norah your friend, you'd better make damn sure it's because you're friends with Norah, not because you're friends with someone you wish she still was."

"You just want to stay in control, don't you?" Bently accuses.

"You're so used to self-made sycophants that you can't stomach someone pointing out what a monster you've become! I mean you're literally from Hiverock now, why can't you—" With absurd speed and precision, two of the blades on Vita's waist seem to draw themselves, rushing to Bently's neck in an instant and drawing a bead of blood each. I'm so stunned I fail to even try to intercept them, forced to watch in horror as my friend is put in danger before my very eyes.

The daggers really are all metal, with a strange spiral groove on the hilt and runes running over the entirety of their construction. Kineticism runes, maybe, considering how they're clearly moving on their own? No, wait. Those don't look like kineticism runes at all. I sniff the air slightly, sort of sensing but not really sensing that familiar, dangerous feeling in front of me. Vita's tentacles. The daggers are enchanted to be anima-tangible, and she's holding them with her tentacles.

"I hail from Liriope, mortal," Vita intones with cold fury.

"And I won't let you use this language's paltry word for it like it's some kind of slur. Do you understand me?" Everyone goes tense and silent. I-is she crazy? The only thing anyone knows about Hiverock is how they keep trying to kill us! What does she expect to happen? If she stabs Bently we'll all fall on her in an instant. She has to know that. I can't believe I almost accepted her apology.

"It's a simple question," Vita snaps.

"Answer it."

"I… I understand," Bently stutters, and the knives pull away. Vita approaches Bently personally, instead.

"Live your life being hated and despised," she says.

"Live with a secret nearly everyone you know will kill you over. Create these 'sycophants,' as you call them, out of your own friends. And try, just try to be ignorant of the basic bullshit you're accusing me of. Do you think I don't know how fucked up everything I've done is? Do you think I don't know that I'm a goddamn monster? Of course I know! People like you won't stop screaming it over the rooftops!

But as I've mentioned, what you want me to do is just as messy, if not messier, than the problem you think it'll solve. I'm not going to force my friend to receive animancy alterations she doesn't want to turn her into a person who no longer exists! Because that would be fucked up, Bently!

Now what I might be able to do is remove the part of the soul which forces her to obey commands, and the part that prevents her from not loving me, since they're not part of her personality so much as restrictions on her ability to choose. I think that seems like the best moral option. But I don't know how to do that yet because a certain organization of assholes made it really, really difficult to find a good time and place for animancy research, and I have been very busy dealing with their bullshit.

So how about you just shut the fuck up about it until you're part of the solution rather than part of the problem?" Bently doesn't respond, which I suppose Vita takes as acquiescence because she reaches up and wipes the blood off his neck, revealing already-healed skin beneath it.

"Sorry again," Vita says, turning to the rest of us.

"I forgot how annoying this conversation was, and I took it too far. I'm working on it. Good to see you all again." She turns and briskly walks off, leaving us to stew in the aftermath. Xena rushes over to Bently, hugging him and asking if he's okay. Penta moves to double-check Vita's healing work, and though I'd love to comfort him as well, I hear the telltale jingle of a bell that indicates a monster has made it past my first line of webbing.

"Hey, I gotta go, guys," I tell them, then turn and rush towards the sound. Not at full speed, since apparently that can really hurt people's ears and the incoming monster isn't really an immediate threat. I have six layers of webbing and traps protecting us from hungry beasts, so it's still plenty far from town. That's no reason to get complacent, of course. I can't make a single mistake, not when people could be hurt if I do.

People get out of my way when I run past, many of them giving me a friendly wave and words of encouragement. Like most people, I got a lot of weird looks from the inhabitants here back when I first arrived, but they've pretty quickly acclimated to me. Since I handle most of the anti-monster defense, the undead that were previously taking care of the job got moved to construction work and general town maintenance, improving the quality of life for most of the people here. I guess I'm sort of a public figure now.

Being appreciated by everyone is… very strange. In a good way, I guess. Sure enough, the monster that managed to get to my first alert layer isn't much of a threat. I eat it anyway, healing off the mild lightning burns I got in my spar earlier. As weak as it was, I doubt I'm in any danger of my body changing from it. I do a quick check of the outer layer afterwards, disposing of all the monsters caught in my webs so that they don't attract more monsters with their struggles.

Lacking anything to do after that, I guess it's time to head home. I trudge back through town in a light daze, recent events replaying through my mind in an endless loop. It only stops when I finally reach the front door of my house, open it, and get tackled by an adorable collection of slime.

"Lark!" Melissa coos happily, wrapping around me and giving me a big squeeze.

"You're back!"

"I am, yeah," I say, poking her jiggly body with all four of my arms and grinning at the resulting giggles.

"How was your day, Melissa?"

"It was fun!" she answers gleefully, reforming into her fully-humanoid shape and pulling back from my poke assault.

"Mr. Rowan got a bunch of new books today and he's been teaching us the words!"

"Oh, that's great!" I encourage her. For being Vita's dad, I assumed Rowan would be some kind of ultra-freak, but the dude is somehow overwhelmingly normal. Just a nice guy who teaches kids. I like him. Lyn is also really nice, if a bit concerningly unconcerned about… well, anything.

"Yeah! I got to read about pentapedes! They have five legs! Did you know 'penta' means five? I think it would be funny if Penta looked like a pentapede for a while."

"That would be funny!" I agree.

"Is Jelisa awake?"

"Yeah! She's making herself some breakfast."

"Silly humans and their need to cook their food," I joke, giving Melissa a wry smile and receiving a sly giggle in return. I pat her on the head and walk past her, heading towards the kitchen where my favorite silly human is shaking her head and sighing.

"Cooking is art, you know," Jelisa protests, looking awfully strange walking around the kitchen in full plate armor. I've gotten used to seeing her in casual clothes all the time, most of them made from my own silk since the smoothness apparently helps with her sensory issues a lot. I suppose it is Hiverock night, though. Her old habits must be hard to break, even with Lady Vesuvius here providing defense.

"Yeah but don't you do the opposite of good cooking?" I ask, plopping down in a nearby chair.

"You're trying to take all the flavor out of your meal instead of putting any in."

"That just means it's countercultural," Jelisa insists.

"That's still good art." Well, I guess I can't argue with that. All human food tastes the same to me anyway. I guess it's time to rip the bandage off.

"So… Vita's back," I not-so-subtly shift the conversation.

"So I've heard," Jelisa smirks, tapping her ear.

"You doing okay?"

"About as well as can be expected," I sigh.

"Bently blew up at her about Norah, and she nearly killed him. He's not hurt though, so… I guess that's something."

"That sounds about like what I expected," Jelisa sighs.

"It still sucks."

"She apologized, at least," I shrug.

"She apologized about a lot of things, actually. It was… weird."

"That's a start, I suppose," Jelisa nods.

"Is she a moth lady now?"

"Yep. And a princess, apparently."

"Sure, why not." I drum my talons on the floor, trying to figure out what else to say. Jelisa, Melissa and I all live together now, and have been for months. Melissa is sort of like a sister and Jelisa is sort of like a mom, but we don't refer to each other that way. We're just… roommates who take care of each other, I guess. It's easy to imagine August here with us, enjoying the weird family I've found alongside me. Jelisa is always there to help talk me through things, just like he was.

For now, though, the only sound is the rapid bubbling noise of whatever poor food Jelisa is boiling the crap out of.

"Have you thought any more about what Vita said about the Mistwatcher?" Jelisa asks out of nowhere.

"Huh?" I ask.

"I mean… no, not really."

"Why not?" I scowl, flicking an ear in annoyance.

"Because she's wrong…?"

"Hmm," Jelisa murmurs, stirring her meal for a little while.

"I'm starting to suspect she's right, actually."

"What?" I ask, stunned.

"The more I learn about animancy, the more her story adds up," Jelisa explains, shrugging slightly.

"And we already know the people at the highest echelons of the Church were lying to us. And then there's just… y'know. The world itself? The reasoning behind why the Watcher is still good even though everything is so awful here has always seemed kind of weak to me. I dunno. I'm just curious to hear your thoughts on it, is all." I hesitate. I'm not really sure how to articulate my feelings, here.

"Isn't the Mistwatcher the whole reason we're doing this?" I eventually ask.

"We learn and we love and we work as a community because that's what the Mistwatcher wants from us. Good things are good things because they align with the Mistwatcher's wishes. Bad things are things that the Mistwatcher disapproves of. Without the Mistwatcher, there's no why. There's no reason to live. It's just… meaningless suffering, or meaningless hedonism. All depending on whether you're the monster or the prey."

"You think so?" Jelisa asks.

"Lady Vesuvius doesn't believe in the Mistwatcher's goodness, but she's still been working harder than anyone to make sure everyone here is healthy and happy. And I mean, I'm certainly not going to stop helping people if it all turns out to be fake. I don't help people just because I want to go to heaven. Do you?"

"Well, no," I admit.

"I never assumed I was going to heaven anyway."

"See? There's more to it than that. People can believe in the Mistwatcher and be criminals, and they can not believe and be good people. …I mean, I don't know if Lady Vesuvius is a great example of a good person, but she certainly does good things. And the point still stands."

"Right, yeah," I mutter noncommittally.

"I dunno. Why are you bringing this up all of a sudden?"

"Because I've been thinking about it a lot, I guess," she says, shrugging.

"I mean, y'know, I'm not… practicing religion anymore? I don't know whether it's right or wrong, but just by being an animancer I'm not living up to the Mistwatcher's ideals. Neither, technically, are you and Melissa, since you eat anima. I think that's what's been chewing me up most of all. I've realized that what I do, what I think is right, doesn't change regardless of whether or not I believe in the Mistwatcher, barring one major exception: do you two deserve happiness?

And since the answer is unequivocally yes, I have to believe the Mistwatcher is wrong. I dunno if the religion is real or not, but either way I think it's wrong. I can't agree with anything that says you two are sinners just because of what you are." I don't have anything to say to that, so I say nothing. Jelisa finally drains her boiling pot and starts eating a bland, white… something. I don't really know much about foods.

"... How does that translate to your opinion on Vita and Lady Vesuvius' impending conquest?" I ask. Jelisa chews on the question a bit while she chews on her food.

"... I mean, normally I'd just say war sucks and is the worst and they should just leave the rest of the world alone," she answers after swallowing.

"But Ars being back changes that whole equation. I mean, a talent that makes you loyal to him and gives you the ability to spread that talent? That's some seriously fucked-up animancy. He has to go down, and we have to save his victims before it's too late. I hate the idea of a 'justified war,' but if such a thing exists, it's this."

"They're not going to stop with Ars, though," I point out.

"You know that."

"Yeah," Jelisa sighs.

"I'm not sure what to do about it, though. With colossal talent and effort, we can nudge things in certain directions… but I've gotten burned trying that before. I don't know if Vita will listen to me. Lady Vesuvius certainly doesn't seem interested in my company. At the end of the day, the strong decide the fate of the world." Once again, I watch Vita's daggers move to a dear friend's throat so fast that I can barely react. How helpless I was, unable to do even the one thing I'm good at.

"Yeah," I sigh.

"I guess you're right. I hate that it's happening, but I'm nowhere near strong enough to do anything about it."

"You could be, you know," Jelisa points out.

"If you put your mind to it."

"What?" I ask.

"You could be as strong as them," she repeats.

"If anyone has the potential, it's you."

"What do you mean?"

"What do you think I mean? You're a genius and a vrothizo. You've been holding yourself back in terms of both. And I want to be clear that's entirely your choice to make. Your body, your time, you do what you want with it and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. But if you want to be strong? If you want to change the world like they do? That's well within your power, kiddo."

"I… huh," I blink.

"I mean, you really think so?"

"Lark, you've been actively avoiding the potential afforded to you as much as possible, and you're still one of the most powerful people on the island. Of course you can be powerful. Not that I'd recommend it if you don't want even more responsibility, but… the option is there for you, if you ever figure out what you want in life."

"What I want in life?" I parrot.

"You're not exactly the most introspective person I know, Lark," Jelisa says with a grin.

"You're young, though, so that's pretty normal. Then again, Vita and Penelope are pretty damn young themselves. Anyway, I'm not saying you should go out and make a list of powerful monsters you want to eat, but I am saying that there's nothing wrong with what you are, and I'll support any decision you make."

"Thanks, I guess?" I hedge.

"You're welcome," she answers firmly.

"I'm really proud of you, Lark. You're an amazing person." I blush deeply, unable to continue the conversation from there. But that's okay, I guess. Just being here, being close to her, is enough for me. I'll have to think about what she said, though. The Mistwatcher, just wars, becoming more vrothizo and less human, what I want with life… it's a lot. What's the best way to help people? I don't know, but I have a feeling my answer won't be the same as Vita and Lady Vesuvius.

Maybe I should spend more time paying attention to what they're both up to.