A/N: Sorry for the delay. This wasn't a major life event or anything. This time I just played a bit too much Pokopia. My bad. Uh... enjoy the chapter!
"…Aya was killed on impact," Castalia says. "Catastrophic incarnate form damage. She died instantly."
"No," Kishar whimpers, tears starting to pool in her eyes. Her human body is so… thin. She's a waif of a girl, with pale skin and curly brown hair. She can't be older than thirteen.
"I'm sorry," Castalia responds simply. I'm not sure if her toneless matter of speech is helping or hurting here. Then again, I don't think there's any way to do this that wouldn't hurt more than anything.
"I have to see her," Kishar weeps.
"We delivered her body to the morgue downstairs," Castalia tells her. "The damage was all to her incarnate form, so it is in good condition."
God. What a thing to say. But it's relevant, isn't it? Not everyone is that lucky. Some corpses don't get to look peaceful in death, especially in this line of work. Normally, the monsters would tear the body apart.
At least I managed to do something good for her, then. That catch didn't save her life. It couldn't have saved her life. But it stopped her skull from splattering across the waves upon hitting the ocean well above terminal velocity. I've done her the service of enabling an open casket funeral, assuming she even has a family that can pay for one. What a goddamn hero I am.
After the kaiju fell, the first order of business was getting every Earth Guardian in the fight to the closest hospital. Even Guardians who weren't directly damaged should at least get a checkup after something that intense. Even if the physical body doesn't get injured, per se, it still suffers the effects of stress—and taking damage directly to the physical manifestation of your soul causes quite a bit of stress, believe it or not.
Plus, y'know. I've recently learned that fighting a kaiju is pretty stressful. Definitely not one of my top ten experiences.
My power reserves have been reduced to 1%. Emergency shutoff and recovery will initiate if predicted power reserves will fall below 0.5% on next runtime tick.
Ugh. I'm struggling to stay thankful here, let alone happy. Even power-saving mode has me running at a loss right now, and power-saving mode sucks. My brain is so sluggish, most of my sensors are off, I don't even have an active network connection… it's miserable, and frankly, it doesn't even save all that much power. Just keeping myself conscious at all is most of my passive power consumption. I should probably let Thea and Castalia know I'm on the verge of passing out, but Castalia is kinda busy right now and there's no way I'm going to interrupt. Maybe I could use a spell to communicate in a way only she can hear…? No, wait. That's stupid. I don't have enough power to cast spells.
"Okay," Kishar chokes. "Okay. Where is the… how do I get there…?"
"Would you like me to come with you?" Castalia offers.
"N-no, I'll… where's Salu'nela?"
Castalia quirks her head.
"Is that your local Preserver representative?" she asks. "I'm afraid I don't know."
"They should be here," Kishar says. "Why aren't they here?"
"The Preservers are often busy," Castalia answers simply. "They may still be dealing with the aftermath."
By 'the aftermath,' does she mean the obliterated highway—which functionally cut this thin sandbar of an island in half, incidentally—or the enormous amount of power released by the dying kaiju? I know which one I'd bet the Preserver cares more about.
…This is unproductive. The girl needs to mourn.
"Down that hall, take a left, then ride the first elevator you see to the basement," I say. "There are signs to the morgue from there. They'll let you in. Would you like any of us to accompany you?"
"Luna," Castalia says disapprovingly.
"It's fine, I asked," Kishar says, her voice wavering a bit as she tries to master her tears. "I'm not… I'm not going to just stop because I'm crying. You're the one that gave us the warning, right? I recognize your voice."
"…That's me," I confirm.
I'm wearing my skinsuit now, so she might not have made the connection between me and the robot, but I guess it doesn't matter much either way.
"Did you know?" she asks.
I understand what she means immediately. Back when she asked during the fight if Aya was dead, was I already aware of the answer? There's a part of me that wants to lie, to deny that callous calculation made in the heat of the moment. She's a green mage, so it's better to keep her afraid of the answer. But I've had more than enough of lying, frankly, and this? There's no point to it. My ego isn't so weak that it'll shatter just because one girl hates me. I refuse to be that kind of person.
"Yeah," I admit. "I knew."
"Thank you," she says, "for not telling me. You made the right call."
…What? What the fuck? I don't respond. I don't have time to. My power-starved mind can't speed up enough to let me process that before she turns and walks off down the hall to go see her teammate's corpse. What sort of response could anyone possibly make to something like that? She thanked me. She thanked me. I let that little girl's friend die and she…
"…Luna?" Thea asks gently.
"You Earth Guardians are not okay," I respond. "You're so not okay."
"You are an Earth Guardian now," Castalia reminds me.
"Us Earth Guardians are not okay," I correct myself. "We are not okay."
My mind is full of that horrible, buzzing stress that would be making me shake and jitter my limbs, unable to stay still in the slightest, had I still possessed physical flesh. Now, of course, I'm still as a statue, unwilling to waste energy on an action that wouldn't even provide the outlet my brain is seeking in a body like this.
"…We prevented every death we could have," Castalia says. "Keep your mind on that fact, Luna. Guardian Aya died before any of us were close enough to possibly do anything about it. And once we arrived, that was it. There were no more deaths."
"I know that, okay?" I snap. "I get that, objectively, this was a good outcome. But one dead kid is still a lot for me, alright?"
"Hey, um…"
I almost flinch as an unexpected voice chimes in. Gah! I'm not used to all my sensors being down! This is miserable. I know Castalia's right, I know I should be focusing on the good, but I'm exhausted in ways I've never felt before and I just want to go home, curl up in the bathroom, and run the shower over my metal face so it looks like I'm crying. Fuck this yellow mage bullshit.
"I'm sorry to interrupt," the voice says again, reminding me that there is a voice and a person talking to us and I finally glance up to look at her. It's some tan-skinned girl I don't recognize, though she's wearing an orange transformation stone on a bracelet around her wrist so I think I can make a reasonable inference. Ms. Mid-Battle Smooch herself, Sirtir.
"It's just," Sirtir continues, "do any of you know what the situation was with that… robot girl? Muramasa?"
"Well…" Thea says hesitantly.
"That's me," I answer simply. "Please just call me Luna, though."
"A-ha! I had a suspicion," Sirtir grins. "Very timely mid-battle class change, I gotta say. Congrats. Your incarnate forms were both wild!"
Sirtir looks a bit older than Kishar, probably sixteen years old, give or take. She has dark skin and frizzy black hair, and she's relatively well-built, with noticeable musculature even in her human form.
"And speaking of, wow, look at you!" Sirtir barrels on, grinning at Thea. "I've never seen an incarnate form like that before! I don't recall spotting you in the fight, but you look pretty crazy! You've got a whole tail! I've only seen that once before, and that was just a 'lil kitty tail on some girl a few towns over."
"Oh, um… I'm not… in incarnate form," Thea squeaks, a blush forming on her cheeks. Not the cute kind, though. "I've just spent way too long in the Dark World. I was, um, with the support squad."
"Not in… oh. Oh! You're the witch girl! With the eyes!" Sirtir gapes. "So this is just like, your body body? That's… Jesus, I didn't know that could… uh, sorry, sorry. Forget I mentioned it! I just came over here to say thank you."
The girl's hands move all over the place as she does her best to walk back the conversation, an awkward but still mostly genuine grin on her face as she picks up on the fact that she's accidentally stepped in the interpersonal equivalent of dog poo. Thea, thankfully, seems grateful she's willing to drop it.
"Anyway! Uh, you!" she says, turning her attention back to me. "Thanks for saving Adapa. He's gonna need to be hospitalized for a while, but it could have been way worse, so… thanks again. And he'd like to thank you himself, if that's okay."
Sounds exhausting.
"I didn't really do much," I insist.
"No, you definitely saved his whole stupid idiot life," Sirtir insists. "I mean you just… you just straight up teleported into the kaiju, you didn't even hesitate. That was freaking insane! I hesitated, and I… I mean…"
Oh good. She's starting to tear up too.
"…You don't have my caliber of defense," I say. "It would have been a bad idea for you to try. I saved him because that's my job."
"Your job? You were coordinating the whole battle! That was super cool by the way, what a useful spell. Were you having like, several conversations at once?"
"Yeah," I confirm, feeling an urge to sigh. Or maybe to yawn, which of course would be even more useless. "Look. I'm feeling pretty burnt out. I'm like, literally about to pass out. In fact, I will pass out in about three minutes and forty-two seconds unless I take some quiet time to try and meditate on the nature of joy or some shit. So if this guy wants to thank me, he's gonna have to do it fast."
"Wait, what?" Thea asks, looking alarmed. "How bad is it?"
"I'm at less than one percent and falling," I admit.
"Ohhhh shoot, that big sword was your Catharsis, wasn't it? I mean, obviously it was, that thing was crazy cool, I just didn't think about, like… you need to, to sit down…?"
"Oh gosh, you're burning everything," Thea gulps. "That's what I'm feeling! Shoot, yeah, we should sit you down and—"
"No," Castalia interrupts, which I dimly note is quite unlike her. "Luna. You need to focus on emotional control. Giving in to exhaustion is not how you stoke your feelings."
"Look, I had my one idea on how to gather all the power I needed to cut the monster in half, and I'm spent now," I insist. "I can't just pull the same trick again. It was heat of the moment. And if I reuse the same memories, they'll get stale."
Also, if I'm being real, I kinda wanna fall unconscious? I mean, the dream torment nexus was pretty bad the first time, but I was blue-aligned. My body made me relive all my saddest memories because I was powered by sadness. But now I'm powered by happiness, right? This'll probably be the closest thing I can get to a pleasant drug trip now that I'm a beep boop. Not that I was ever much of a drug enjoyer, but if I'm being honest the only reason for that is because I was too poor and depressed to go through the effort of buying any.
"That is why we are going to accept Adapa's thanks and make new memories," Castalia says. "Come."
She picks me up with her telekinesis and I go limp like a scruffed kitten, limbs dangling as Sirtir leads the way and I get pushed through whatever doorways she opens. Honestly, we're probably not supposed to just be wandering around in the hospital back here, but Castalia is the ultimate hall pass. Everyone is too busy staring at the levitating girls to think to say 'hey, you can't be in here!' I'm sure someone would make a fuss if we actually got in the way, but so far so good.
Eventually, we're led into a large room, curtain partitions separating various hospital beds. Sirtir seems to know exactly the right one, thankfully, and pulls the curtains open to reveal a tired guy about her age with blonde hair, beach-tanned skin, and a resting bitch face. I can't see a transformation stone anywhere, but I have no doubt there's a red one somewhere under the covers.
"Adapa," I greet him. "Still alive, despite your best efforts."
"Oh, fuck you," he scowls at me.
"And here I thought I was brought here so you could thank me," I respond dryly.
"Huh?" he grunts. "Oh, that was you? Jeez, I almost thought you were an actual robot."
"I am," I say. "I'm just wearing a really convincing human disguise."
He furrows his eyebrows at me.
"I… genuinely can't tell if you're fucking with me or not."
"Sounds like a you problem," I answer.
He gives me a flat look, but I'm too busy burning all of my emotions for an extra second or two of consciousness to care. Man, they really have him hooked up to a bunch of stuff. He's got an IV drip, a heartbeat monitor, the whole works. His clothes are in a bag in the corner, too, meaning he's probably not wearing anything but a medical gown underneath the blankets. Hmm.
"Are you getting prepped for surgery, my guy?" I ask him.
"Yeah," he confirms, "though it's apparently gonna be a while until the surgeon gets here. They're having to transport him over from a hospital on the mainland."
"What's the surgery for?" I ask.
He shifts his blanket, revealing the arm not currently hooked up to tubes and various devices. Several geodes’ worth of crimson red crystals cover the entire thing, making it hard to see anything of the skin underneath and even harder for him to move his arm in any real way. Thea gasps in shock.
"Frankly, I don't know how they're gonna do surgery on a bunch of rocks," Adapa admits. "Seems a little out of their area of expertise."
"…It's because the crystals grow internally," Thea answers. "They need to be… gosh. Oh, gosh. I have some spells that can shave down the crystals for you and hopefully let the doctors access the arm, but I can't do any of the internal work."
"Yeah, you've got some hyper-accelerated concentrated Dark World corruption going on," I say. "Might even have like a werewolf arm under all of that, or something."
"Oh," Adapa says, glancing down at his arm. "Uh… well, maybe talk to the doctor before you cast anything, but I'm gonna assume you know what you're talking about, given that green girl there is also covered in crystals."
"I'll go find a nurse or something," Sirtir offers. "Wanna come with me, uh… sorry, what's your name?"
"Thea," Thea answers. "And sure, that sounds like a good idea. I should definitely get permission…"
The two of them wander off, leaving Castalia and I with Adapa.
"…I'm still waiting on that thank-you, y'know," I taunt him, my energy reserves ticking up a bit as I do.
"I wasn't expecting to have to thank someone so annoying," Adapa fires back. Oh, good, he can banter! Nobody on my team can banter. It's terrible.
"Look man, I get that you're clearly into muscular girls, but you don't have to get pissy with me just because I'm not your type," I shrug.
"What? That's… huh!?" he sputters.
"You and Sirtir! Don't think I didn't see that passionate embrace after I saved you. Make sure you two stay safe after you get out of the hospital, alright? We don't want the sort of accident that could impede her Earth Guardian duties, if you know what I mean. Actually, do you know what I mean? Do you go to school? Have you had sex ed classes?"
"Wh-what are you…!? Will you shut up!? It's not like that!"
"Not like tha—bro, she had her tongue in your mouth!" I gape at him. "What did you think that was? God, even the male Earth Guardians are useless lesbians. Are you seriously… I figured you were already dating her! Hell, you probably are dating her and you just haven't noticed yet."
"What is the matter with you!?" Adapa snaps at me, blushing beet red.
"Oh man, just so many things, you have no idea," I say, waving him off. "I mean, did you think I teleported into a semi-solid wall of kaiju musk because I was well-adjusted? That's what you Earth Guardians are missing, by and large: self-awareness. Perspective."
"I feel the need to remind you again that you are an Earth Guardian, Luna," Castalia chimes in.
"Okay, sure, but I'm officially declaring myself the sanest woman in the madhouse," I press. "I might be as crazy as the rest of you, but at least I'm still sane enough to know I'm crazy. You all just think fighting monsters until you die is normal."
"Of course we know it's not normal," Adapa snaps. "I'm not stupid, lady. We do this so everyone else has a chance to be normal. It's not about us."
"Self-appointed Omelas kids," I sigh. "Even more healthy."
"Self-appointed what?" he asks.
"Ah, so you don't go to school," I conclude. "Good to know!"
"God, you are insufferable!" Adapa groans. "Couldn't anyone else have saved my life instead!?"
"I appreciate it, though," Castalia says. "You are doing a good job of improving Luna's mood. Thank you, Adapa."
Huh? Oh.
My power reserves have increased to 5%. I was kind of distracted by how much fun I was having ribbing this guy, so I didn't notice. Which… I guess was the point. Shit. Have I seriously been taunting a hospitalized guy to recharge on power? That's kinda patheabpflt.
My thoughts are interrupted by a telekinetic force squeezing both of my fake cheeks together into fish lips. I glance over at Castalia.
"Be happy," she orders, and while she's not my master it's probably best if I obey her regardless.
"Okay," I allow, doing my best not to spiral. "Sorry, Adapa. I'm new to being a yellow mage. I really am glad you're alive."
"…Yeah, me too," he grunts. "Thanks for saving me. I dunno what I was thinking back there."
"Hey, at least you hurt it," I offer.
"Wouldn't have been worth it without you," he says. "Really. Thanks."
"Well… yeah. Of course," I say awkwardly.
I'm really a lot better at the teasing thing than this, aren't I? 'Sanest girl in the madhouse' isn't looking like that impressive of a title, I gotta say.
"So like, what's actually your deal? I know Castalia, at least by reputation. Are you and that green girl her new team?"
"Uh… technically, yeah. I guess so," I confirm, looking at Castalia.
"We killed a kaiju together," Castalia says. "We are a team."
"Wild. So what's your deal? I figure I would have heard of a Guardian as old and powerful as you before."
"I can't believe you're calling me old," I huff, crossing my arms.
"It's very much not an insult," Adapa says. "Not in our line of work."
…Yeah. Yeah, I know.
"I'm a bit of a weird case," I admit. "I really am actually a robot. I used to be human, but my soul got trapped in an Antipathy artifact. I only joined the Earth Guardians recently, since it was the best way the Preservers could square the circle."
"Oh, shit. You're new?" he says. "And an artifact? Really? That's… I didn't even know that could happen. That's terrifying."
"It has its ups and downs," I admit. "Being a robot is pretty cool, at least a lot of the time. I don't mind too much."
"Oh. Well… that's good, I guess."
It's funny how he genuinely seems to believe that. Earth Guardians, if nothing else, have a much higher standard of weirdness than most people.
"So… were you the same robot that apparently attacked Castalia eight months ago?" he asked. "I saw something like that on the news but I'm honestly not sure if it's real or not."
I sigh. Do people really know about that all the way on the other side of the country…? Aw, who am I kidding. It's the internet age. I was a robot fighting a legendary hero. Everyone in the world probably knows about that.
"Yeah, that was me. It's a bit of a long story, but the short version is that the whole thing was part of the downside of being trapped inside an Antipathy artifact. Thankfully, Castalia and Thea helped me solve that problem for good, so I'm free to help with kaiju-busting from here on out."
"Oh," he says. "Well, sick. Glad to have you."
"Thanks."
The conversation trails off after that, but not in a bad way. We've each exhausted what we needed to say, leaving the atmosphere personable and pleasant. And naturally, as usual, Castalia was right about everything and my power reserves are once again slowly ticking upward instead of counting down to unconsciousness. I'm still deep in power-saving hell, but not the full nine levels deep like I was before.
Thea and Sirtir reportedly find a nurse, who has no idea whether or not it's a good idea to let Thea remove the outward layer of crystals and escalates them to a doctor, who pretty much says 'sure, go for it I guess.' Which, I gotta say, is an unexpectedly nonchalant attitude for a doctor to have regarding random nineteen-year-olds walking up and asking to perform medical treatment on a patient, but I suppose there's a certain level of wisdom in being willing to acknowledge that the girl with a crystal-blade tail might know a little more about magic crystal maintenance than he does. Thea manages to carve away most of the surface crystals and sure enough…
"Holy shit, I fucking called it," I say, letting out an impressed whistle. "I didn't even cheat with my sensors, I just dialed a random number and got the President's personal cell phone."
Adapa's arm is, in fact, best described as a werewolf arm. It's covered in dark gray fur, and his fingers are tipped with nasty-looking claws. Honestly… it looks a lot like the kaiju itself did, underneath its layers of mist and gemstones. I can immediately tell Adapa doesn't like it, scowling at the limb unpleasantly, but there's still a bigger problem.
"I can barely move it," he says.
"Yeah, you're still going to need surgery," I tell him. "There are crystals underneath the skin, too. Probably inside the bone and stuff. It's gonna be bad."
"Will I get my normal arm back afterwards, at least?" Adapa asks.
"You will not," Thea says simply, and coming from someone who looks like her there's really no denying it.
"It looks kind of cool!" Sirtir tries, a smile plastered on her face to cover up the hole of concern. Not the most effective tactic in a room full of empaths, though.
"Is it going to affect my incarnate form?" Adapa presses.
"That… depends," Thea answers. "It definitely might. If you get used to it over time, for example, if it just starts to feel like you, then… yeah. It'll show up. But my incarnate form is still mostly human."
I glance over at my master, immediately concerned. I always kinda knew it, but it's sad to hear it spelled out like this: she doesn't consider that body to be her. It's a feeling I'm more than a little familiar with. Have I been hurting her by trying to get her to like who she is…? I don't really know.
The people who wanted me to give up on the person I wanted to be in favor of the person they thought I was certainly hurt me. I knew what I wanted and I knew how to achieve it. They had no right to tell me who I could or couldn't be. But that's not really the same thing, is it? I don't think Thea knows what she wants, other than to not feel like she's a monster. I certainly wouldn't ever tell her she can't be this or that. It feels like a different situation, but I should still tread carefully, I suppose.
"Well," Thea says, "we should probably head back to Colorado now, right?"
"Mmm. That's true. We left Chloe, Jim, and Bean," Castalia agrees.
"Yeah, we—" I start, before abruptly realizing the situation we left them all in. Castalia was right in the middle of interrogating us about the whole master/servant situation. Which, y'know, is obviously not something Thea was enjoying!
"—I mean, I should probably just message them that we're alive," I correct myself. "I think we're all a bit tired."
"I am exhausted," Castalia agrees, "but I want to see them."
Yeahhhh okay, that's exactly what she's gunning for and she's not even trying to hide it. I spare a glance at Thea, who just… isn't reacting at all. Isn't saying anything.
"Well, I—oop!" I try, but Castalia just picks both of us up and starts flying out of the hospital. Very direct! Oh boy! "I'm not sure this is the best idea!"
"I'm not sure you believe that," Castalia answers, "and I'm not making the same mistake twice."
"Castalia, no! I'm not being controlled by anyone!" I brazenly gaslight her.
"If that's true, I am very sorry for being forceful about this, but I am also following your own advice on the matter."
"…Let's just go talk to them, Luna," Thea sighs, and I'd like to agree with her, but that's not what I would do if she wasn't my master.
"No! This is ridiculous! We just fought and killed a kaiju together, I'm pretty obviously on your side now!"
Changing the narrative is the only real way to avoid suspicion here. Instead of 'I am not mind controlled,' we focus on 'I am on your side.' Because that's actually true, and as long as the default assumption is that a mind controlled Luna is an evil Luna I can obfuscate the lies with the more convenient truth.
…Of course, by the time I finish even speaking those words, we're back in the air and rocketing across the countryside again. I give air traffic control a heads-up in the back of my mind as I try to get Castalia to pay a bit more attention to what I'm saying. Castalia's not having it, though, and I end up impotently yapping at nothing all the way back to Jim's house.
My bad luck continues as I note Chloe and Bean are still inside. I figured there was a chance they'd have gone elsewhere after we left in a rush, but nope. Thea isn't really defending herself either, but that's somewhat to be expected; she can sometimes just shut down in intense social situations. It's up to me to help her.
Castalia lands on the porch and knocks on the door by staring at it really hard, forcing Thea and I to land alongside her. Moments Later, Jim opens it up and peeks his head out.
"Oh, hey! You're back!" he says. "Um, is everything alright…?"
"The kaiju is dead. There were relatively few casualties," Castalia answers simply. "Let us resume Truth or Dare."
"Uh, heh. What?" Jim asks blankly.
"May we come in?" Castalia asks.
"Oh, uh, yeah!"
The door is opened all the way and we're ushered inside, my mind racing as I try to figure out a way to get Castalia to back down. No matter how many conversational paths I consider, though, nothing feels like it can punch through this sudden bout of bullheadedness. It's so frustrating! Castalia doesn't need to know this stuff. She can't help and it's just going to depress her.
"Hello," Castalia says, floating us all into the main room.
"Castalia, Luna! Oh, thank god," Chloe says, standing up as soon as she sees us. "We saw some of the fight on the news! Are you okay?"
Castalia and I both glance down at her leg, the one that was injured in the fight. There's no longer any trace of the damage she took prior. It had just… faded away at some point during the hospital visit.
"All three of us are relatively unharmed," Castalia says. "May we resume Truth or Dare? It was my turn."
"Uh, what?" Chloe says, while Bean chokes out a laugh.
"Oh man, you're subtle as a brick," they say. "I like it. Let's fuck her up."
"Bean!" I protest.
"See? She knows who we're talking about. She's due," Bean answers smugly.
"Is Luna really free, Thea?" Castalia asks. "You chose truth."
"And that question was just as inappropriate before the kaiju fight as it is now!" I butt in.
"No," Thea says.
"See? She's not doing this," I press. "We're not doing this."
"No, I mean no, she's not free!" Thea snaps. "Stop it, Luna."
Oh, okay. She's changed her mind, then. I'll stop.
"I am Luna's current master," Thea admits.
The mood of the room immediately plummets. Chloe was worried, but now she's scared. Bean was gleefully looking forward to ripping into me, but no part of this is fun for them anymore. And Castalia? She was suspicious before. Now, she's mad.
My master was right. We shouldn't have told them. I tried my best to help her, I just wasn't good enough…! No, it's still salvageable. I can back her up on this too.
"It's not her fault," I insist, stepping between her and Castalia.
"Luna, stop talking," Thea orders, and I freeze on the spot.
Did she really… I mean, would she really…? No, no no no. This isn't like her. She wouldn't do this to me. Something's wrong, something's very wrong and I was so busy trying to argue with Castalia I didn't even notice! Stupid, stupid, stupid!
The order doesn't just freak me out either. Castalia's anger was a dangerous flame before, but now it roars into a bonfire. I put up my hands in an obvious fighting pose, ready to shield Thea immediately if needed. I'm still so low on power though, there's no way I can win this fight! Was she planning this the whole time…?
"Stop that," Thea orders again. "Put your hands down and go sit next to Bean."
Is she crazy…? This has gotta be some kind of fucked up attempt at self-harm. I can't let her—
"Now."
I'm already moving before I can think about doing anything else, marching right over and sitting firmly down on one end of the couch, putting Bean between me and Chloe. They stare at me with obvious horror, but I just… don't react. My fake face ceases to pretend at any of its fake expressions. I just… shut it all off. I don't know what my master is doing anymore, and that means I need to stop thinking for myself and just obey.
"Okay. Do we have the truth established now?" Thea asks darkly. "It's me. It's not Melpomene, it's not the Preservers, it's not the Antipathy. There's nothing else wrong with her. It's just me."
"…Why are you doing this?" Chloe asks softly.
"Because I don't know what else to do!" Thea shouts. "I don't know how to free her! I don't know how! But I had to do something or the Preservers were going to take her away! And now I… she's…! I just don't know what to do!"
"Well I know what you should do!" Bean snaps. "Cancel your damn orders!"
"It's not that simple!" Thea whines. "I thought it would be, but—"
"No, I mean cancel the orders you just gave, like ten seconds ago, and let Luna move and speak for herself!" Bean cuts her off. "Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? Are you fucking crazy!?"
"Yes!" Thea insists.
"Okay, I think everybody here needs to calm down a little," Chloe tries.
"No. Bean is right," Castalia says. "Cancel those orders. Now."
"Okay, okay, okay!" Thea says, just… shaking there in the middle of the room, standing on the carpet and quivering from stress. "Luna, you can… talk and stuff. Do whatever."
But is that what she wants to do? Why did she even order me to stop talking in the first place? She says I can now, but should I?
"Say something!" Thea orders.
"I don't know what you want me to say!" I blurt.
"I want you to stop caring about what I want you to say!"
"I can't!"
"I know!" Thea shouts. "I know that."
She collapses down to her knees, hands coming up cover her face.
"I know," she repeats. "I'm sorry. I didn't think it would be this hard."
Well. I guess I've royally fucked everything up. I'm not even sure how, I just… I mean, I haven't even really been that upset about the whole situation! She's having an even worse time than I am! God, my master's having a worse time than I am, that's… that's just not acceptable, it's not… I… agh!
"Thea, wait. It's alright," I insist, getting up. "Really, it's okay. I know you're trying your best…"
She doesn't answer me, just breaking down into sobs. Oh, god, what do I do? What do I do?
Behind me, I dimly note Castalia's terrifying aura of anger start to fade, the girl sinking down to float a little closer to the ground now that she's falling out of her classic 'and' variation of fight-or-flight mode. The normal humans seem mostly overwhelmed, though I don't doubt Bean is rapidly working through all the implications here and figuring most of what happened out on their own.
"You were right," Thea says between hiccups. "I should have just told everyone at the start. I should have told Uma'tama! I doubt the Preservers could do a worse job than me."
"Uh, I don't know if I agree with that, so I'm really glad you didn't!" I say.
"Why aren't you telling me you told me so?" Thea sniffs. "Why did you stop being mad? That was the really scary part. And then… god, your incarnate form. I didn't know it was that bad. I didn't know!"
"The incarnate form…?" I ask. "Come on, Thea, those things are like, heavy-handed metaphors at best."
"No, they aren't!" she snaps. "That was your soul! I was doing that to your soul! Those chains were impaling you!"
"No, they're just… part of my body," I say.
"That's worse!"
"I'm… sorry?"
"No," she whines miserably. "Please don't be sorry."
"I'll try?"
"I'm sorry," she whimpers.
Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. The agonizing not-quite-pain permeating my being is only getting worse. What do I do? What should I say? How can I help her?
"Luna?" Chloe says, and I feel her hand gently settle on my shoulder. "Do you mind if I pull her away somewhere private for a bit?"
No no no no no. I turn to look at her, vaguely aware that I'm still not interacting with my human disguise at all but unable to care enough to let its face do anything but sag.
"I need to help her," I say firmly.
The look she gives me in response is somewhere between terrified and ready to vomit.
"…Luna," Bean says, cutting into the conversation. "Do you trust Chloe? Do you think she's good at these kinds of situations?"
"I… yeah, I guess so?" I admit. But it has to be me, I have to help my master, I have to. I love her too much to just give up.
"Then you are helping her," Bean says. "You're delegating. Using the right set of expertise for the right situation. Let it happen, and you're making the right call."
Right. Right. Yeah. That makes perfect sense.
"Okay," I say, slowly standing up and walking back over to the couch.
Chloe helps Thea to her feet and the two of them head outside, to the back porch. I sit down next to Bean again. That's the last thing Thea wanted that made any sense. With the two of them gone, silence fills the house. I'm not even breathing anymore. What would be the point of pretending? My lungs are nothing but rubber bladders. They don't do a damn thing.
"…I'm gonna make some more tea," Jim says, standing up and heading for the kitchen. "Anyone want anything?"
Silence. Bean, Castalia, and I don't make any requests. Jim heads over to make the tea anyway.
"Alright," Bean says eventually. "How about you actually tell us everything this time? Because it really seems to me that this secret shit never works out for you."
"It certainly is not working out for Thea," Castalia agrees.
"…Yeah," I say. "Okay."
And so I tell them everything.