Vigor Mortis

Chapter 192: The Island of Life and Death

My older sister's island is weird. Really weird.

It's not even just the disturbingly-textured caves lit by glowing mushrooms, although they're certainly a little strange. What are these walls even made of? Enamel? It's odd, but not that important. No, the thing that I really can't figure out are the souls. They're just well, weird.

Because I can't figure out which one is Nawra's.

The body in front of us, the one that looks like an older, more mature version of my old body (which is honestly really sweet of Nawra to do, I only showed Nawra that body once back when Taal and I split after Ars trapped us) has a soul. It has a soul that seems like it could quite believably be Nawra's soul, even. The problem is, so do tens of thousands of other individual souls throughout the island.

My first thought is obfuscation. Nawra must know at least some extent of the sensory abilities I'm capable of, so in the interest of keeping the sorts of secrets I do very much intend to puzzle out of her soul, she designed a wild goose chase for me.

I don't think that's it, though, Taal muses. It's a combination of too obvious and too ineffective. If Nawra doesn't know what we can do, she has no need for this kind of setup. But if she does know the full extent of what we're capable of, she should know that this won't stop us from figuring her out for very long. We look at this many souls at once on the regular, so it only makes sense as an obfuscator if she's confident about our ability being at a very specific and entirely incorrect level.

True. So it's either one of many obfuscation tactics designed to spread-fire different methods and hope one hits, or the copy souls exist for a different reason entirely. But what?

Backup bodies? Multiple simultaneous bodies?

Could be backup bodies, yeah. A hive mind, though hmm. Maybe? But how would yeah, wait a second! These souls don't have tunnels to Nawra's ocean on the mana side! So how could they even be connected to her in the first place?

Oh, you're right! Wait, what the heck? Is the body in front of us even Nawra at all, in that case?

We stare a little closer, both physically and otherwise, at the woman claiming to be our sister. She really did a great job with it, even if it looks more like Nugas than it does like me after everything that's happened. But that's part of what's so weird: that body has a soul, and it seems to be thinking in a way that feels just like how Nawra always does. She's looking at Nugas and wondering why I brought a backup body, if it means I don't trust her, and being genuinely somewhat saddened by the possibility that I don't. It all falls in line with what I know of my sister.

The two humans flanking her, conversely, don't feel like her at all. They, along with the vast majority of souls I feel, are distinctly different entities, more akin to what I'd expect from my soul sense. Their faces are blank and expressionless, but inside they're nervous, excited, honored definitely individuals with their own thoughts and feelings, not just puppets. Well, not literal puppets, anyway. Figuratively they probably are, since they look upon Nawra with a degree of reverence that I generally associate with my own mind-controlled Revenants. Fun!

Fucked up, but not surprising. If we're very, very lucky we won't see anything worse than mind-controlled slaves on this family outing.

And we are not very lucky.

No. No we are not.

Penelope nudges me with a deliberate focusing of her mind, directing our attention to Nawra's possible body once more. She's looking at the butt? I mean, I guess it makes sense Penelope would find an older version of my old body to be really hot. Wait, no, her attraction isn't what she wants me to focus on here. She wants me to look below the butt! Is that a tail? It keeps going! And going, and going oh dang!

A thin cord of flesh snakes off down the tunnel, leading to who-knows-where. I can kind of map out the tunnels by sensing whether the tiny bug souls I feel are digging underground or in open air, but I don't have any idea where the little flesh rope is going. Hmm. So Nawra's puppet is on strings, then? She's physically connected to something else, presumably something that also has a soul? I'm not sure what that means, honestly, but it feels like it opens up a lot of possibilities. Does my sister just have a bunch of souls at once? Why? How would that even work?

"So! Are you hungry at all, Vita? I imagine it was quite the trip, so I have a few things prepared!"

I glance around at everyone else, and since they all seem as bewildered and generally worried as I am, I just go with my gut.

"Sure!" I agree. "I'll never say no to food."

"Ha!" Nawra laughs. "I suppose that is our nature, isn't it? Right this way, then. I took the liberty of preparing some servants for your stay, by the way. I didn't want to offend my friend Progy by making them look like Liriope workers, so I hope humanoid servants will do. They're just as competent and loyal, I assure you."

"Uh thanks, that's thoughtful," I agree, though Taal can't help but butt in and ask: "Ah, 'Progy,' though?"

"Oh, you know," Nawra titters. "Your however-many-greats grandmother gets pissy at me if I call her by her old name, but 'Progenitor' is just so stuffy. Not to mention undescriptive! I'm the progenitor of far more species than she is, there's no need to be pretentious! So, you know. Progy!"

Uh. Huh. Okay. So my sister has a weirdly cute pet name for my grandmama. I wonder if I could get away with calling her that?

Don't even try it.

Okay but if it's only once

Don't!

Ugh, fiiiine.

Nawraor her puppet, or whatever she isglances over my friends, seeming to analyze each of them as we make our way to lunch. She seems confused, mostly. A little intrigued, but mostly just puzzled. Penelope, she seems to understand: we've already told Nawra about our girlfriend and Nawra seems to regard Penelope with tentative approval, her eyes drinking in every detail of the custom-designed body. For the life of her, though, she can't seem to understand what Jelisa or Lark are doing here, and she seems almost offended by my 'backup body,' since she assumes it means I'm showing her plain distrust. I should probably introduce everyone.

"Uh, by the way, Nawra," I say, awkwardly changing the subject. "This is Penelope, my girlfriend. This is Lark, a friend of mine who wanted to meet you. This is Jelisa, a sort of friend and advisor. And this is Nugas, Penelope's aide."

Penelope seems rather conflicted about me introducing Nugas as nothing but her aide, but Nugas preens like she's received the highest praise in the world so it's hard to feel bad about it.

"They're all people who I've been through a lot with and owe a lot to. I hope they can make a good impression on you as well."

"Hmm," Nawra says, her eyes flicking over all of them one more time before she turns back around to continue leading the way. "Well, I will naturally do my utmost to be a good host to your companions. I'm not sure the meal I have prepared will be to their taste, however. It's more for our kind, dearie. I'll still have my servants prepare them some nutrition, of course. Ah, here we are!"

The tunnel opens up into a larger room, with uncushioned tables and chairs and not really a whole lot else. It's remarkably sparse, about the furthest thing from the decadent room I'd expect from the abode of a god-queen welcoming family.

"It's, uh, homey in here?" I manage.

"Hmm?" Nawra comments. "Well, I suppose you'd know better than I. I'm not really one for interior decorating."

Well. Yes. That much is obvious.

Why did we just feel a burst of self-satisfied amusement? Did she just tell a joke?

Oh geez. Yes. That was a pun. On 'interior decorating.'

But how is that oh. Oh shit, is this cave inside her body?

It's gotta be. Unless she's just fucking with us, I guess. Which she totally might be.

Nawra has everyone sit down on one of the basic tables, with me naturally sitting next to her and Penelope next to me. The others are relegated to the far side of the table, and Nawra angles her body to better ignore them. I don't think it's an intentional slight so much as a preference to focus on us. Actively putting effort into ignoring them would imply she's thinking about them at all.

I'm not sure if that's better or worse so I decide to distract myself from the question by trying to figure out how Nawra's body works. If I'm right and we are currently inside her, why? And why does she have multiple souls? And why don't her souls have a connection to her mana ocean!?

She has to have a connection to her mana self somewhere. Literally, she has to. We find it, we solve the puzzle.

Perhaps, but we can't detect an entire island with our soul sense at once. Or at least not yet. Besides, it looks like the meal is arriving. An absolutely pristine-looking set of souls, fat and full and thankfully non-sapient, are getting carried in by a group of human servants. Once I can see them with my physical eyes, I'm surprised how small and strange the body is. The servants are basically carrying in a trough of dirt, the fleshy possibly-plants inside the trough being the source of the tasty-looking souls.

They look like some kind of miniature cabbages? The servants place the trough in front of Nawra and I, giving small plates of white paste to the others. Nawra reaches out physically, touching one of the flesh-cabbages with one hand and extracting its soul to drop down her throat. I watch it dissolve into her soul just like other souls dissolve into mine, which seems to confirm this is

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I can't help but feel an odd kinship, in that moment. This is Nawra. This truly is my older sister, in a real, tangible way that, while not necessarily more valid than my many other family members, is far more physical. Or I guess spiritual? But physically spiritual, not metaphysically spiritual.

I'm not alone. I didn't really care about that until now. I'm not sure if I do care about it now. But I can understand it. I can believe, in this moment, that maybe she doesn't want to just use me for whatever monstrous scheme she's plotting.

Maybe she just wants a sister. I can hope for that, right?

I reach out with a tendril and slurp up an eldritch cabbage-soul of my own, focusing on the taste as it goes down. Wow. Wow! This is like the soul equivalent of butter, sugar, and cinnamon mixed together, rich and decadent to a truly unnatural extent. Even once the soul dissolves it's abnormally delicious, the raw anima unraveling in thick cords that dissolve in smooth, easy sequence. It's like nothing I've ever tasted.

"Holy shit," I manage, quickly grabbing and eating another one.

Nawra laughs, delight radiating throughout the entire island at my reaction. And now that I'm paying attention, 'radiating' really is the right word. It starts in the soul of the body nearest to me, then the tiniest fraction of a second it hits the Nawra souls closest, then so on and so forth does the emotion propagate outwards. If I couldn't detect the pattern over miles and miles of island, I definitely wouldn't have noticed.

Hive mind. It's gotta be a hive mind. Nawra is a bunch of brains hooked together. I'm calling it.

"They're good, aren't they?" Nawra brags, eating another soul. "Getting them to naturally develop like this took centuries of refinement. But the best part is right here!"

She pokes one of the now-dead meat plants, and it starts to pitifully deflate.

"Self-replanting!" she announces happily. "The corpse will feed the seed of the next plant, which big brother will kindly re-ensoul for us. All it needs is the slightest bit of water and fertilizer."

"That is fascinating," Penelope agrees, ignoring the terrible taste of her milky-white paste of a meal. "They need a brain or brain-like organ to develop soul mass, yes? How does such a simple autotroph obtain the necessary energy to develop even rudimentary thought?"

Nawra lights up with delight, and the two of them launch into a conversation that I absolutely do not understand and have no intention of attempting to. Instead, I look at my other companions, Nugas frowning as she ingests whatever the fuck Nawra served the others as Jelisa seems to quite enjoy it. Lark, naturally, can't eat human food (no matter how broadly that category might be currently stretched), so she's just staring at her meal awkwardly.

"Want one?" I ask her, indicating the trough of flesh cabbage.

"Uh sure," she nods awkwardly, so I pluck one and toss it over the table at her. I sense a flash of irritation from my sister, but she quickly quashes it.

"Woah, this is really good," Lark agrees.

"Right!?" I grin. "It's awesome."

"You shouldn't feed the vrothizo much of it," Nawra comments. "The abnormally high soul density could confuse the integration systems and trigger a deleterious physical alteration."

"Huh?" I ask.

"She's saying I might become part cabbage," Lark scowls. "And yeah, I don't want to risk that. Thank you, though. It was very tasty."

"You doing okay?" I ask.

"Eh, best I can do in a place that makes me want to bite the walls," she shrugs.

"Well! It seems everyone is done eating, so perhaps we should move on?" Nawra suddenly butts in. "There really is so much I want to show you! Come along!"

Okay. That was abrupt. She wants attention.

She totally wants attention. I shrug apologetically at Lark and wrap my arm around Nawra's faux-body as she stands up, flashing her an Athanatos smile as I give her a squeeze. Placate the god-sibling, placate the god sibling!

"...I might not be subtle, but neither are you," Nawra pouts.

"I don't have to be subtle as long as I'm still reading you right," I counter. "You saying you don't want the hugs?"

A flash of worry. At me reading her? There's something she doesn't want me to know. Oh boy! Problems for later!

"I'm not some child that you need to coddle," Nawra complains. "And I don't have the centralization necessary to put value in physical sensation, so the hugs really aren't needed."

I feel like I don't have to say anything to that. I just stare at her.

"...But yes, thank you," she relents in a huff. "I am very excited to have you here, and rather unexpectedly worried you won't like it. I understand I don't have much connection to mortal sensibilities the way you do."

"Is Lark mortal?" I ask, jerking a thumb back at her.

Nawra doesn't seem to have expected the question, turning to really look at Lark for the first time since we got here. She thinks about it for a moment then turns and starts walking away.

"...Probably," she concludes, apparently expecting us to follow as she talks. "Or, well, mostly. Vrothizo won't die of old age, but they aren't really designed for long-term sapience, as they aren't designed to be sapient in the first place. Your friend's brain likely doesn't have the memory capacity for more than a couple hundred years, at most."

"So does that mean I'll start forgetting things if I live that long?" Lark asks, hurrying to follow her. "I'll be able to forget?"

"Mmm, well, for a certain definition of forget," Nawra dismisses. "Your brain is largely humanoid, it would seem, and consequently your foray into memory loss won't be complete, clean, or controlled. Just differently archived. There are easier and more effective ways to alter your memory than waiting."

"I actually have a few questions about that, if you're willing to humor me later," Penelope chimes in. "Obviously I intend to optimize my own brain structure for long-term living and I have quite a few plans on how I might go about that, but I imagine your expertise vastly outstrips my own on the matter."

"Well, yes, it does," Nawra agrees, smiling smugly. "I'm happy to talk shop later if you like. I might have a bit too much planned for today, but we can absolutely get around to it."

"Wonderful," Penelope nods, smiling back.

"And speaking of today's plans, are any of you interested in our newest neighbors?" Nawra asks, excitedly pressing her hands together. "Some of my people managed to extract a couple of the sapients that were traveling down from that newly-cracked planet and I must admit they're quite interesting. Triple helix DNA, and remarkably stable! One of the larger naturally-occurring sapient species I've encountered in terms of mass, too. They have quite the appetite! Four legs, two arms, thick fur, huge lungs I suspect their planet likely had a thin atmosphere and low gravity, or perhaps they just lived at high altitudes. Fascinating species, I'm so glad I can preserve a few samples."

'Preserve a few samples?' Oh boy. I don't like those implications. I'm about to ask about them when my sister suddenly gestures at a wall.

"Behold!" Nawra announces dramatically as the enamel wall slides away to reveal what seems to be a large pit.

Much like the rest of these caves, the pit is walled with a gray enamel-like substance, glossy and hard. As I walk to the edge and glance down, though, I also spot circular gaps in the hard substance, from which fleshy tentacles emerge, coiled and waiting. At the bottom of the pit, of course, are the aliens: a pair of them, thick-haired and muscled like beasts. The main part of their body sports four massive paws, though where I might expect a head on another animal there's instead an additional body segment, where the manipulator-limbs are attached, and finally on top of that is the head. Having four legs seems rather less useful to me than having four arms; my two legs have done everything I could ever ask of them just fine, after all. But I guess I can hardly judge another species for inefficiency of form when it doesn't even have magic.

As we stare down at them, the two beings stare back up at us, horror in their freshly-given souls as they hold each other close. They don't know what we are, or what we want. For that matter, they don't know what they are, their minds ravaged with an insidious amnesia. They just know that they live in a pit, and now the tentacles in the walls are hemming them in, forcing them to make themselves easy to see to the unknown monsters gazing at them from above.

"Aren't they just the cutest?" Nawra coos. "We grabbed two that we thought would be a breeding pair, but these turned out to actually be the same sex. They're so cuddly with each other we just assumed but better luck next time, I suppose."

Penelope blinks with bewilderment, briefly wondering if Nawra thinks she's a man. Surely not, I did introduce her as my girlfriend.

"They look rather uncomfortable," Jelisa hedges carefully.

"Hmm? Oh, well, yes, I suppose," Nawra shrugs. "A new environment will do that to people, you know. Still, it's important to establish a baseline for their lives going forwards. Set expectations. Even if they won't breed we can find useful ways to integrate them with life here, eventually. They might be above the preferred age for this sort of process, but the amnesia cancels out most of the issues that would otherwise be present."

"What process?" I ask, since it's the obvious question on everyone's mind and Nawra will always be happier to answer if I'm the one to speak.

"Cultural development, dear," Nawra hums, stroking her fingers down my arm. "Do you not? Ah, you're still a Princess, of course. I forgot that Progy doesn't give her girls 'the talk' until they start preparing to make their own men. Well, you're a little young for it, but you do have your laudable ambitions and I suppose it is my sisterly duty to educate you."

What, um. What is this? I'm suddenly very afraid.

"There comes a time in every immortal's lifesometimes early, sometimes latewhen we get fed up with mortals making the same mistakes, over and over again," Nawra explains, slipping into a teacher-like lecturer's cadence. "Especially so when those mistakes start to interfere with our plans, when even those loyal to us are so mired in their own stupidity and selfishness that they start to consistently fail. So we take over an island or a country or a cult or what-have-you and start making changes. The question then becomes what to change, and how."

"...And I assume you accomplish this with consistent applications of animancy?" Lark interjects grumpily.

"What?" Nawra asks, seeming offended. "No! Don't be ridiculous. I'm not some two-bit leech on my brother's tit, I'd have to use my own mana for that sort of thing and my mana is precious. You think I can afford to cast animancy on an entire island's population? Of course not. Grotesquely inefficient, and profoundly unnecessary. It's far easier to just ah, wait, I should make this a teaching moment. What do you think I do, Vita?"

Uh, me? Oh boy. How would I mind control an entire society?

"Hmm. I mean, Grandmama basically does an animancy daisy-chain, right?" I muse. "She influences her daughters, who influence their daughters, who influence their daughters, etc. So everyone, even the lowest rung of society, is constructed with intent by someone above them, ultimately all the way up to her."

And the fact that we aren't mad at her about this should be telling.

Should be, yeah. One old scary monster of a family member at a time, Taal. I focus on Nawra as she shakes her head at me, indicating my guess is wrong.

"Progy exposes herself to a lot of risk doing that, darling, and risk is not what an immortal should be seeking. A servant of any kind should not be an animancer, especially if you're intending to use animancy on them. That kind of conflict is how you end up with messes like this"

She taps Penelope's belly, just over where her soul rests.

"and I can only assume that didn't end well for whoever made your girlfriend do this to herself. Between animancers, animancy is the last thing you should be leveraging for control. Never give a servant that kind of power."

A few eyes in the room drift automatically towards Nugas, who beams under the attention with a vulpine grin.

"I'm sure it will be fine," she comments demurely.

"So, what's the answer, then?" Penelope asks, taking a half-step back as she idly rubs the spot Nawra poked.

"It's simple," Nawra answers. "You don't need magic at all. Just time. Mortals hardly need to be brute forced into boxes when you can just raise them there."

Our group of various mortals and once-mortals takes a moment to digest that.

"...You're talking about indoctrination," Penelope says, breaking the silence first.

"Sure, yes, to start," Nawra nods easily. "Of course, there are mixed benefits to encouraging a culture to be uncritical, and their worth depends on how broadly competent and capable of advancement you want that culture to be. I've met a lot of immortals that make good arguments for keeping a population educated and free-thinking, but it doesn't really match my needs. So yes, I use indoctrination tactics, but I've also had a hundred or so generations of only letting more pliable and obedient citizens breed, and that skews my results higher than you're likely to get on a first go at it."

No one answers her. What sort of thing can a sane person say in response to that? Eyes naturally drift towards the two human servants Nawra has flanking her. What are their lives like? How horrid is this place?

"Hmm?" Nawra muses, following our gazes. "Oh, you don't have to worry about them, dears. Neither of them speak this ridiculous woo-woo language you have me using. They're not going to be disenfranchised over us talking like this, they don't understand a thing."

"Ah," Penelope says, smiling agreeably. "That's reassuring to know."

Geez, she sounds like she means it. And feels like she means it. Oh wow she means it. I guess it's a manic day for her, or something?

"I'm glad to hear as much," Nawra beams at Penelope. "I can tell you're a good influence on my little sister. I'll admit, I've always been worried about the company she keeps, but you've been quite the reassurance."

Nawra smoothly steps away from the terrifying prison pit and urges us to follow, our tour apparently once more underway. Obviously, I can't help but be annoyed with Nawra shitting on my friends like that, but I'm not really sure what exactly to say to her. She can tell I'm pissed.

"Not worried in that way, dear," Nawra unsuccessfully attempts to placate me. "I'm sure they're wonderful in their own ways, it's just well, I'm worried, that's all. A sister can't help but worry."

"Nawra, the fastest way you can get me to hate you is by fucking with my friends," I tell her bluntly, crossing one pair of arms as I put the other pair on my hips. "And yeah, a lot of my friends are currently mortal. If you've got a problem with that, I suggest you get over it or keep fucking quiet. I'm not going to stop caring about them."

"No, no no no no!" Nawra backpedals, her souls wincing. "Sweetie, you have it all wrong. I have no intention of harming your friends, it's just never mind. Let's just continue, shall we?"

Hey! No! It's just what? I'm not letting this slide. Nawra doesn't seem inclined to answer, though, so I focus on her soul to see what I can glean. It's still a bit confusing trying to figure out what she's feeling, because I still don't know how she works. If anything, I'd say she feels nervous? But that's kind of weird and confusing. Nawra is not exactly a woman who lacks confidence.

What is up with all these souls? This Nawra body is physically connected to something, somewhere, and who knows what's on the other end. The souls that feel like her vary in size, from about average human level all the way up to gargantuan, Galdra-level beasts that make my mouth water. I try to figure out what they're doing, but frustratingly they mostly seem to be doing nothing; they don't move, and by and large they seem focused on a lot of the same things as Nawra's local body.

I don't get the final piece of the puzzle until Nawra's tour of horrors finally gets me within range of the island's center. There, I finally sense it: the soul that has the uplink to Nawra's mana self. By identifying that mana flow and tracing it around to the various souls, I find the anima microfilaments that link Nawra's many souls together, the barely-perceivable network that moves throughout the island.

No not throughout the island, Taal realizes. Nawra's not a hive mind. She's a singular mind that's simply so vast it encompasses countless brains.

Isn't that basically what a hive mind is?

No. A hive mind has multiple independent bodies. Nawra doesn't. It's a singular body, a singular entity, decentralized and spread in such a way that it looks like countless individuals. But that's a ruse, not for our sake but for the Mistwatcher's. If her soul worked normally it would be too big and she wouldn't be able to hide.

Nawra doesn't live on this island. Nawra IS the island. This entire time we've been on a tour of the inside of her skeleton.

Oh. Oh boy. Taal is right, I can see it now. The way thoughts propagate through the network is just a massive-scale variation of how they move through a normal soul, just split into discrete chunks. No wonder trying to read each soul felt so weird, they each contain just a fragment of everything that's going on in Nawra's head. With that perspective I can start looking at all of her souls together like they're all one big soul, and while that still doesn't give me everything it gives me a lot.

Enough to start asking a few leading questions.

"So, not that it isn't all interesting, but why are you giving us the full tour like this?"

"Well, I don't often get guests I can show off to" Nawra starts, but I focus on her soul rather than her words. Importance, hope necessity? She wants me to know this stuff. She wants me to be able to navigate her. She expects me to be here a while? Oh boy.

"Well, I appreciate you doing your best to make me feel at home," I say, and I feel success and relief from her. Guess I was spot on. "We all had a pretty long journey, though. I'm happy to keep chatting with you, but it might help if we head somewhere a bit more private where everyone can rest?"

Hesitence, anticipation, fear. At what? She's worried about something in the near future. She's worried about being alone with me? Even though she wants to be? Her tour was more than just things she wanted me to know, there's an element of guilt to it. Stalling? She's stalling. There's something she needs to talk with me about but doesn't want to talk with me about.

"...I suppose we can rest if your friends need to," Nawra hedges.

"Come on, sis," I sigh. "Let's go talk about that favor I owe you, okay? I don't want it hanging over me the whole time we're here."

Yep, my guess is spot on. I can feel it. She needs me for something long-term. And I do not like what Nawra's idea of 'long-term' implies. Still, she relents and starts leading us towards a guest residential quarters. Shit. Now I'm worried. Nawra knows I'm not going to like whatever she has to say, but she's setting me up for it anyway. How do I get agency in this situation? It's not like I can fight her if worst comes to worst. She has me outmatched in every way conceivable. Sure, I'm way more powerful than I used to be, but Nawra is an entire fucking island! She could easily overpower me in an instant, and in the mana world she could snuff me out like a candle if she wanted to. I'm honestly super lucky that she doesn't.

I guess that's what I'll have to leverage. As terrifying as Nawra is, she does actually care about me, and I can't really think of anything else I have over her. Geez, thoughts like this don't feel like a healthy start to a familial relationship. Guess that's my life, though.

We make it to some 'private' rooms, or at least as private as a room can be when it exists inside the cavernous and fully-touch-sensitive bones of our host. Nawra doesn't need her little older sister avatar to know where we are, I'm noticing. She can feel us move within her depths, hear us no matter where we speak. We are within her, and she rules this place.

"Your, um, friends can scatter themselves among these rooms however they desire," Nawra says, gesturing vaguely at a few muscle-controlled doors. "I'll assign each of them a servant to use how they please. Erm, preference for male or female?"

Uh. Woah there, sis. Penelope clears her throat.

"...Either is fine," she speaks for all of us. "Also, the implication that we'd be interested in making use of them intimately is extremely unpleasant in our culture, Nawra. That sort of thing can cause severe traumatic experiences in humans."

"Oh," Nawra says absently. "Apologies, I suppose. I occasionally have guests with differing opinions on the matter, but it's all rather incomprehensible to me. I haven't had the instinct or capacity for traditional reproduction in millenia, and I never really made use of it even back when I did."

"I see," Penelope smiles, deciding it's probably best for everyone if she changes the subject. "Forgive me if it's a faux pas to ask, but I have to wonder about your story, Nawra. Souls like yours and Vita's aren't entirely natural, are they? Where do you come from? Who were you?"

The Nawra-body in front of us chews on the inside of her lip in a startling display of emotion, a much more nuanced facial expression than she tends to show. A complicated series of emotions matches her face, though they mostly boil down to 'not wanting to talk about this, but also not wanting to talk about the thing I'm trying to push her to talk about, and trying to judge if it's worth it to delay that conversation for a different one she also won't like.' And apparently, the answer is yes.

"I would be surprised if you are at all familiar with my original species," Nawra says slowly. "There aren't really many of them left. And ultimately, I consider that part of my origin irrelevant. What matters is that I was a child who wanted to be a god."

"Oh?" Penelope prompts.

"...I wasn't made by someone else like you were, Vita," Nawra sighs. "I wasn't born as the embodiment of black mana. I was a weak little mortal once, even if I hardly remember it these days. But my people lived on one of the lowest islands in the world, low enough that sometimes the mists would rise up and smother us in power. We saw up close the scope of god. And where everyone else was humbled by it, I was emboldened. I sought to unlock the Mistwatcher's secrets, and to make a long story short I succeeded. One scalpel to my soul at a time."

Nawra reaches out and, in an entirely unexpected move, pats Penelope reassuringly on the shoulder.

"So I know what it's like, dear," she says. "To break yourself. To be nothing and no one and to have to put it all back together. You're brave for it, child. To pursue freedom from the divine decree of death is the most noble of all pursuits. Trust in that, and the woman you forge will be stronger than the one you were."

Then she turns to me, seeming unusually tired.

"Come on then, sister," she sighs. "As you've already gathered, I've been stalling for too long already."

I nod, letting out a sigh as my tendrils squirm against the holes in my exoskeleton. This is not going to be fun. Nawra leads me to another private room, barely furnished with a bed and dresser grown out of bony flesh with soft membranes for blankets. I sit down on the bed, and she sits in a chair across from me. Silence stretches for a short while, our souls wordlessly tasting each other's emotions before she finally sighs and finds the courage to speak.

"...You're much more perceptive than I expected you to be, sister," Nawra scowls.

"Ah, heh. It's funny you should say so," I answer awkwardly. "My soul might be a literal eyeball but until very recently I've been the least emotionally perceptive person I've ever met. I've been making an effort, though. To be able to understand people. It's a handy skill."

"Yes," Nawra agrees regretfully. "I suppose it is. It's a skill I've left to atrophy in the absence of any peers, and today I've gotten to actually see just how much it's withered away. I feel like a mewling fool, not knowing how to host your mortals. It's just been so long since I've had to care."

"I can only imagine," I admit. "I'm glad you're trying, at least."

"It may be too little, too late, I'm afraid," Nawra scowls. "This is far from all your friends, isn't it? It will be bothersome, gathering them all. Potentially doable, but I won't really have time to make appropriate renovations."

"So you do plan to keep me here," I glower. "I'd gathered as much. Are you really that lonely?"

"...It's not really a matter of loneliness," Nawra protests. "I plan to leave this world, Vita. Escape our brother's grasp. I want you to come with me."

"What, just move your whole bodythis whole islandall the way up into the horrific black nothingness above us?" I ask incredulously.

"Essentially, yes," Nawra nods. "We can escape this slaughterhouse, Vita. I've been preparing for it for thousands of years, and nearly everything is already in place. I thought I wouldn't be able to do it this Skybreak since it happened so soon, but with your help, I can. That's the favor I want from you. I need probably about half your total remaining volume of mana. And then we're free."

This is an insane proposition. It's not that I don't want to be free of the Mistwatcher's clutches, but the idea of uprooting everyone who will follow me, destroying my life and my plans to go shooting off into the unknown with a sister I've known for less than a year and just met in person for the first time is insane. This isn't the kind of thing you can just spring on someone and expect them to be okay with it. Is she really so much in her own head that she can't see that? No, wait. She didn't want to tell me this at all, that's why she was hesitating. Right?

Oh shit. It isn't. She's still procrastinating! This is still the soft sell!

"That's already an absurd thing to ask me," I tell her. "But it's not even the catch, is it? Uprooting my whole life is part of the upside to you. What is it you're still afraid of telling me, exactly?"

"...You're not going to like it," she fidgets nervously.

"Yeah, I gathered that!" I gripe. "Come on, spill it, Nawra."

"...It's not entirely about us, is the thing," she mutters. "Our brother you've seen what he does. He's carving this universe apart, devouring it piece by piece. Slowly but surely, he's going to snuff out all life that isn't part of his will. And if that happens you and I, and everyone else in the universe, is doomed. It will only be slaughter and death. Whatever paradises we can dream up with our powers they'll never be realized. It won't be possible. Not in the face of his hunger. So if we want our piece of this universal pie, Vita we have to stop him."

"I can get behind that in principle," I agree, crossing my arms. "Big brother is a foul excuse for a god. But he's several orders of magnitude beyond both of us. How do you expect to stop him?"

"You and I are the only people who can," Nawra answers. "We have to find our own worlds. Life free from his grasp. And we have to outgrow him. So that whenever he finds us, whenever his tendrils finally reach for us, out in the great black of the universe outside, we'll be strong enough to fight back."

"That doesn't sound like a plan at all," I frown. "He kind of has a head start on us, sis. A bit of an insurmountable one. He'll grow how fast he can grow beyond what we can catch up to before we even find another what are they called? Planets? Yeah. We're fucked. He's just too big, Nawra. He has too many resources already."

"...Yes, he does," Nawra agrees. "Which is why, when we leave, we'll need to kill every single living thing on every last island, and devour them in his stead."

I find myself unable to respond, unable to even comprehend. It's such an absurd statement that I have a difficult time taking it seriously. Every single living thing? Every last soul in the entire world? It's an impossible idea to hold in my mind. I've been to four islands ever, and the islands in the Mistwatcher's grasp number in the thousands. How could even Nawra have that kind of scope within her reach?

But the pit of horror grows in my belly the more I stare at her in disbelief. She's serious. She has both the means and the will.

Nawra is going to destroy the world.

"You're insane," I blurt before I can think better of it. "What's even the point of killing the Mistwatcher if you're going to kill everyone on him?"

"There are plenty of points," Nawra says patiently. "You have seen the truth of this reality: our world is fenced in by the Mistwatcher's will, but there is a whole universe outside his clutches. And he means to devour it all. Every last thing that has ever been conceived, he will control, parasitize, and force to die. If you're horrified by the scope of death I plan to enact, consider instead the scope of death that the action will prevent. The continued survival of our brother is the worst thing that could happen to the countless living things in this universe."

"You don't care about any of them," I accuse. "You don't care about that planet he ate and you don't care about the countless mortals you plan to kill."

"That's true," Nawra concedes. "But it makes me no less correct. You could argue it is worse for these people to die by my hand than it is for them to die by the Mistwatcher's tyranny, but the fact is, they will all die. We cannot cure death until we are free from our brother. Immortals will remain a restricted, exclusive realm for the superiors among us, and death will be the fate of all else. Is that the world you want to perpetuate?"

"Of course not!" I snap. "But you can't act like this is the only path forward! We could just leave without killing everyone!"

"Not if we expect to have a chance," Nawra disagrees, shaking her head. "It's like you said: big brother already has an insurmountable head start. Our only hope is to sabotage him. He won't be able to replenish his soul-growing stock for centuries, maybe even a millennium. That's more than enough time for you and me to track down a planet with life, outside his grasp, and prepare to start outscaling him. He's big, Vita, but he's not clever. With a few more efficient systems, we can win."

I don't know what to say. What she's saying makes a certain kind of sense, and damn, at certain points of my life I'm not sure if I'd have told her no. That scares me. I know now that I'm not a good person. Maybe I never was, but I certainly managed to get worse for a while there.

Maybe it won't mean anything to stop this single, great evil from happening. But I can't just throw away all the healing I've worked for and not try. What can I do, though? How can I stop her? What can I say?

A knock at the door sounds like hope. Penelope!

"Apologies to both of you," my girlfriend says through the door, "but I couldn't help but overhear."

"...Really? Even through the enchantments?" Nawra sighs. "Well, come on in, then. It's not as though I didn't expect Vita to tell you."

"Penelope!" I greet her, standing up and giving her a huge hug. "What do we do?"

I tilt my head back to peer up at her face, where she frowns back down at me. Wait, what? Something's not right.

"...We help her," Penelope says, and my heart goes cold. "She's right, Vita. The world we want to create can't exist on the Mistwatcher. We either leave these people to be eaten by him, or we take them for ourselves."

"What!?" I yelp in protest. "Penelope, this is exactly the sort of thinking we've been trying to"

"I know," Penelope cuts me off. "I know, Vita. We're trying to be better people. But I refuse to be the sort of self-satisfied 'moral being' that equates inaction to a lack of responsibility. Leaving this world to be devoured as the Mistwatcher's slaughterhouse does not save its inhabitants!"

"Yes it does!" I snap. "It matters if we respect whatever time they have left, like we're supposed to!"

"We have a whole universe we need to respect now!" Penelope snaps back. "Do you want to consign it all to this this farm? Vita, we have to move forward. I know that it's evil, Vita. I know it's wrong. But the alternative disgusts me more."

How could she say that? We've made so much progress. My first thought is animancy, because of course it would be. I pour through Penelope's soul, a place I know better than even my own. But I find no signs of tampering, nothing that could indicate anyone affected her recently. And Nawra herself feels surprised, pleasantly so but still entirely caught off-guard by Penelope's entirely genuine defense of her worldwide genocide plan. Worse, she doesn't seem to be faking either. She's being honest.

"Besides, I assume this wasn't up for negotiation in the first place," Penelope continues, turning to Nawra's puppet. "You've been planning this for too long to stop now, haven't you?"

"There isn't really anything you can do to stop it at this point," Nawra shrugs helplessly. "The best I can offer is to house your loved ones here, to spare those you care about most. If you could give me a list of them before the end of the day, it would help considerably. I'll have my people pick them up. Try to limit it to fifty or so? But if there are more people you can't live without, I'll do my best to make it work."

"I can't abide this," I tell her. "I have to oppose you. You know that."

"I do," Nawra agrees, smiling softly. "And I'm sorry, for what it's worth. But we'll have a lot of time together, Vita. I'm sure you'll find it in your heart to forgive me in a few centuries or so."

Then she stands up, heading out the door as she motions Penelope to follow. My girlfriend shoots me an apologetic grimace, and then they both vanish down the hallway, leaving me overwhelmed and alone.

I'm not really all that good at saving people. What am I supposed to do?