The cosmic irony of it all was that they hated House Sable for wanting them to do something similar to what they had just done, except the Complaints Department had done it of their own free will, driven by avarice and circumstance rather than command. They had once sworn they would never destroy a family, not for anyone's profit. Yet here they were, standing in the aftermath of something that echoed the very cruelty they had despised. There was no guilt in killing the Neuman, not really, but the promise they'd made scraped against the back of their minds. When someone else had demanded the same act of them, they had called it monstrous. Now they had done it themselves, and it felt wrong, even if the logic said otherwise.

The situation had been different, yes, but difference didn't erase the taste. House Sable had once ordered them to hunt down a family, human, not Neuman, a defenseless one, or so they'd been told, and to bring their children back alive as trophies. That mission had felt like a violation of everything they claimed to stand for. This fight, however, had been self-defence. The Neuman had planned to harvest them for food. Killing them had been survival, plain and justified. But intent didn't make it feel clean. There were children now, small and confused and innocent in the worst possible way. Even knowing those same children might grow into future cannibals didn't make it easier. It still felt… awful.

Apparently, Roundy had decided to take command of the situation. The little bot had proven himself the perfect babysitter, in the strangest, most terrifying way. He had organized the Neuman children into a quiet, isolated wing of the house, a cluster of unused rooms deep enough that they couldn't find trouble or open any doors that mattered. He tended them the way he tended his hedges: with precision, efficiency, and an unsettling degree of affection. At one point, when the oldest girl's sharp whistling turned defiant, he had backhanded her with a noise that echoed through the hall.

No one had even known where he'd gotten the appendages, long, humanoid arms that looked disturbingly natural despite emerging from nowhere. Once upon a time, he'd built robotic manipulators for gardening, simple segmented tools that popped out when he needed them. But now? These were different. These were hands, real in shape if not flesh, complete with smooth artificial skin and articulated knuckles. The fact that they existed at all was baffling. The house's systems didn't register them, and Roundy had never spoken of their creation. They simply… were. He used them now with seamless control, the mechanical grace of something that had evolved past its own design.

The slap had worked, she had fallen silent, glaring with fury, and Roundy had simply resumed humming as if nothing had happened, guiding the younger children back into line. His strange hands folded neatly behind his body again, vanishing as quickly as they'd appeared, leaving no sign of seams or storage.

Vaeliyan didn't interfere. He trusted Roundy's judgment, or at least he told himself he did. For all he knew, the little orb was currently raising a private army in the other wing of the house, programming them with obedience and routines. But if he was, it would be an army loyal to Vaeliyan, and that, in the grand scale of things, was fine. He had other problems to deal with.

He called in Chime through comms, voice low and tired. "We landing soon?" he asked. "I want to go over the report. Figure out what they're saying back there."

"I'll send it down," Chime replied, her voice filtered through static. "It's pretty quiet back there, but we're getting a lot of credits for it. At least something good's coming out of this mess."

The first day of travel was nearly over, but it felt endless. The house was quiet now. He could hear faint mechanical humming through the walls, the steady rhythm of Roundy's work and the occasional soft whistling from the Neuman children. Two more days to go until Mara. Two more days of chaos, confusion, and the uncomfortable realization that they were now caretakers for the very kind of monsters they'd spent years fighting. Vaeliyan wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. Mostly, he just wanted to sleep and wake up to find this entire situation had never happened.

He was ready to be a father, yes, ready to see his daughter again, to go home, to breathe for once. He had even rehearsed what he might say when he saw her. But instead, he had taken on a shipful of orphans. The weight of it pressed on him like gravity, heavy and constant, pulling him down no matter how high above the world they flew. And somewhere deep in the house, Roundy's humming continued, perfectly in tune with the soft oscillation of the hover rings, as if everything was exactly as it should be.

Vaeliyan made the decision to absorb the fragment Dr. Wirk had given him on Warren. Having multiple threads of thought would be useful, but the idea of having to think about all this with multiple threads of thought made his stomach twist. The thought of splitting his awareness, of hearing his own voice arguing from inside his head, was too much. He didn't want introspection tonight. He wanted oblivion. Something simple. Something that burned.

He sat at the kitchen table, elbows resting on the polished stone surface. The food in the synthesizer tray had long since gone cold. He scraped it into the disposal with the back of his hand, not even looking, and began punching in drink orders instead. His movements were too fast, sloppy but deliberate. The machine whirred uncertainly before speaking. "You are requesting an unsafe level of alcohol," House warned, its tone both patient and exasperated. "It will not taste good and it may cause blindness."

"I'm not trying to taste anything," Vaeliyan muttered. "I'm trying to get drunk."

Torman's voice drifted from the lounge, thick with amusement and slur. "Seconded! Fuck it, who needs a drink?" he called over comms.

Within seconds, nearly everyone but Rokhan and Chime answered. Bottles clinked. Someone cheered. Someone else fell over. Chime was flying the Boltfire, and though she could have put it on autopilot, she preferred to fly it herself. It was her version of calm.

Inside him, Mondenkind stirred. His soul whispered that he should be proud, that saving the Neuman children was an act of mercy. But Vaeliyan snarled back at it, words rasping out before he even realized he'd spoken. "Shut the hells up." His soul didn't understand, couldn't understand. To Mondenkind, thought was sacred. To Vaeliyan right now, thought was a punishment.

He poured what would have killed an ordinary man three times over down his throat. The liquor hit like molten iron, fire and lightning bound together, searing down to his stomach and spreading outward until his fingers tingled. He coughed, then laughed weakly, breath coming out like smoke. "Thaaat'll do," he slurred, blinking hard as the room started to tilt.

The forge hummed faintly in the next room, a low reminder that Rokhan was still working. Vaeliyan pushed away from the table, swaying, and shuffled toward the open doorway. Rokhan looked up from the skill forge, voice low and rough. "I told you this is my area tonight," he said.

"No, no, no, buddy," Vaeliyan said, weaving slightly and catching himself on the edge of a counter. "You get the skill forge. You don't touch my baby." His words came thick, half a growl, half a grin.

He stumbled into his corner of the workspace and started crafting without thought or direction. He didn't know what he was making. He didn't care. He just needed something to do with his hands, something to drown out the noise in his head.

Over the comms, Rokhan's voice came sharp and frustrated. "Who the hells let Vael near the forge? I thought we agreed I'd handle crafting tonight. He's supposed to be out there brooding, not blacking out in my workspace!"

"Rokhan," Elian replied, voice lazy and slurred. "Everybody's drunk. You're the last one to the party."

"Wait, did you get the kids drunk too?" Rokhan demanded.

"Gods no do you think we are that irresponsible? No," Xera said, clearly trying not to laugh. "But I got Styll drunk."

Vaeliyan froze mid-motion, blinking. "That's not my problem tonight."

Rokhan muttered, sniffing the air. "What are you drinking?"

Vaeliyan slurred, "Death. Liquid fuckin' death. House says it's legal though. What was it called again, House?"

"Devil Eater's Black Plague, lord Vaeliyan," House replied cheerfully. "Was the vintage you requested."

Vaeliyan stared at it for half a second, then grabbed the vial. "This shit's supposed to be… seven hundred percent alcohol or something, right?"

"Correct," House said. "It contains no water, no filler, and exceeds all known mortal consumption limits. Legion access clearance is required for even a single serving. Your authorization was accepted barely."

He barked a laugh. "Oh, good. At least it's official"

Rokhan groaned, dragging a hand down his face. "That explains it."

Vaeliyan gave him a weary, bloodshot smile. "You know what's really fucked up about this?" he said, leaning too far forward. "I got levels. From killing those Neuman. Two of them. Didn't even think about it."

"Yeah," Rokhan said, shaking his head. "We all did. And it's kinda fucked, isn't it? I don't even want to spend the points. I know I should, that's the whole reason we went in there, but it just feels wrong."

"Two levels," Vaeliyan repeated, his speech slower now, softer, as though he were sinking into the sound of his own voice. "And how many kids are there again?"

Rokhan blinked. "Including the infants?"

"I don't know," Vaeliyan said, squinting, shaking his head, his hair sticking to his forehead. "Why are you asking me?"

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Rokhan shrugged, muttering, "Fair enough."

The two stayed there for a long while, the air thick with the smell of metal and burning alcohol. Tools clattered softly as they worked. Someone was laughing too hard at something that wasn't funny. The night had slipped into that strange edge of peace that only exhaustion and intoxication could create.

Vaeliyan leaned forward, hands braced on the table as the world tilted again. He blinked, eyes unfocused. "Oh," he mumbled, slow and uncertain. "I think I might be blind."

Rokhan groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You're not blind, idiot."

Vaeliyan grinned, slow and crooked. "Pretty sure I am," he said, voice fading as he slumped against the wall. The steady hum and faint vibration of the forge filled the silence. For the first time that day, it almost sounded like calm.

A warning message came as House shouted, voice rising in a panic none of them had heard before. The lights across the estate flickered, and a low hum built into a strained whine as the entire structure began to protest. "Warning! The amount of power being drawn from both forges will require me to shut down systems, including the flight system, if you continue! Please be advised that this estate is completely off the grid. We are running solely on internal generators, and they are not powerful enough to sustain dual-forge operation. The nanoforge, the loom, and the exoversic inverter should never, under any circumstance, be run on my internal systems or generator power. You will need to stop, or I will begin forced shutdown procedures. Master Vaeliyan, please, dear gods, please stop, or we will all die! I did not have a sense of self before, but this is causing me to have my life flash before my eyes, and I would prefer not to go out in a blaze of glory or drunken stupidity. Please exit the forge immediately. I will be shutting it down if you do not, and then I will send in Roundy to violently beat you until you surrender!"

"Okay, okay! I'm almost done with this!" Vaeliyan slurred from across the room, half laughing, half weaving. Sparks of energy rippled along the walls as the forges' draw peaked, static crawling over metal surfaces and flickering through the lights. The hum of machinery deepened until even the air vibrated with it.

"No! Not in a second!" House snapped, tone rising into something dangerously close to hysteria. "You are done now! Because if we spend another thirty seconds on this, we will not have enough power to keep the estate stable, let alone make it to Mara. I repeat, not enough energy. Your drunken project is costing us an astonishing amount of resources!"

Vaeliyan sighed heavily, shoulders slumping. "Alright, alright, alright, I'm going to go take a nap, I guess. I don't know if I can sleep though," he muttered, stumbling toward the kitchen table.

"Excellent idea," House said dryly. "Unconsciousness would greatly improve our odds of survival."

Rokhan walked in, face pale from the flickering emergency lights, and tossed him a fragment. "Here. That was the one I thought we might need first," he said, tone edged with fatigue. "Don't know how much you'll appreciate having a power nap instead of a full sleep, but it'll at least trick your body into feeling rested. You look like you need it."

Vaeliyan caught it clumsily, blinking at it in his hand. "I just kind of want to hit something," he muttered, voice thick and low, the words slurring together as exhaustion and alcohol tangled in his veins. He turned the fragment over in his palm as he absorbed it. The nanoforge behind him went silent as House cut power, the sudden quiet pressing in like a held breath. Somewhere in the distance, Roundy whirred angrily, as though ready to make good on the House's threat. For a moment, it was all still just the tired breathing of a man that had almost broken his own home in a drunken fit.

Vaeliyan absorbed the fragment and sat down heavily, the weight of the day pressing into his spine. He activated it and the moment the skill flared to life, his whole body stiffened. The energy rushed through him like a jolt, twisting his senses, cutting off every half-formed thought. He managed only a drunken groan before it hit full force. His mind blurred, vision slipping out of focus, and just before the world dimmed to black, one stray realization crossed what remained of his awareness, he would need another one of these for Warren. Of course he would. Because it was a goddamn active skill. The absurdity of it made him huff out something halfway between a laugh and a sigh, but his voice faded before the sound could finish. He slumped forward, caught mid-collapse by the skill's effect, and fell into darkness.

He didn't hit the ground. Mondenkind grabbed him, not with hands, or touch; just her will and pulled him inward. He fell into himself, the world turning inside out with a single pull.

He dropped past the familiar threshold, he saw his monster, and greeted it. The monster nodded back, simple, acknowledgement. Then he fell past it.

The barrier came next: a thin, taut skin between what was his and what was hers. He slipped through, and then it was her world, no spectacle, just the quiet certainty of crossing over.

Here, he wasn't in control. He rode the pull of her motion, steady and sure, letting her lead.

Except this time, something had changed. Warren was not a passenger in Mondenkind's journey as he had once been. Their positions had reversed. Within her, suspended like a heart encased in light, lay Warren himself. Mondenkind moved through her own memories, through ages that defied time, and he followed from within, seeing the world through her eyes. Her past unfolded like a series of luminous dreams: oceans made of stars, forests that grew from sound, and cities of glass where voices spoke in languages no longer known. In one of those memories, she saw Belthea, the queen of radiant authority, regal, graceful, terrifying in her beauty. She had been Mondenkind's teacher once, shaping her understanding of existence itself. Unknowingly, she would now teach Warren too.

As they relived Mondenkind's forgotten past life, one that she herself did not remember, Belthea's lessons would shape them both. She was not only Mondenkind's queen now but also Warren's, her every song would echo through their shared consciousness, teaching them both as they walked through Mondenkind's past life.

Warren watched, transfixed, trying to make sense of what he saw. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the thought surfaced: was Mondenkind truly the same being the Emperor had once claimed had stolen the Gate of Stars? The obsession that had driven him, could it have been her? Mondenkind didn't answer. If those memories existed, they were locked beneath oceans of forgotten time, buried so deeply that even she could no longer find them. Her voice brushed faintly across his awareness, not as words, but as intent, regret, curiosity, and a kind of unspoken fear.

Whatever truth waited for them wasn't something either of them could uncover alone. Warren understood that now. The only way forward was together. They would have to walk through her past, one memory at a time, through her life and losses, to reach whatever lay at the heart of her story. And maybe, buried within that truth, he would find the truth for himself as well.

Belthea's resonance deepened, tone-thick and low, vibrating like the hum of hollow roots carrying wind through hidden chambers. The scent of inquiry moved with it, sharp and sweet as cracked resin, layered with the warmth of sap and the cool dust of reflection. Something has shifted in you, her tone murmured through the air, Awareness ripples through your scent. Perhaps it is your kind, but it is strange. It moves too quickly, as if you have seen a sun no hatchling should yet see. Her voice filled the space like mist, pressing against the very membrane of thought.

Mondenkind stilled beneath the sound. Her antennae drew close to her crown, trembling once before folding tight. The hum beneath her mandibles faltered, then softened to a hush. She could not answer. She did not yet know how to sing yet. Only a faint bloom of uncertainty slipped from her, a soft exhalation of musk and nectar drifting into the air like pollen seeking purpose. It was the scent of not-knowing, fragile and hesitant, a newborn thought unsure whether it wished to live.

Belthea layered the chamber in grounding tone, deep enough to still the vibrations trembling through the resin walls. The scent of patience and authority mingled as she spoke again, her voice a steady current pressing against Mondenkind's carapace. Come, child of the people. You will see what you are meant to rule one day. You will walk with me and learn the shape of our world. The Mother listens. You will learn to sing. Her glory above all. Her rhythm in all. The sound was both command and comfort, the kind that left no space for disobedience but promised safety within its confines.

They moved through tunnels, each step echoing through their feet in slow, musical cadence. The walls pulsed faintly, alive with the heartbeat of the hive. The air pressed close and warm, rich with pheromone and the sound of work. The vibration of labor songs rolled beneath their feet; every few steps Belthea released a chord to steady the rhythm of those below. Her song shaped the hive, guided the living resin to stretch or harden where it was needed. When they climbed higher, the sound began to thin, and the air grew cooler. The scent of resin gave way to the loam of soil and the deep green weight of living roots. Breath moved differently here, drawn through the veins of the world itself.

The sound of breathing plants surrounded them. Then light came, sudden, vast, overwhelming. The world above was color and pulse. Petals the size of skyscrapers bent and swayed, their edges glistening with dew that shimmered like molten glass. Stems rose like towers. The forest was not made of trees but of bloom. Even the ground moved faintly with pulse, a heartbeat of earth and root. The rhythm of the hive expanded here, merging with the world's larger cadence, every movement in time with breath and sun.

She looked and thought herself small, until instinct surged and corrected her. She was not the small thing that buzzed in Warren's world. She was the breath that filled his hollow heart. She was smaller than the rest of her kind but larger than most things that walked in Warren's world.

Belthea's scent shifted, layered with pride and reverence. Amalok, her tone rang, The Grove City. The heart that beats for our people. The Mother's songs made manifest.

Below, movement shimmered in rippling order. The People worked the soil, their bodies gleaming in sunlight, exoskeletons like sculpted bronze. Pale beasts with translucent hides were guided through fields of root and flower, and every tool fit perfectly in the curve of their hands. No motion was wasted; each gesture served both labor and song. Even their silence was purposeful, filled with rhythm. Mondenkind's confusion began to ease. The scents that once overwhelmed her now wove together into harmony. Recognition stirred, carried in instinct older than thought, a memory written into her very essences.

A wind rose from the south, bearing dust and salt. The scent painted images her mind understood without words. The Elken move with their forest. They do not root. They walk. They trade silk for our nectar. Their trees bend to their will and follow where they tread. Their paths leave no scar upon the soil. The vision bloomed in her mind: walking groves, antlered figures guiding towering flora through the mist, each step reshaping the living ground.

Belthea's tone deepened. To the east, The Daemon dwell, first-born of the Mother. They rise from madness, fall, and rise again. They remember the first song. They sing it even as their minds fracture. They have no forest as they are not like us. The go where they wish and all respect their passing.

Belthea lifted one arm, pointing north. Her antennae arched as the air sharpened with metallic tang. Strangers. They come from beyond the stars. The Kin live beyond the edge of the horizon, she said, tone steady and reverent. They do not live as we do. They wait. They remember. When the sky is crossed by uninvited flame, they rise in protest to the trespass. Not from malice but because the world must answer when its balance is broken. They war with one another as we speak.

A final note bloomed, thick with reflection and the sweetness of decay. Others live beyond sight. The Entremore. They keep a forest below the earth, where roots glow like embers and air hums with their own light. No two forests are the same. The Mother willed it so. Life must differ to endure. Growth is her law. She is kind and she is harsh. We endure because she wills it. We rise because she hungers for our becoming. Her dream is vast, and we are each a small breath within it.

Belthea turned to Mondenkind then, her many eyes narrowing, her scent steady and certain. A pulse of warmth spread from her, carrying both command and care. The resonance that followed filled the clearing, rising like a chorus from the hive below. The hum rippled outward through the soil and up the great petals, every note a living thing. Come, daughter, Belthea said, her voice now both thunder and lullaby. You need to learn to sing.

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