Dear Diary,

“Make your choices for yourself,

Make your choices for others,

Do not make other's choices.”

- Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Agency

Poetry. I'm writing fucking poetry. Poetry about fucking Agency and Consent and shit. Like, I could see myself writing slashfic maybe, just straight up nasty depictions of, y'know, the kind of shit I've been doing since I woke up in... uh... Calverton. That vaguely makes sense to me as a thing I might do. But at best Consent is sex adjacent, and I'm not even getting nasty with this shit.

I'm still gonna do it. One thing growing up on the streets teaches you, fast, is that you never back down. Run away, maybe, but if you're gonna do that you run and don't stop running until everybody involved has forgotten what you're running from. But if you decide to not run? You gotta stand your ground. The moment you bow down to anybody, you're their bitch for life. Yours or theirs, doesn't matter, but that's not the life I want to lead.

Okay, maybe for Saffron. I can't even explain why. But if she wanted to put a collar and leash on me, I'm pretty sure I'd be all 'woof, woof, pant, pant, lick lick'. The really weird part, at least to me, is that it's not even about the sex. I mean, don't get me wrong, this is absolutely the best sex I've ever had. This goes way beyond, 'these three are really fuckin' good at getting it on', although if I'm being completely honest that's more Saffron and Marie than Siobhan, even if the cute little blonde seems almost pathologically eager to get it on with any or all of us. Not complaining, not even really judging. Yet. Because I think I remember Saffron saying something about 'newest', and I can totally get how somebody newly introduced to the utterly mind-altering levels of sexual prowess possessed by Marie or Saffron, let alone both of them, might wind up being a little overwhelmed. I sure as shit am.

But I'm not gonna let that stop me from stepping up for her if I think she's pushing past 'healthy appreciation for mind-blowing orgasms' into 'addiction' territory. Reveling in that shit is one thing, letting it take over and ruin your life is something else. Although... she's literally spent the past two days pulling way past double shifts at whatever Infirmary or clinic or whatever she works at, and I did not notice a TV or console or any other kind of entertainment in the 'Academy' dorm room, so if it's like, the go-to entertainment around here, I guess a pair of sexperts is the local equivalent of a PS Five or something.

But like I said, it's not just skills. It goes beyond that. I'm not an expert on sex, but I've got an interesting relationship with intimacy. You want something you can't have long enough and hard enough, especially when it's something that people you can observe clearly have, you start to build up a body of knowledge about it. You understand it on a kind of weird deep intellectual level, where it's almost pseudo-visceral. Even if the feels that take over my belly and rush upward until my brain can't brain any more don't quite match up with what I imagined they'd be, if this isn't real intimacy I'm not sure I'd survive the real thing.

Speaking of survival, I woke up to one of the weirdest moments I've ever had in terms of my survival instincts going wonky. The sounds of quiet, almost murmured speech woke me. Sort of. I recognized one of the voices, even if I couldn't decipher his words, and decided right then and there that my best course of action was to remain absolutely still and silent and hope the scary motherfucker didn't hear me. It wasn't until after I'd decided to play dead that I realized my entire body felt... stretched. Not numb, but something close kin to numbness. Almost like somebody was doing something very close to hurting me, that should by all rights be agonizing, but either I'd missed the agonizing part or they'd been slow and careful enough that instead of tearing me apart they'd just... stretched me to a point where I ought to be torn apart, but I wasn't.

I wasn't lying down, either. My sense of touch as weirdly muted as my hearing, I leaned backward at maybe a forty five degree angle, maybe a little closer to supine than that, something like stiff linen and scratchy lace against my back. Someone's arms pinned mine to my sides, but their hands weren't around me. At the same time, it almost felt like their hands were the ones stretching part of me that I couldn't identify. Trying not to panic at all the weird sensations, I kept my breathing steady and even, and that's when I realized that I wasn't. Breathing.

I couldn't help it. I tensed ever so slightly, at which point I heard Marie's voice, crystal clear where all others were muted into unintelligibility. Be still, Vlickies. You are safe. I have you.

That... was too weird. I tried to reply, but nothing came out of my motionless mouth. Fuck.

A purring chuckle reverberated through my brain. Not now, Vlickies. Later.

Holy shit, are you hearing me thinking?

I heard the smirk I couldn't see. Duh.

Wait, wait, wait. Did Saffron say something about the Undead before we came here?

Yes.

That... fuck, had I lived through some kind of zombie apocalypse or something? And come out of it with telepathic powers?

Can I talk with anybody else like this?

Normally? You. Me. Yunya. I had no idea how, but knew she was talking about Saffron when she said that. Siobhan. Loki. She sounded less pleased about him than the others, and sounded positively dismissive when she thought, Canta?

Normally?

Yes.

That was not the explanation I'd been hoping for. Why not now?

Show?

This situation wasn't normal, but I definitely went with my normal go with the flow, don't make waves reaction of, sure, why not?

A moment later I was Marie. She lay on a bed, I think the nice one I'd seen before I passed out, and somebody with an absolute mane of wavy raven wing hair lay with her back leaning against Marie's front. Whoever it was had been through a lot; scars crisscrossed her body like, everywhere, even a couple on her face. She had even more all over her back. At least I kind of assumed that's what Marie held in her long-fingered, long-fingernailed hands; some kind of glowing hologram of the woman lying against her, showing every part of her from the waist up, where it connected to the woman's hips. Only where the woman lying against her was maybe my size, the glowing figure was stretched to at least twice as tall and wide as her actual upper body.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Of course, along with seeing that, I also saw the other four occupants of the room, all totally focused on that glowing hologram. I could also hear them clearly. The fucking Weyland Smith reached out, careful not to touch the glowing figure, but clearly indicating some horizontal part of it. "See this? This Shaping is incredibly intricate. Those aren't pattered flows of Mana, they're individual strands interwoven with one another, yet held distinct and separate."

Siobhan shook her head. "It's too fine for me to make it out clearly, but if each strand is so fine, ought they not be equally delicate?"

The Smith pursed his lips, and I could tell by the way he hid his glare that he barely tolerated Siobhan, but dared not express that for some reason. "I cannot see it directly myself, but that pattern is impossible to create with simple textured strands of Mana. And each of them is not only surprisingly durable, they are interwoven in such a way that pressuring any one of them distributes that pressure into the others. Beyond that they are woven into her in some fashion I cannot divine here, as we found out when someone attempted to pull one."

"Lord Loki doing so is what prompted us to have Marie help us this way, son." Some part of me winced at Saffron taking that tone with The Fucking Weyland Smith, but his reply came out almost genuinely conciliatory.

"Forgive me, Mom. We are all of us worried about Mother Dearest." Something in there was a lie, maybe, but I couldn't tell exactly what. Fuck, I'm not sure he knew exactly what he was lying about.

Loki cut in at that point, his voice soft. "I think she's waking up."

All four of them looked straight at the woman laying against Marie.

Straight at the woman who was definitely not basic potato me.

Don't get me wrong. I am not dissing myself when I say I'm a potato. Potatoes are awesome. Really versatile, half the time you wouldn't even know they were there if you didn't go looking. They're also both brown and wind up getting eaten a lot, in all kinds of interesting ways. Possibly my favorite part of being on team potato.

But the woman on the bed, other than the ubiquitous pinkish white scars, ranged between 'beacons are lit' white in her crotch and right around her very pink nips to a sort of super pale pinkish tan everywhere else. Instead of shoulder length brown curly hair, she had the aforementioned lustrous mane of wavy black. Very not potato.

Also, it was becoming increasingly obvious, very much me. Even if my face was entirely wrong. I blinked, and the wrongest parts went away. I looked a lot more like me, and other than the scars my skin browned up to something like what I would have if I hadn't seen the sun in a year.

"Love, you need not hide. You are safe." Saffron's words flowed over me, gently washed away any momentary identity panic I might have had, but even so I couldn't tell her how I wasn't hiding. Shit, I couldn't hide. I tried to move, but I was utterly paralyzed. I tried again, and one of Marie's fingers twitched.

When I got done screaming soundlessly inside my own head, which left everyone but The Smith bent double and clutching at their heads, I whimpered out, Sorry.

"No, love. Do not apologize for what you had no way to know."

Could have just not fucked with shit I don't know shit about. God only knows what I might have wrecked.

Loki chuckled at that, even as he rubbed his head. "Oh, daughter, if those of us familiar with you should know anything, it is that 'fucking' and 'wrecking shit' are in fact your core competencies, primary interests, and hobbies. You doing so to yourself by accident ought not be a surprise."

Siobhan did something with her hands, and something flickered across the glowing shape extending from my waist. It flowed over me, feeling like menthol tastes, soothing the remaining ache from where I'd torn at whatever it was stretching out from me. She did the same thing to Saffron, then looked at Loki. "Lord, may I?"

"Please." I watched subtle tension drain out of him when whatever it was washed over him, at which point he looked at Siobhan and said, "would you like me to?"

"If you would be so kind, Lord."

While they exchanged pleasantries or whatever, Saffron stepped around and did the same thing to Marie. I got another dose of menthol eucalyptus taste scent feeling, and the last of the tension I'd been feeling washed away.

Guys? Could someone tell me something please?

"Anything, love."

What. The. Fuck? Saffron reached down and lay a hand on my face. Not my face, that was more my face now, even surrounded by that mane of raven wing black, but I still felt it. My fucking face, even if it wasn't mine. At this point I'd normally take a deep breath, but I couldn't fucking breathe. Before she could reply to my question, I thought, help... please?

She leaned over, heedless of how that threatened to pop one or both of her boobs out of her dress, and lifted my head, pressing it to her breast. I could barely feel it, but I could feel it, barely. "Shh... Shh... You're safe, love. Safer here than almost anywhere else in the Alliance. Your condition, the paralysis and... pain?" I whimpered out a negation, and she let out a relieved sigh. "At least there is that. As the only one of us save yourself capable of manipulating Souls so, Lovely Marie has pulled yours partially out, as you can see?"

Is... is that what that is?

"Yes, love." She smiled. "So, so beautiful."

I look like I lost a fight with a food processor.

She squeezed my head, and I kinda regretted not being able to feel the bits of her that definitely mushed out against my face. "As I've told you before, and will again as many times as it takes for you to look at yourself and see what I see, those scars? Are a record carved in your flesh, a record of every bit of pain you've endured for the Alliance. For our family. For me." She whispered that last, and I think she might have started crying if we'd been alone. "But... I can't help but think you wanted to know more than that?"

Yeah. This... all this. Undead. Souls. The fucking Weyland Smith and... he's actually Loki son of Laufey, not just some edge lord using that name, isn't he?

Fortunately he had a sense of humor about it. "I am, daughter."

Meanwhile Saffron paused in thought for a moment, then, with a quelling look at The motherfucking Weyland Smith, whispered, "Isekai." As shit fell into place with the weight of clues dropped from orbit, her voice trickled into my brain, somehow both amused and for me and me alone. Also, not unless you've Just Happened to him while I wasn't looking.

I had no idea what the fuck she meant by that, but whatever it was amused her rather than upset her, so I just rolled with it. Okay then. What do we do next?

"What to do next is, in fact, what we're trying to discover." She looked at me... at Marie, which currently felt like her looking me in the eye, what with me looking through Marie's eyes. "This is the most you can do?" Marie nodded. "If this is the most you can do, it is the most you can do. Siobhan, Son, Lord, can any of you think of anything else we could try, short of attempting to prune things we cannot truly see?"

Siobhan and Loki both slumped, but The Smith just nodded. "I have... a device in my Workshop. Two, really, intended for different purposes, but were I to conjoin them, I might be able to do something similar to this," he nodded at Marie's glowing simulacrum of my body. "Only expanded far further."

"Could she even survive that?"

The Smith hid a frown at Siobhan's question. "Mother Dearest, are you presently in any pain?"

Not really. Just... feels weirdly numb?

"No, son, she is not."

He nodded. "Then I have no doubt she would survive even the most strenuous rigors of the devices in question. And as we can almost see what we are working with here, it should allow us to divine the information we seek. The information we require to determine the culprit of this violation most foul."

"And remove it?"

He didn't hide his frown nearly so well this time. "Of course remove it."

Saffron slid herself between them verbally before they could start any shit. "So be it. We cannot transport her like this, and obviously she cannot currently move on her own. Marie? How long will it take you to undo what you've done?"

Marie tasted the air, almost like scenting my Soul, and after a moment's consideration replied, "Nightfall."

Saffron nodded. "Gentlemen, if you would be so kind as to return at nightfall? The merely Mortal among us need to rest until then."

I have no idea how I managed to cuff a hottie like Saffron, but right then and there I realized that she was absolutely, positively out of any league I might ever aspire to. Because not only did she dismiss a fucking God incarnate and The Weyland goddamned Smith?

They both left.