"Two rings."

The words make Whisper freeze, just as she'd told me. I admit, I was half expecting this to be a trap. "Check your messages," I tell her. "You sent one to yourself agreeing to work with me."

This is probably the easiest time I've ever had talking to Whisper. She doesn't even say anything—I can feel the flow of Firmament as she instead just immediately opens her Interface and begins to read. She's silent for nearly a full minute, which makes me wonder exactly what she's written in there, but... I've pretty much already committed to the plan, at this point. It's not like I can get her to un-read whatever she's read, anyway.

Thankfully, the message doesn't appear to contain a trap, either. "We fight the raid together, then," she says, although her tone is guarded. That's more or less within my expectations. "Will Teluwat sends others?"

"No," I say. I don't know how to feel about the fact that she still thinks I'm working for the guy. There's something in the way her Firmament flickers when she says the name...

She's afraid. Maybe that's why she's so fixated on it—why she isn't questioning things as much as she should be.

Or maybe Teluwat did something to her. Ahkelios sends the suggestion through our bond, and I frown a little at the thought, though I try to hide that from Whisper. "We're on our own," I add, hoping it'll mask the slight reaction I had.

"Of course we are." Whisper scowls, taking my words at face value. She reaches up and rubs at her face, something like exhaustion and worry and stress all warring for dominance within her Firmament. It's a surprisingly human expression from someone that doesn't... well, have a face. "Where's the Trialgoer? These raids happen to test Trialgoers. The Integrators cannot have simply decided to target my city for no reason."

"They have to be here somewhere," I say, affecting a frown. Ahkelios promptly shifts off my shoulder and clambers onto my back instead, hiding his face from Whisper. He's having trouble keeping his face straight. "Maybe they just don't care? What do Trialgoers get when they defend against a raid?"

"Credits," Whisper grunts. "Rewards. No Trialgoer can resist those. He must be here somewhere."

"Or the Integrators are after Isthanok for a different reason," I suggest.

Whisper narrows her eyes slightly. "It is strange that they are targeting us," she muses. "We were told that the Great Cities would be spared. That's the whole point of Integration—the centerpoints of the newly Integrated civilization aren't supposed to be targeted by the Trial, or there wouldn't be any incentive to hold the Trial in the first place."

"Maybe something changed for the Integrators," I say. At this point, I just want to see where her thought process is going. There's a chance she'll reveal something I didn't already know about the Integrators.

"Perhaps," Whisper murmurs. She's barely paying attention to me. I can almost see the shape of her thoughts—her body flickers as much as they do. She's speeding through possibilities, maybe even using some kind of thinking skill.

...Honestly, that makes it even worse that she hasn't figured out that I'm the Trialgoer.

"There is very little that could change that would cause the Integrators to target those loyal to them," she says out loud, tapping her fingers on the arm of her throne. The crystal makes a distinct ting, ringing softly through her throne room. "Unless they believe I am disloyal."

"Your involvement with the Disconnected might do it," I say casually. It's a bit of a risk, probing this deeply—I want to find out more about the Disconnected, but doing so might reveal how much I don't know.

Whisper freezes, her Firmament going still as she does.

"Teluwat is well informed," she says. The stare she regards me with makes me shift uncomfortably, and I begin to wonder if I've made a mistake, but... well, too late now. "Regardless... I doubt it. Many Trialgoers have dealings with the Disconnected. They are everywhere. The Integrators have better things to do than to worry about a few rogue species.

"No. The only thing that might warrant such a reaction from them..." The tapping on the arm of her throne increases. Whisper seems distracted again. "...is the death of an Integrator."

This time, I'm the one that freezes. Whisper doesn't look away from me. "Teluwat is one of very few to have accomplished such a feat," she remarks casually.

"...is that so." I manage to keep my voice neutral, if only barely. "I'm afraid he doesn't inform me of such matters."

"Indeed?" Whisper says. "Most curious. Regardless..."

Her gaze shifts from me and to the window outside, to the meteors falling on her city. "I suppose all this is not important for the moment," she mutters, rising to her feet. There's something oddly calm about her now—like something's clicked for her. "I will defend my city. And then, Trialgoer... we shall talk."

I keep my face steady. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Indeed," Whisper says dryly.

And just like that, she leaves.

I'm not sure what made her catch on, exactly, nor do I have time to worry about it. If she's still willing to help me fight off the raid, then that's all the energy I can spare for her at the moment. Right now, there's one thing that's far more important.

When I arrived, I pulled Whisper away from what she was doing with Guard and Tarin. The both of them are upstairs in her personal lab, still, and given her reactions, I doubt Whisper knows that I've tampered with anything there. At least, not yet.

Stolen story; please report.

I make my way up the stairs. "Time for a long-overdue reunion," I mutter to myself—

"You're telling me," Ahkelios pipes up. He startles me enough that I nearly fall right back down the stairs.

"Damn it, Ahkelios!"

"Did you forget I was there?" Ahkelios demands. There's a mixture of exasperation and delight in his voice. "You deserve that."

"I was brooding!"

"Yeah, you keep telling yourself that."

I don't need to look around to know that he's sticking his tongue out at me. I just roll my eyes, but there's a lightness to my step that wasn't there before when I climb back up the steps. I didn't quite realize how nervous I was about Guard. About seeing Tarin again. So much has happened, and there's so much to worry about...

...but I've got Ahkelios, at least. The little guy's not let me down yet.

----------------------------------------

"It worked."

It's He-Who-Guards who says the words. His voice is... soft, surprisingly. It's more gentle than I expected from what's basically a robot: discounting the metallic cadence to it, he sounds remarkably kind. The mental cadence I got from him when we were connected was almost entirely different. That was filled with Firmament and power.

Now he sounds just like any other person. A little shy, perhaps, which is also deeply surprising to me. "I have not been able to move on my own in a long time," He-Who-Guards says quietly, flexing his fingers and watching the joints move with wonder. He kneels down—kneels to me—and opens his arms, startling me. "Thank you."

I stare at him, not entirely sure what to do. I'm not even sure what he's trying to do. Is he kneeling to me or hugging me? He's taller than me, so I suppose hugging would be the answer—

"You hug!" Tarin says firmly, pushing me straight into Guard's arms. I let out a startled yelp, practically falling into Guard in a tangle of limbs, and Ahkelios cackles with laughter from his position perched atop Tarin's head.

Guard picks me up carefully. He does hug me—with a gentleness and warmth I wouldn't have expected for him being functionally made out of metal—but only for a moment, and then he lifts me up and places me back upright on the ground.

I am admittedly a little embarrassed. Mostly that Tarin was able to catch me off-guard at all, considering the multitude of reflex-based Interface skills I have. Tarin can apparently read my expression, because he preens with the most smug expression I've seen on him yet, and that's saying something.

"You still need train," he tells me.

"Is that really the first thing you have to say to me?" I scowl at Tarin, though the scowl fades into an amused smirk after a moment; I can't keep a straight face for long. The crow just grins back at me, puffing up his feathers.

"It good seeing you again!" he tells me. "But you too shy! He want hug."

"I am not shy," I scoff. "I just didn't know what he was doing."

"Ethan wasn't hugged enough growing up," Ahkelios quips.

"That has nothing to do with—" I begin. Guard interrupts us, laughing gently.

"It's been a long time since I have been among friends," he muses out loud. "I apologize if that was unexpected, Ethan. I simply wished to express my gratitude. It's... unpleasant, to be trapped as a servant within your own body."

The three of us are silent at that. Guard notices the awkwardness that settles over the room, and he waves a hand dismissively. "I apologize," he says. "Hardly a pleasant matter to bring up."

I sigh, glancing out the windows and back toward the city. There's a current of Firmament beginning to rise all around the city, raw power that manifests itself as eddies of thick air streaming into the sky. Whisper's already at work. Meteors break apart into fragments even as they fall, turning into harmless stardust before they can even reach their target.

It makes me wonder just how much of her power Whisper ever leveraged against me. I don't think she spared me, exactly, but she didn't quite unleash everything she had, either. It makes sense—she wouldn't have wanted to destroy her own home just to get rid of me.

But Whisper isn't holding back here. She's doing everything she can to keep her city safe. And Guard...

It takes me a moment, but I manage to find the words I'm looking for. "You don't owe Isthanok anything, you know." My words are quiet. I watch Whisper through the windows of her cathedral. She doesn't catch all of them—there are too many for her to handle alone. "If you want to just get away from it all..."

Guard shakes his head. "I could not live with myself if I did not help," he says. It startles me, how sure he is; there isn't even a hint of the hesitation I might've expected from someone in his position. "Isthanok is my home. I may not owe She-Who-Whispers my regard... but there are many who live here that I still want to protect."

"How did you even manage to stay this sane?" The words slip out before I can stop them, and I grimace a little when he gives me a look. "Sorry."

He-Who-Guards chuckles. "I've wondered at the answer to that myself, I admit," he says. "But I was not quite awake for much of that time. And I had help."

"Help?"

"A matter for another time." Guard smiles at me, though his face doesn't exactly have the articulation for it. It's more the way his single optic glows that tells me he's smiling. "For now... Let's focus on saving Isthanok."

"You too easily distracted," Tarin mutters, hitting me on the head with a wing.

"Ow."

Guard's eye goes out of focus for a moment, the light dimming. When he speaks, his voice is a little distant as well. "I'm still connected to my proxies," he says. "I can use them to make sure no one is hurt."

"You can do it right at the start of the loop, too, right?" I ask. I think I can use Once More into the Fray once more before the skill becomes entirely unusable. "Make sure there are no casualties?"

"Perhaps not none," Guard says. "But I can certainly reduce them greatly."

"You're probably the best we've got for that," I say. Whisper might be able to fight off a good number of them alone, but He-Who-Guards excels at a scale she doesn't—he can respond to individual emergencies, to battles happening on the ground while she focuses on the sky. "Not sure how Whisper's going to react to your bodies suddenly coming online and helping, though."

At this, Guard's voice goes a little dark for the first time. That gentleness disappears for a moment, replaced by something hard. "It does not matter," he says. "We have bigger problems at the moment. It's my hope that she can see that."

I don't ask him what he plans to do if she can't. There's something deeply personal there, and now isn't the time to dissect it. Maybe he'll trust me enough to talk it through with me at some point.

Instead, I run through the list of things I still need to do. I have one more reset, so I'm going to have to make it count.

"There's actually something I could use your help with," I say, glancing between Tarin and He-Who-Guards. "I need to check back on Bimar and Miktik. They're..."

I hesitate, then explain the situation as quickly and concisely as I can. Tarin's face hardens the moment I mention Miktik's death, and while Guard isn't nearly as close to either of them, he readily agrees to help.

"Thanks," I say, letting out a breath. "Alright. Let's go see what's there."