“What are you trying to say?”

Yeah, I can already tell this is going to go horribly. I’ve barely said anything more than “We need to talk” and Izahne’s hackles are fully up.

Well, I guess there’s no helping some things.

“Did anyone tell you how long you were out?” I ask.

She nods. “Unconscious for eight years and four months, and then another three months recovering both on my own and with the juice you pumped through us all when you finally recovered.”

“Alright, so that’s… actually longer than I thought it was, but okay. So did anyone tell you what Artemis did for that entire time?”

She shakes her head no, then crosses her legs in that way she does that means she wants me to get to the point.

And I can do that.

“During that time, when both you and I were unconscious, she was focusing every waking moment into channeling her mana through me, in the hopes that I’d wake up. She did that for literal years on end.”

Izahne glances at Artemis. “And why exactly would you do that?”

I open my mouth to answer but the foxkin beats me to it. “Wife. Recover? Recover.”

“Stop calling Nemesis your wife, they’re not your wife,” Izahne snaps, to which Artemis just tips her head again.

“Um. Actually,” I begin before she interrupts me.

“No, don’t ‘actually’ me. I’m your wife. Your first wife. Your only wife. That fox homewrecker? She can get lost, I don’t care if she’s a goddess.”

And the foxkin’s ears droop.

But I’ve had about enough.

“No.”

That’s all I say.

“No? No what?” Izahne says with a hint of incredulousness.

I take a breath. “No, you aren’t my first wife. It isn’t your fault or hers that I didn’t recognize it for what it was, but Artemis and I definitely already had that bond. She genuinely was Astraea’s wife, and I’m Astraea – at least partially. Which means that’s still there and in effect,” I say.

And my foxkin silently leans over to nuzzle my shoulder.

…Which is still kind of weird, sure, but I’m getting more used to it.

…

…

She’s just staring in disbelief.

Guess it’s time to play some damage control.

“None of this means you are any less my wife than before,” I say with as much confidence as I can muster. "I almost got mad enough thinking about how that asshole vamp threw you into a pillar to make myself pass out again before I actually recovered.”

Artemis’ gaze suddenly snaps to me, but I wave dismissively. “It was a really long time ago, and Julis was right there. I would have been fine.”

And to that she tilts her head before offering a small nod.

“There, see? She doesn’t even act like a human, how could she understand anything about human marriage traditions?”

I sigh, and then hold out my arm. “I realize that I spend most of my time in this form now, but…” I let the appendage disperse into ash. “I’m not human either. Very much not. In some ways, Artemis is far more human than me. And I’m still looking for a middle ground. Do you understand why?”

Izahne shakes her head.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I rematerialize my arm in a flash and lean forward. “Because I don’t want to sacrifice either of you. You are both important to me in your own unique ways, and I refuse to compare you as if one could be a replacement for the other. Does that make sense?”

***

I’ll think about it. That’s what she said.

Not so unlike our last… argument? Dispute?

(You cheating on your wife?)

Artemis was already my wife to begin with so cram it.

Anyway, a major advantage of my fox wife’s land revitalization is that if I make a road, it stays a road. There’s no plant monsters constantly reproducing all over the place that need to be held back with wave upon wave of my kin.

And roads I’m making.

I’ll admit I’m being lazy, but I’ve been recreating the previous map as best I can – well, other than the location of Moonside. Or, New Moonside I guess. Anyway, it works out especially well considering the old forest dungeon is still there… just as an empty series of tunnels, with no Rose.

Maybe I can make a new one. Even if it’s dead, I still have their soulbond in the back of my mind, the same as with Omorth.

…

I should ask someone about that. I’m not sure I’m ready to make the kind of heavy decision it would take to bring back a retainer from death, with the uncertainty about whether they’d even be themselves anymore.

Granted, I don’t particularly care who he’d come back as, but if he needs to relearn everything from scratch he’d be a burden, and pretty useless as well. I don’t want to levy that weight on my other retainers.

…Although I could probably ask Julis to train him… the big attendant has definitely warmed up to me as I’ve warmed up to his master.

Oh well. I’ll think about that later.

My kin are still spectacularly effective at creating roads. All they have to do is drain specific paths, and the brush and thin forest dries up to tumbleweeds, barely rooted to the soil. They should be easy to uproot for any would-be pioneers that bother to come here.

I sigh. That’s a whole other complication.

How do I convince more mortals to come here?

I suppose I could pay them… or offer homesteading rights…

But that won’t be as effective as before. Now they actually have to build homes, they don’t just…

…

Wait.

Am I overthinking this?

I’m overthinking this, aren’t I?

If there are no houses, can’t I just make more?

(Are you going to toast your soul again?) Nyx asks.

Maybe!

Artemis glances at me worriedly. She sure does worry about me a lot now.

But I guess I can understand. She waited at least a thousand years for my return.

Er, Astraea’s return.

…

Or my return I guess. Maybe mine.

Instead of just letting her worry, I scratch behind her ears again. I know for a fact she likes it, even though she barely shows it. The most I get is her pushing into my hand, and even then, it’s intermittent.

And that’s fine. It’s part of her personality, and I won’t pretend it isn’t endearing.

…

…

Astraea’s emotions are disorienting sometimes. I went from feeling nothing but impatience, annoyance, and the gratification of Consuming high-quality mana to…

This. All of this.

And I have no idea how to process it, so I’ve just been letting it happen. Maybe that makes me less myself and more her, but even so, I’m struggling to care.

I always did struggle to care.

We finish another road, connecting a village to a town… or, where the two would be.

I don’t have explicit maps of where buildings were, so for town designs I’m just using the same template I thought up. Town square in the middle, along with a town hall and a handful of the usual shops. Then I built crisscrossing series of stone roads I raised from the earth, with uniformly designed houses along them.

And then, after each town, I’d take a break.

Have to nurse that headache. Have to learn my limits, or the limits of my soul at least. Spellspeech is incredibly powerful, but it’s not without consequences.

Another month of personal labor and I’ve mostly rebuilt my plane, at least from… what would this be, infrastructure? Architecture? Probably architecture. From an architectural perspective, then.

That’s a good start.

Now I need mortals.

…

Although.

My cult.

My clergy.

It needs to be restored. I better understand the need for mortal devotion now, and how much I need it to function as a proper god.

…Or at least to be taken seriously in their society.

I don’t just reflect on myself now, after all. I reflect on Artemis. And I absolutely refuse to be seen as nothing but a hanger-on, a worthless partner that does nothing but take. I’m going to pull my weight.

…

“Why did you do it?” I ask out of nowhere.

Artemis perks her ears, offering a slight head tilt.

“Why did you choose to become a System Assistant? Why did you hide being a goddess? Why did you abandon your plane for… for…”

…

“For me?”

“Bored,” she says with no hint of hesitation. And then she points at me. “Interesting.”

I sigh. “I guess I should have expected that. I’ve been a god for a fraction as long as you have, and even I’m exhaustively bored, at least with a lot of things.”

I’ve got the most recent town mostly restored when she suddenly tilts her head as if listening to something far away.

…

Well, I’m sure it’s nothing. I get back to work.

Not even a moment later, she tugs at the hem of my sleeve…

The sleeve of my old robes, which thank the gods she finally doesn’t argue about me wearing.

So I turn to her. “What is it?”

She idly sniffs the air before answering.

“Gala,” she says. “Light? Light. Invite.”

…

“Light? As in the light pantheon?”

My foxkin nods.

“So the light pantheon has invited you to a gala…” I trail off.

And she shakes her head lightly.

I furrow my brow. “No?”

“No,” she echoes. And then she points at me again. “Us.”

I see.

I wonder if Dolos will be there.

It would save me the time of looking for him to throttle his wretched neck.