“Just going to float there in a daze, then?”

I look around the all-white space I’m drifting in… how did I get here? Where am I?

What even happened? Why is my memory so hazy?

“Well obviously, you woke up.”

“What does that even mean?” I ask the disembodied voice.

A chuckle answers me. “Disembodied, is it? Of course I am. You ate my body, remember? Now I’m just here inside of you, holding you together, tying you to the Record, keeping you from eating anything and everything in the real.”

“Astraea.”

“Who else?”

It’s a good question actually.

“No it isn’t. Nyx is right, you actually are dumb. Aren’t you? You don’t even see me, not here. Maybe try to focus? It’s not that difficult if you try, although I’m well aware it’s not something you’re particularly experienced with.”

…Which leads me to another good question…

“I thought I was Nyx, apparently? What ever happened with that?”

“Obviously,” Astraea sighs, “she was me as well until your sister went and shot all of this plan straight to the hells. Her ego was split off by whatever taboo spell Erebus used to smash you into pieces. The Record doesn’t like orphaned Egos, so it made her a new Akashic Self. See? It’s not that complicated. Now, FOCUS.”

“Yeah, sure, fine. I can tell Nyx was you from the constant stream of condescension.”

Focusing my will around me – whatever limited amount of it I seem to have access to in this space – I find nothing.

“Alright, now turn around,” the voice says from behind me.

When I turn, I’m surprised to see that apparently I’m standing in my garden… which I’m pretty sure I destroyed a long time ago, or let fall into ruin or something… although I guess the maids might have maintained it.

“They’re all fine, by the way. No thanks to you,” Astraea chides, seated in the gazebo in my usual seat.

Because of course she is. It was her place long before it was mine.

“Of course it was, why do you think you chose it? For that matter, how many of your decisions were mine?”

“A lot of them, I assume,” I flatly reply. “I’ve changed a lot since I was spawned… or broken or whatever I guess. Most of it felt random and unexpected, or even like a compulsion.”

“Yes, I’m the reason you weren’t smited within hours of spawning a fresh ego. You’re welcome. Now take a seat.”

She takes a sip of tea, making no effort to wait for me to be seated. Which I suppose is to be expected.

She’s a literal demon lord, and during her time… alive, I guess? She had no one above her on her plane. She was a sovereign.

“You’re damned right I was,” she says as I finally take a seat and assume, well, her form.

Another teacup materializes in front of me as I get comfortable, full of what I can immediately smell is my old favorite.

And hers.

“Olive always did make the best tea, you know. Even before she had a humanoid transformation…”

“You do know she wasn’t ‘Olive’, right?”

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“Absolutely. I may not have before, unsurprising considering she’s an extremely talented spy, infiltrator, and assassin… not that you’ve made use of her talents at all. Anyway, I’m a part of you now, so I obviously have access to all your thoughts, experiences, and memories.”

“Why haven’t we spoken like this before?”

Astraea shrugs. “Because you haven’t woken up before.”

“What do you mean, I ‘woke up’? You keep saying that.”

“Did you think you were your own person? You really are dumb, aren’t you?”

“Alright, you can stop that now.”

“Stop being an idiot and I’ll consider stopping,” she snaps. “You’re a small piece of the outsider thing that the mortals of the real labeled the ‘Queen of Hunger’. I let the shadows grow unchecked because I enjoyed what they did to unsuspecting idiot adventurers who wandered too far into the wilds, who would have thought they’d summon a horror from beyond the real?”

Wait, what?

“Wasn’t I a ‘freespawn’ or whatever?”

“Nope, you just didn’t have a soul. Who was it that suggested it? Grandmother? I forget, and so do you. You should do something about that faulty memory of yours. Anyway, whoever it was suggested that the Queen of Hunger was a creature of body and Anima, and they were absolutely right. You didn’t have any connection to the Record at all, nor were you sentient. You’re fortunate that the administrator took a liking to you – or whatever their motivation was, we never could figure out much about it. It wanted to twist you into something that could live with the mortals, though I can’t possibly fathom why it didn’t just obliterate you like the scant few others who invaded. But that meant it needed to have a soul inside you to twist, and when all those layabouts refused to volunteer I did in their place. That’s why I’m in here, and why we’re talking at all. Why you could even have a System, or Skills, or even be sentient.”

“That’s… a lot to process.”

“Well, process it fast because I don’t have a lot of time. The only reason we’re meeting like this to begin with is because we’re in the final stages of merging. Soon I won’t even exist as a separate entity. But I digress… the administrator waited until you’d eaten me and hadn’t yet fully digested my soul – don’t ask me how that works, the inside of your maw is linked to the literal void – it used what was left of me to bind you to the Record, which caused it to generate an Ego for you. That was the first moment you woke up. The second purpose my soul served was to bind your true self into an endless sleep, with only a tiny piece projected into the real as a discrete entity. Now, that wasn’t my idea – the administrator did that on its own. That’s probably what you felt break… your true self isn’t actually bound like it was, at least not to the same degree considering you managed to wake up at all. So maybe going forward try not to wake up? Even in that state you recognized your wives, so clearly this piece of you has some impact on the whole. Maybe someday you’ll even be the whole in entirety, I have no idea. That may even be what the administrator is angling for.

“Oh, and before I forget, since I’m already starting to fade… I handed the proverbial keys to your prison to Olive – or Artemis, as it were. It wasn’t easy but I managed to burrow your amorphous mess self into the moon, and she’s sure to have noticed. I have no doubt she expects you’re long gone, destroyed or transformed into that thing, so she’s going to be surprised to see you again.”

“Wait, I’m going back?”

A sad chuckle is her answer. “Yes, you’re going back, because the administrator wants you to. It already made you an avatar, you just need to wake up that part of you. It’s kind of funny if you think about it… you’re asleep in more than one way right now.”

“That… kind of is funny, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so.”

We sit in silence for a moment, sipping tea, possibly enjoying each other’s company, considering we’ve apparently been together since long before my Ego existed… or, my current one as it were.

…

“Don’t you dare betray them.”

“Who?”

“Any of them,” Astraea says while pointedly jabbing a finger in my direction. “Our wives, our subordinates, our allies… not any more than you already have anyway. I won’t be there to steer you. I’m sure you’ll still feel my desires and so forth, but I won’t be able to push you like I have. You’ll have to do that yourself. Trust that fox woman, she definitely won’t betray you – not if you’re merged with me. Probably not, anyway. She never betrayed me in our more than a thousand years together, and I doubt she ever will. Be sure to tell her about the moon though, she’s going to be confused and more than a little worried.”

“I will, don’t worry.”

“Good,” the dead goddess says, finishing her tea.

And not a moment too soon, as her body starts to blur.

“And there we are. Looks like I’m out of time. Get ready to rebuild our home for a third time, you wouldn’t have had to if you hadn’t thrown such a tantrum. Keep that under control too.”

“I’ll try. I don’t want to lose them all, not the ones that matter.”

“Do better than trying. You have a strong will – both yours and mine. And you have those ridiculous powers from before the Record existed–”

“You mean the words of creation? They hurt though! They could probably kill me!”

“Sure,” she chuckles, “if you use them wrong. You need to fuel them with your own divinity instead of – ah. You’ll figure it out.”

Rapidly fading to nothing, she leaves me with one last thought.

“Tell her again that I’m sorry. I wanted her to live.”

As she disappears, the garden disappears as well, leaving me in the empty white space… until I’m suddenly met by the open, starry sky above, and the moon staring silently down.