Blinking up at the night sky, I take quick stock of myself and my situation.

Hmm…

Hm, hm. Yes.

I have no idea what’s going on, where I am, or much of anything really.

Or at least, I had no idea where I was… feeling Rose relatively close by through my bond with it, I–

“Welcome back, my queen.”

“Ah, speak of the devil.”

The confused dungeon core avatar blinks and tilts its head in a vague imitation of a human’s behavior. “I do not understand. I am not a devil.”

“Figure of speech, oh dungeon core of mine. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this would be the Shadowed Plane then, yes?”

“You are correct and no correction is required.”

Good.

Yes, good.

I’m home, at least. And that means I don’t need to travel far to rebuild.

…Or do I? I can tell Rose’s avatar is right here… but its core…

…Is very far away. I appear to be on the opposite side of my domain.

I sigh as I prepare for a long journey, even at top speed.

And then it dawns on me.

My… other self? Main self? It almost teleported… in a sense…

“Rose. What happens if I… Oh. Sorry, you’re the wrong person to ask.”

The simulacrum bows deeply. “You need not apologize to one such as me, my queen.”

“Yeah, sure, details. Details, details, always details. It’s fine.”

And she bows deeper. Still annoying. It’s so hard to find competent help, but even more difficult to find ones that listen.

But I digress.

Nyx, I intone.

(Fuck off,) she immediately replies.

Yes, yes, I know. I deserve that. I’m just going to ask a simple question and then leave you alone again. Alright?

(Are you going to massacre thousands of mortals if you don’t like the answer?)

“What? No!” I inadvertently blurt out loud.

(Flustered? Not like you. Stop pretending, nobody buys it.)

My hand slaps my face hard enough to sting, even for me.

I mean it, I continue. I’m not who I used to be apparently, not entirely, and you don’t have to believe me. Actions speak so much louder, and I have eternity to act.

That… was actually pretty eloquent for me.

But I know why.

Because I’m not just me anymore.

(Bullshit. But it’s not like I have choice to listen or not, so I guess just speak your mind or whatever,) she sighs exasperatedly.

Alright, so you know about the other me, right?

(What other you?)

The one that… wait, hang on.

“How long was I off the plane? Do you know, Rose?”

Without hesitating it answers, “Approximately eight minutes, my queen.”

“WHAT!? That’s it? All that happened in less than ten minutes!?”

And she’s confused again. Great.

Well, uh. Maybe almost ten minutes ago some things happened. And stuff. Stuff and things. Did you feel anything? Through our bond?

(Oh, you mean the debilitating static that dropped me like a rock? Worst gods-damned headache of my life, thanks a lot. What the fuck did you do anyway?)

I, uh. Turned into the actual queen of hunger, I think? It’s not completely clear. Oh, and I absorbed the rest of Astraea apparently.

(Great. So more egotistical? Arrogant?)

Probably, but that isn’t my point!

(So?)

So, I continue, when I was like that I think I teleported once, sort of…

(Get to the point.)

I’m trying to! Anyway, I think it involved sticking my feelers through the real somehow–

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

(You’re talking about creating rifts.)

Is that what it’s called? Sure then, ‘rifts’. What I want to know is if I open one here, and open one somewhere else, can I close this one?

(Probably not from your destination. It’s just a hypothesis but you could probably leave one of your spawn by the opening, and – wait, why am I helping you? What the fuck?)

That’s a really good question! And also a really good idea, thanks Nyx! I’ll leave you alone now like I promised.

(Yeah. Um. Sure, you do that. Sure,) she trails off, clearly destabilized by something.

Huh.

I’m sure I’ll find out eventually and won’t want to have found out.

I quickly separate one of my kin and – why does it look like that?

The unexpectedly well-defined specter of shiny rock dust promptly bows low.

They…

They don’t normally do that.

“Do you have a will?”

And it doesn’t respond. Well, I guess that answers… no, I have a better way.

So I ping it with Will Sense, and sure enough, nope. Nothing. Maybe it just has better programming or something?

Not that it matters. Doesn’t feel like the mana drain to create it was any worse…

Or did it have any mana drain at all before? I can’t remember. Now that I think of it, I don’t think it did.

Well, I’m sure it’s fine. Just to be sure, I attempt to possess it and promptly see a view of myself standing before myself…

Surrounded by some kind of strange haze I can’t really identify, but I’m sure that’s fine too.

I’m just not going to think about it, I guess. For now.

Just for now.

Anyway…

I think back to the hazy memory on the edge of my mind, and… well. I don’t exactly see a web of light… or anything remotely like…

Or.

Do I?

What is… Okay, yeah. That’s definitely different.

I look over the vibrating strings of… something, that seem to be woven through everything around me.

Even my kin, and Rose.

Even me, sort of, although it looks kind of like my colors are more separate…

I reach out with a feeler and pluck at one, watching it vibrate from the contact and not at all concerning myself with how my rough ashy feeler looks more like smooth flesh that’s absorbing all the light around it. Hm, hm, not important, not at all.

At all.

And enough thinking about things I can’t control! Probably! I turn my attention back to the threads, and just to see what happens…

I wrap my feeler around it and pull, and it breaks loose unexpectedly easily, as though I was breaking a twig. An immediate pressure hits me, what I assume is the other side of wherever this goes, but I’ll figure it out.

As a first experiment, I insert that same feeler into the gap. I feel that incredible pressure, as though it’s trying to pull it apart…

But it doesn’t.

And somehow I can tell that it can’t.

Well, no time like the present. I dive headfirst into the gap.

The other side is… empty. Murky. Filled with nothing but that pressure, a pressure that somehow feels… familiar.

Too familiar.

…

But I can still tell vaguely where the landmarks of my plane are… I must still be close enough to see… No. I can do better.

I focus on my senses, channeling that same feeling when I saw the strings of whatever earlier, and sure enough… points of color.

Souls, I’m pretty sure.

And that one tastes like Rose. From here, somehow. And it’s a Rose that isn’t by the tear.

Her core, at the castle ruins. So that’s where I’m going.

Arriving much faster than I would have in flight simply by grabbing onto the streamers of light and willing myself to move, I again sever a thread to let myself back into the real.

And find myself facing not one, but two sucking holes in my plane. One here, in what was once my throne room, and one far above, and far larger than what I’ve just made.

Oof.

Anyway, I guess I better try to close this one if I can… hey, why didn’t I think of trying that from the first rift!?

I sigh. I need to stop being this dumb. I’ve spent way too many centuries studying… oh.

Right.

Astraea’s memories.

Astraea in general.

Now that I think of it… there’s a lot of knowledge rattling around in my head now… names, places, events, even spells…

And Olive.

…

…

And Olive.

When I’m done with this, I need to see her. I think I… bit her? Or something? I need to make sure she’s okay. Our link has been quiet ever since I reawakened…

Maybe too quiet. I don’t trust it. I shouldn’t trust it. She wouldn’t tell me if she was injured, she’d just hide somewhere and hope it heals on its own… ah, my poor dumb fox. She’s such a handful.

But that’s fine. She’s a handful, but she’s my handful.

Closing up this rift is easy enough, I just focus on… I guess I’ll call it ‘divine sight’ or something for now, and press the two ends of the severed thread together. They immediately latch onto each other as if it was their nature to begin with, good as new. Then I possess my kin at the other side and have it do the same, channeling my own power to do it. Done and done.

…And then I spend an uncomfortable amount of time trying to close the large rift in the sky, only to find it’s just not possible. The threads… can’t possibly reach.

They’re gone. Just gone, gone forever as far as I can tell.

I tore a permanent hole in my plane.

In my home.

This can never happen again. NEVER.

But I digress. I have other things to tend to. For a moment I debate calling out to my fox wife and having her come get me… but she’s continued to be silent, and I’m pretty sure I have a different way now.

Dropping another of my kin to close the door behind me, I burrow through the real again and swivel my vision around from within the emptiness until I see her familiar color.

…

Ah, there it is. I pull myself along the convenient cords of light until I’m right nearby, and… wait, I can close the rift behind me right after I enter it, can’t I?

Sure enough, I can possess my kin while I’m…

Moving?

Since when could I split my focus like this?

Well, I guess there’s no point in complaining about a good thing. Or a useful thing, at least. I deftly breach through to enter the real near my silent wife.

…

This is her bedroom. It’s dark.

Why is it so dark? She always used to have a window open or something…

I obviously have no trouble seeing, True Sense has never failed me yet…

But I can’t say I’m happy to be seeing this sight.

The sound of my entrance certainly wasn’t quiet, what with the staticky tearing sound and the pop of it closing behind me…

A fluffy silver head shoots up from the pile of furs to look around in a panic, complete with a yelp.

“Woah, woah. Calm down, it’s me. It’s me,” I say, trying to sound reassuring.

“Safe?” a hoarse voice answers. “You? Yourself?”

“It’s okay, Livvie. I’m definitely myself, I don’t know who else I’d be.”

Wait.

Livvie?

I don’t miss the tears that suddenly start down her face as she quietly squeaks in surprise.

Tears that don’t distract me from her gray unseeing eyes, or the fact that her entire right arm and part of her torso is missing.

…

I did this, all of this, to her.

I take her gently in my arms, much faster than I remember ever being able to move, while she croaks awkwardly, failing to form words.

But that’s fine.

It’s fine, because I’ll take care of her, even if she never recovers from this.

Forever, if I have to.