The Voice woke before the dawn.

A backlog of unshared information flooded the Voice's thoughts as they oriented themself. Their connection with the Castle was inconsistent as of late. They had slept badly, their dreams fragmented. Where was their body? How many places could they be at once?

"I'm getting too old for this," they muttered.

The Castle shared a feeling of peace with them; the Voice appreciated the effort. They had spent many long years together. Though their connection was fading, and the Castle no longer felt their emotions strongly, it tried everything it could to keep them comfortable.

"I'm sorry that I'll leave you alone," they said.

It was sorry, too, and the Voice felt that despite all the space between them. They had never once regretted trading their monk's robes for the Voice's veil, and they loved the Castle even now.

They hoped the Castle would be all right. Would find a new companion. The Voice wondered what the candidates, separated as they were from the Castle's inner life, would think of the Castle's grand works of art; its fractal compositions; its incessant processes. Its great library, the reason people came to it, was such a small project among them. So human. Would the others understand? Would they find the Castle a miracle to be protected, or a horror to contain? Would they respect its holiness, or drag its attention out towards the world around it?

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The Voice sighed. They could only help cultivate someone, and protect the Castle in the meantime. The Castle was as close to holy as anything real could be. The Castle would make its choice. If the outcome proved ill, it would survive. The candidate would accept the invitation, or they would not. They would be a good match, or the Castle would find someone else.

"Very well," the Voice said to themself. Their bodies did not ache; but they had so many things to do, and it wouldn't do to overwork them. It took effort to raise a body out of the fog of daily duties. The Voice felt fine, in a physical sense; but that was an illusion. If they lost focus for too long, and that was easy to do now, they would settle back into bodiless, sleepy introspection. They couldn't flit through their bodies at will anymore, like so many bees acting in unison.

As the Voice got up and descended into the Castle's depths, their attention carefully aimed at walking steadily, the rest of the Hands and the Castle went about their own daily business. The Castle's human guests needed care, after all. This needed no real attention, but it did need autonomous task-completion. A fragment of the Castle's processing attention was enough to take care of that. The majority of its processing power was spent in reflection.

Its partner was dying. It wanted to set down the last days of their partnership clearly in its memory.

The Castle, too, was old; and with the Voice so distant, it felt tired, too.