“You… have questions… for us.” She spoke, her body moving strangely, like she wasn’t used to human form.

“Was Twilight speaking the truth?” I asked the most obvious question first.

“Twilight… spoke… truth,” Gaia said through Terra’s body.

I closed my eyes and then opened them again. “So, why are you in Terra’s body?”

“Need… avatar. This form… aligns… with us… fits us. Terra is disciple of Gaia. Twilight… no better. Twilight uses… Twilight Princess. Gaia uses… Terra.”

The Twilight Princess? I had only heard about her in the Twilight dungeon. Was the girl I had been talking to an avatar of the Twilight princess? I had only seen her as a mermaid and as a karma that had infected Carmine. What did she have to do with all of this? I decided not to get caught up in that and ask something else.

“You took over this world, correct?”

“Look… around…” She declared in her stilted voice, glancing across the dead world. “This is a memory… of before. This is Twilight’s memory.”

If Twilight was annealing lore into me, it would be possible I’d get some kind of memories. She probably tried to limit those, but perhaps some things couldn’t be helped. I looked around.

“It’s all dead.”

“It’s… past.” She declared. “We came… brought life. Brought Gaia…”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“How can that be so? Don’t you blender souls?” I repeated Twilight’s words.

“Create new… old must give way… only through struggle… does life continue. Twilight… is stagnancy. Twilight… death. We offer new way. A future. We give choice. Her way… only leads here. Slavery. Death of everything.”

If I could believe Gaia, then everything seemed to fit. It was more complicated than good or evil. These were two completely different philosophies. Twilight created a spiritual heaven, allowing people to live out their stories until they eventually blended into her cause. This might seem like a humane method, but there were problems with such a communal choice. Sure, everyone was happy and there was no strife, but there was also no free will. It led to a world of stagnancy. It led to a dark world devoid of life.

For a bit, I had seriously been considering Twilight’s words. They sounded so peaceful and nice. Yet, I was beginning to see the poison in those worlds. It was nothing more than a gilded cage for your soul. You were essentially allowed to live to death. It wasn’t peaceful. It was sad.

“Why did you appear to me?” I asked.

“Need… help. Deep dwarves… put hole in her cage. King is dying. Must stop…”

“If you put her in the cage in the first place, can’t you do it again?”

“Have grown… weak… Fae… run off. Dungeons… hurt.”

I immediately understood what she meant. A long time had passed since then. She had once been powerful, but then she was weak. In her prime, she would have been tended to by the Fae. However, the Fae were driven off, and the races that make up the continent of Faerith had done a bad job keeping her clean of curses. Those mega-dungeons, in particular, must severely weaken Gaia, constantly sapping mana away and converting it into their counter-lore.

“Last question, why should I trust you?”

She didn’t respond, after a few seconds, her eyes lost their luster, and her hair started to become a more solid color, although her eyes remained green and her hair was still shades of green and blue.

“Master… I have stood beside Gaia my entire life.” This voice was distinctly Terra. “I don’t know if I understand it quite myself, but I feel like… I was built for this… for being her acolyte.”

“Terra…”

“You don’t have to trust Gaia…” She responded. “But… can you trust me?”

A small smile formed on my lips. “I do… with everything.”