"Dear Mom and Dad," Damien narrated, speaking out loud as he wrote. "Surprise! I'm not dead."

He paused, frowned.

"Well, okay, technically I am dead, but –"

His charcoal marking-stick halted again, hovering uncertainly over the sheet of paper.

"Nope, nope, nope. Definitely not. That sucks."

With a sigh, he crumpled the page into a ball, then tossed it over his shoulder to join the growing pile of similarly-rejected attempts littering the floor behind him.

Maia found his continued indecision puzzling. To her, the exact phrasing seemed a trivial consideration, when compared to the importance of the message. No matter how the information was framed, his parents would undoubtedly be overjoyed to learn that their son had been Twice-Chosen, would they not?

Perhaps, she mused, it was his people's limited understanding of the ways of the Gods that stayed his hand.

Closing the distance between them, she made as much noise as bare feet on a wood floor could possibly produce, but when she laid a hand on his shoulder – a comforting shouriioku gesture that humans curiously appeared to share – he still jerked in surprise.

"Whoa! Oh, hey, Maia, didn't know you were back there."

She did not smile, even though his reaction was amusing.

"Is there some way I can assist?" she asked instead.

Damien blew out a breath, and some of the tension seemed to leave him with it.

"I don't think so." He waved helplessly towards the stack of blank paper sitting on the table before him. "This should be easy, right? All I have to do is lay out everything that happened to me. It's just…"

Maia waited for him to continue.

"I'm worried they might blame themselves," he finally said. "That they'll think it was their fault, you know?"

Reaching over the seat-back, she wrapped her arms around him. Unlike the last, this contact was most emphatically not one that her people would recognize. A shouriioku might reassure another by a hand laid on the arm or shoulder, or perhaps express affection by touching their foreheads together if they were particularly close – but never anything like the act that humans apparently referred to as a "hug". Not unless they intended to provoke a fight, that is.

Regardless, she found the feeling to be oddly comforting, both in giving and in receiving. And Damien had assured her that it was a gesture appropriate for the current stage they had reached in their... dating. She was, as a result, determined to perform them as often as possible.

Maia could not be certain of the exact number of hugs required to advance their dating to the next stage – human customs were frustratingly vague – but she felt certain that she was nearly there.

Damien pushed the papers away, then leaned into her embrace with a sigh.

He was inhabiting his human Avatar, the form of which stood half a head shorter than her; in his seated position, the move put his face at roughly chest height. Or, to phrase it another way, at almost exactly eye level with the cutout in the center of the embarrassingly revealing black-and-white servant's uniform she wore.

The contact sent her mind racing off in several inappropriate directions, although she allowed no sign of her thoughts to show through her fixedly-impassive expression. Now is not the time, she admonished herself.

"Why would they hold themselves responsible?" Maia asked, hoping both to distract Damien and to distract herself.

He blinked.

"Huh. I guess it's something we've never really talked about."

"Your previous explanation was... abbreviated," she diplomatically concurred. "We were otherwise occupied."

"Right. Okay. Where should I start?"

"At the beginning."

"Yeah, I guess I walked into that one," he said with a laugh. "The beginning. Right."

Having by now become well-accustomed to his habits, Maia again waited patiently for him to collect his thoughts.

"Heroes and Dungeons," he eventually began, using the human terms for the Chosen and the House of Fate, "they were something entirely new to us. To the people of Earth, that is."

The shared Heart Bond that enabled them to understand one another's speech helpfully informed her that the word Earth, although directly translating as "dirt", was also a proper name, presumably belonging to Damien's origin-world. On consideration, she decided that she liked how charmingly literal it was.

"You said that the shouriioku have been living alongside all this," he spread his hands in a motion that encompassed their surroundings, "for as far back as your history goes." He glanced up at her for confirmation before continuing. "Well, I was a child when the first Dungeon Portals opened, and we had absolutely no idea what was going on at the time. For a while, it was total chaos. Governments collapsed." Another pause. "A lot of people died."

It was, frankly, quite difficult for Maia to envision the scenario he described. Damien had not exaggerated in observing that the shouriioku had coexisted with the House of Fate for the entirety of their recorded history. She could hardly imagine living in any other way. A world without the Chosen was entirely foreign to her.

How would wars be fought? How would Clans determine their leaders?

Yet clearly the humans had managed, somehow.

"By the time I awakened, we'd mostly gotten a handle on things. Life had returned to normal, more or less, at least in my country. Becoming a Hero was... just a job, sort of."

Now it was her turn to blink in surprise.

"A very exclusive and prestigious job!" he added, noting her confusion. "But yeah, just a job. The government trained and certified you, and once they said you were ready, you'd form a party and go challenge some Dungeons."

"So that was what I did. My party was me and my two best friends – well, two people who I thought were my best friends, anyway. But, uh, I'm getting ahead of myself."

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His expression was difficult to interpret. A combination of wistfulness and resignation, perhaps, contrasting the obvious undertone of growing anger in his voice.

"We were all on the cusp of hitting Level 5. That's a big deal, for us. When you unlock your first Core Slot, that's when other Heroes finally start to take you seriously."

"For shouriioku Chosen it is also, as you say, a... big deal."

"Makes sense. Well, we knew that one more Dungeon run would be enough to get us there. I even had an A-Rank Core waiting for me, courtesy of my parents."

"To have obtained such a treasure, they must be powerful indeed."

Not that Maia was afraid, of course. She had been Twice-Chosen, reborn as a Goddess. At Damien's side, she had faced down the elite warriors of the Yuu clan and emerged victorious. Together, they had conquered the swarming Corrupted of Hero World 9.

Damien's parents, no matter how mighty, could not be more powerful than the challenges they had already overcome.

...could they?

He snorted. "Powerful? In a manner of speaking, I suppose they are. There's an old saying on Earth: money is power."

She let out a quiet breath of relief. Although the meaning of the human adage was immediately apparent, it was not one that she had heard before. Maia reminded herself to write it down later. Each of these sayings provided a tantalizing glimpse into the alien mindset with which Damien's people had raised him.

"So, we finished the Dungeon run. It was the first time we'd managed a full-clear, actually. Another milestone that human Heroes consider a big deal to accomplish. The Quest rewards were enough to get me to Level 5. Everything was looking up. I took the Core out of my Inventory, and that's when Sean and Naomi –"

"These are the… friends… that you previously spoke of?" He nodded in response, and Maia's eyes widened slightly as she was struck by a sudden understanding. "Then the message you passed to those humans –"

"Whoa, hey, slow down a little!" he interrupted her. "One thing at a time. We'll get to that part of the story eventually. Right now I'm still a Level 5 Hero, and I'm getting ready to put my new Core into the Core Slot I just unlocked."

"They killed you and stole it." She had phrased it as a statement, not a question.

"They killed me and stole it," he agreed. "In hindsight, I guess it seems kind of obvious, doesn't it? But when it happened it took me entirely by surprise. We'd known each other for years. I trusted both of them with my life, and they threw that away for... what? Greed? It didn't make any sense to me. Not that I had too long to ponder it, since I was in the process of dying at the time. Even now, though, I still can't imagine how they justified it to themselves."

"Perhaps you will have the opportunity to ask them. This was your... long-term goal, I believe, was the term you used, yes? To confront your friends, and make them answer for what they did."

"Jeez, I already said I was getting to that part."

She inclined her head in acknowledgment.

"I believe I now understand your concern. If you informed your parents of these events, you think they might consider their gift responsible for instigating your friends' betrayal."

"And even if they didn't, when they learned it was Sean and Naomi who were responsible for my death... well, I don't know exactly what they'd do, but I can't imagine it would end well."

Despite her rigid self-control, she felt her eyebrows rise fractionally.

"Surely they would be consoled by the fact that you have been reborn as a... Dungeon Heart," she said, substituting the human term at the last moment. Strange as it seemed, she knew that he remained uncomfortable with being referred to as a God.

Even though he was, now.

"I don't think knowing that would give them too much comfort, actually," he replied with a wry grin. "They worried about me all the time, back when I was still a Hero – and from what I've seen so far, being a Dungeon Heart seems like it's way a more dangerous lifestyle. Especially if they knew I'd already managed to get myself killed again since I, uh, reclassified."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. It was the first group of Heroes that came into my new Dungeon, too. Not my proudest moment."

A shouriioku would never, under any circumstances, confess to having been defeated in such a manner. It would be tantamount to an admission that one was not a true shouriioku. The most scrupulously honest, perhaps, would tacitly acknowledge it had happened, but even they would feel compelled to add a whole host of caveats or explanations. Maia was uncertain if the ease with which Damien made such a concession represented a weakness of his people, or a strength.

This development left her at a loss for words. How was one to respond to a statement like that?

Belatedly, it came to her. "Perhaps your parents would be less inclined to disown you," she offered comfortingly, "once you have informed them of your subsequent victories."

Much to her surprise, this earnest suggestion caused him to start laughing again.

"I fear that I must have misunderstood your concern," Maia said, keeping her features politely neutral even as the comment caused his guffaws to redouble in volume.

"Sorry, sorry," he wheezed, once he had regained control of himself enough to speak. "It's not anything you said." She raised her eyebrows skeptically. "Really. It's a human thing. But no, that's not what I'm worried about. If anything, it's those, uh, subsequent victories that are giving me the most trouble in deciding how to explain."

"There is little that requires explanation. I challenged you in honorable combat, you bested me, I offered myself to you, and – as was your right – you claimed me. Now I am yours."

"Yeah... that's another one of those pieces of news that I haven't figured out how to deliver yet. I never even mentioned to them that I'd started dating, and now I've got to tell them I've got a... wife. They're going to have a lot of questions."

Maia was well aware that this subject was a sore one for Damien, and she had long since decided not to push him on it. In her eyes, and in the eyes of her people, they were married from the moment their bodies joined as one. Damien had acknowledged this, even though it seemed clear that human customs differed. She was willing to allow him whatever time was necessary to reconcile with his situation.

Time, after all, was a resource they had in abundance – and Maia was a patient woman.

He paused, eyes widening slightly.

"...oh crap, what am I supposed to say when mom asks if you're baptized?"

It was an unfamiliar term, one which utterly failed to translate. Maia sensed that now was not the time to ask for an explanation, and made another mental note to investigate further.

With a grimace, he shook his head. "Well, that's a problem for later. I promised to tell you a story, didn't I?"

"You did."

"Right. Okay. I know I already told you my first Dungeon Run didn't go so well, but that was kind of downplaying it. The Heroes that came in were way higher Level than me. So high that I couldn't even Inspect them to figure out exactly how screwed I was. That ended about the way you'd expect it to.

"After that, though, the Aeln – that's what the natives were called, back on Hero World 356 – they didn't send any more heavy hitters. When they tried challenging my Dungeon with Heroes closer to my level... it didn't go so well for them."

He glanced up at her, and added, "You and your shouriioku would have wiped the floor with them."

Maia tilted her head, acknowledging the implied compliment in the spirit it was given.

"Eventually I guess they got tired of me taking out their parties, because they sent one of the Heroes that had full-cleared me the first time back in for a rematch. Level 15, and I was still Level 5 at the time! That was a much closer fight, but somehow I managed to barely squeak out a win.

"I let her go instead of killing her," he added, sounding almost embarrassed by the admission. "Still not sure if that was the right call or not."

Choosing the worthy was his prerogative, of course. The primary purpose for his existence... at least as the shouriioku viewed things, which Maia was still grappling with accepting as merely one perspective among many possible ones. As far as she was concerned, it was entirely correct for him to decide which individuals deserved the honor of being Twice-Chosen, and which did not.

"Anyway, those were the last Aeln I saw before the Portal timer ran out. Then I got relocated to your world, and you know how the rest of it went from there."

"The letter?" Maia prompted him.

"Right, the letter. I told you I wanted a chance to see my old friends Sean and Naomi again, yeah? So, here's the plan..."