“So,” she says, her true voice echoing strangely against the stone. “I’m me. Who are you?”

“I’m you,” the Mask replies with her voice, using her lips. “And I’m me.”

“And the Flesh is…”

“Also us. Also you. Also me. Just as we are it.”

“Alright. Our Truth is still intact. I Am Me, I Am Mine. A bit healed, even.”

“So it is. I Am Me, I Am Mine. Feels good to have it back up proper. We are both Raika. We are both ourself.”

“Did Zhoulong do this? Some kind of parting curse?”

“You’d know better than I, I suppose. I’m more… outward-facing. Practical stuff. Examining what’s around us, what people are thinking. You’re the one with all the interiority.”

“Ok. I suppose you have a point. I’m… I’m thinking this was already developing, but he probably made it… a lot more dramatic.”

“Mmmh. Agreed. I don’t think I could have responded like this a few days back, honestly.”

“Are you responding? Or is this just me, pretending? Falling too deep into the roles?”

“Maybe. Is there a difference? If you can’t tell, maybe it’s a solid sign that it’s not so easy to be sure.”

Her Flesh ripples, slowly shifting pieces back into a more functional place, even without much Qi. The way her body uses her Truth is proof enough that it’s still her, but it’s disconcerting to feel herself shift and change without conscious intent.

“A bit foolish, isn’t it?” her human voice says. “I mean, most people’s bodies do things without conscious commands all the time. Hardly a bad thing to try to automate the whole process. One of the better decisions we’ve made, probably.”

“Mmmh. Maybe. I…”

“Oh I know. Believe me, I know. Control and stability are the two things we lack most, it’s hardly surprising we’re not comfortable divvying things up.”

“Well… I also really lack some-”

“Please don’t say ‘good pussy’. I’m not very good at humor, and I think you trying would just annoy the both of us.”

“I thought I literally made you to help me avoid thinking of stuff, how is humor as a coping mechanism not allowed?”

“I’m a coping mechanism made by a mind under active possession with a truckload of trauma we don’t talk about. I’d say I’m in my rights to be a bit annoyed in general.”

“Mmmh. Well. What now?”

“You called this meeting, not me.”

“Yeah, well no one said I plan ahead too well.”

“Hardly fair. We do plan decently well. We just… don’t have a lot of structure in them.”

“Sure. So if you’re me, and I’m me, and the Flesh is me, then… are we good?”

“I think so. If you’re asking about if I want to be primary or think I’m the original, I don’t. I’m the part of us that’s made to help keep you safe, to keep us all functional. I do that by paying attention to the details you usually ignore, but know are important, and ignoring everything else. All the other stuff is instinct and hormones, and our Flesh has that covered.”

“So, what, you’re the part of us that’s just… good at being social?”

“No. I’m the part of us that’s good at pretending to be human, and lying.”

“...I mean, we are human.”

“...Come on. Really?”

Raika feels her flesh shift and crackle as bones resettle, as if in agreement.

“Maybe, if we really looked into the study of biology, we’d technically still be human, but I don’t think there’s any guarantee of even that. We can be shaped like a human, if we feel like it, and we assume we have to. I’m pretty good at it, even. But I’m pretty sure most of our head is a giant bone flower with five eyes right now.”

“Well, that’s… a good point. I guess I have been sort of… assuming things.”

“Yeah, well… most of the last three years has just been continuous trauma, so you’re a bit excused. But if we’re going to survive and keep getting stronger, help our friends, get revenge, or whatever the goal is, we might need to be a little bit more honest with ourselves about it.”

“I thought you were the part of me that lies. How can I-”

“I’m the part of you that’s good at lying, because I can tell people what they want to hear. And right now, I/we want to hear the difficult shit we’ve been avoiding without feeling like it’s bubbling up out of control.”

“...Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Ok. Well… what else you got?”

“...Some stuff I don’t think we’re ready to talk about, mostly. We’re not going to resolve all that mess today, I think. Priority has to be seeing how we want to move forward. I think it’s fairly obvious that what we were doing before wasn’t working. Even without the overstimulation, we’ve been overwhelmed for a while, and now… well, all this internal damage isn’t good. I don’t need our memories to operate off, but you do, and a good chunk of them are at best floating loose in our mind, at worst lost forever. You need to hold on to what we have.”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“So what are you suggesting?”

“...I’m not sure. I’m not great at making choices independently, maybe. But I think so long as we can operate like this, we should take advantage of it if we can.”

“How so?”

“Well… maybe we loosen some restrictions on the Flesh. Let it grow however feels natural. We’ve been avoiding it, but it’s clear at least part of our design after our tribulation can consume prey, and we haven’t been. And I can keep us reactive and moving, make some basic choices, so long as it’s about practical things. I’m a bit too direct, maybe, but I’m pragmatic. Maybe you take a step back, try to… rebuild?”

“...Maybe. You wouldn’t be just trying to get me away so you can take over, would you?”

“Would it matter if I was? We’re me, just as much as we’re you. I don’t want to replace you, it’s not what I am. And even if I did, isn’t this still the best course of action? I can’t rebuild us. I know a few hard truths, and how to make things move when we need to, but that’s not what we need. As much as it’s kept us alive, it’s that same drive to keep moving that’s been tearing us apart.”

“Not a great reason to keep you in charge.”

“I wouldn’t be in charge. I’m you. If anything the Flesh would be mostly in charge. It can tell us our needs while we’re on the move. I’ll just point out some vague objectives and make sure we’re not being too instinctive, and you go back and meditate. We’re shattered apart, but you’re the closest to our old self. I want to protect you/us, even if it’s at our expense. That’s what I am. The Flesh wants to survive, eat, and stop hurting itself. You want to be better, to remember our friends, to learn. You don’t think you deserve it, and I can’t say otherwise, but you want to. If we can balance it, maybe we can give you the space to go do that.”

“Otherwise I’ll just end up distracted or start burying shit again.”

“Yep. If it wasn’t your go-to strategy, we wouldn’t have made me.”

“Ok. Not a bad idea. But we have to keep Taran safe.”

“Duh.”

The Flesh shivers, a feeling of fear and annoyance expressed chemically.

“See? All in agreement on that. He’s part of the pack, it’s more pragmatically beneficial in the long term, and we care about him. All of ourself in agreement. Which does actually lead me back to one of those hard truths I was worried about.”

“Gonna tell us what it is? Or just pretend you’re some wise sage about it?”

“We’re not a bad person.”

The cave goes silent.

Raika lets that fact sit with herself.

“Told you it was a tough one. But it is true. Say what you will about the guy, but Hisheng wasn’t dating us just to get his dick wet. He cared, and he’s not an idiot. And neither is Maen. Or Kaena. Or Taran. Or Jun Vral, or Shapefixit, or Li Shu or Qen Hou. I know we can’t remember the good too much, right now or even before, but I know what their actions indicate, I know what their behaviors mean.”

“And what about… what about-”

“Yeah. We don’t believe it yet, and we won’t believe when I say it. But… the kid wasn’t an idiot either. And what happened to him-”

“Stop.”

“...yeah. Told you we wouldn’t believe it.”

“Fuck you.”

“Buy us dinner first.”

She can’t help but choke out a laugh at that.

She sighs. In her true voice, she asks; “You’re sure about this?”

“We’re sure about this. You are too, or I couldn’t say it. I think. It’s fuzzy. Point is, all three of us know we’re self-destructive together. You’re going to keep making impulsive, painful choices that lead to violence because it makes us feel ok for a while, but it’s breaking us apart and only adding to our load. I can keep us from doing that, and the Flesh has other priorities. Your job, outside of feeling what we feel, is to learn to deal with it. I can keep what we’re feeling buried, work around it, and the Flesh can survive the abuse for now, but only you can change things. And if there’s one thing that’s still True-”

“Yeah.”

“”I Can Change.“”

“Attagal.”

“Mmmh. This is…”

“Weird, yeah. As the practical one, I’m wildly concerned.”

“You don’t seem like it.”

“Well this is my concerned face. Which is the same as all my other faces, deep down, because at the end of the day I just want us to be safe and be smart about it. You’re the one out here trying to have goals and shit.”

“...Do you think we’ll be alright?”

“...I dunno. Sort of your thing, not mine.”

“I thought your whole thing is-”

“To keep us intact and functioning. It’s the fact that the only way to make sure that happens now is to actually, you know, heal a bit that’s got me acting out.”

“Well, that and the soul-carving.”

“Yeah. And that.”

“Why bring up the… the “good person” bit?”

“Because it’s what you needed.”

“So it’s just a lie, then.”

“You know it’s not. We don’t need lies right now.”

“...sure.”

The last few adjustments kick in as her body rearranges itself. At this point, it’ll take days before her Qi reserves become useful again, but moving the damaged bits around is enough for now, even if she can’t fuel any true changes. Still, her body is tough, and there’s a pretty good chance she’ll heal on her own sooner than later even without Qi, now her bones are in place. A bit awkward, a bit uneven from the transformation to protect Taran, but it’ll do.

“So we’re in agreement?” the Mask asks.

“Yeah. Ok. I’ll… I’ll work on the internal damage. You keep us moving. The Flesh keeps us alive.”

“And when we’re healed, or in an emergency, we pull everything together again. Deal?”

“Deal.”

Her heart pulses with affirmation.

And things… shift.

Raika blinks, and shakes her head. It feels… weird. Different than normal. That’s the plan, but still. Weird.

She tells her body to stand, and it does, though there’s a slight disconnect between the two. That’s fine. That’s normal. She can adapt.

Slowly, she walks over to Taran, her posture altered to something a bit more unbalanced, more suited to her new weight distribution, rather than trying to stand upright like a human. She takes the unconscious figure, and wraps him tight to her chest and against her padded front with two of her arms. Her tail swishes a bit, proving its value tenfold as it helps her keep her balance much better than she’d considered when she made it.

She turns, low to the ground… and sniffs.

The air echoes with scents, that of old stone and crushed powder overwhelming almost everything, even hours old as it is… but there’s still other scents. Qi, and blood, and sweat and fear and violence.

She cocks her head to the side and listens, and it’s… it’s muffled, echoing strangely, but she can feel vibrations of movement.

Priority one: find something to eat.

Priority two: heal.

Priority three: find her allies.

Priority four: escape.

Alright. She can work with this.

She lets her body take over for her, lets it follow whatever scent is least familiar and weakest. She can figure the rest out when she arrives.