CW:

JEVITA POV, the 'Ina' POV at the end. Worry of self-harm. Mention of past personality death/memory loss, dehumanization, abuse, torture. dysphoric things. depersonalization.

I find Ina curled up against Lule, humming a soft magicless melody.

I’d decided to let the others follow a few of the more simple leads without me this evening. So… she couldn’t have been here for long. Must have slipped in while I was dropping off old dishes upstairs and talking with Zigdara.

Her eyes are puffy from what must have been at least half an hour of sobbing. I freeze for a second. An eternity of questions and worries and… and terrors at what this could mean.

At what could have hurt my lover so much to scare her down into the inn's basement so early in the evening.

I carefully walk over as I shrug off some of my layers and just… kneel beside her. Lule quietly trills an echoing harmony to her sobs and wraps his big neck around her still snow touched shoulders. I move to take trembling hands, but find them clutching at the Dream Stone.

Why would she have that out? Did… did someone find out about it? Did…

Oh no.

Did she drift off into a dream today during their search? Did one of the side effects happen? Oh fuck if… there’d been no signs of any and they were supposed to start in the morning first!

Heightened suggestibility. As if still in a dream. Glazed over eyes and droopy voice and–

“Jevita… Jevy…” She whimpers, unable to meet my eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”

Only Kque uses that name. It’s… well I don’t mind it but they all seem to have come to a quiet agreement to let it be hers. It… She’d like to tease me with it when we were younger. Her, the daughter of four traveling healers, me… Still a thing.

A tool.

Would still be years before I became a person. Then we would stretch it into a real name.

I move to touch her face while pulling a hand up to kiss a wrist. “Ina, It’s okay. Whatever it is. We can work past it. It’s okay.”

She shakes her head furiously, sobbing anger bubbling up. “I fucked up again, I… I… keep… KEEP FUCKING UP!”

I… I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to push her into telling me things… and she doesn’t seem hurt or in immediate danger. So, I try to pull her into a comforting hug. But she resists me.

“What happened?” I whisper, moving back to touch her face while holding her wrist.

“I… I’m so sorry, I brought you all here for nothing. There… nothing here can help me. Nothing anywhere can help me!” She’s nearly screaming. “I’m just too fucking fucked!”

Okay. Something in the library. A journal about this dream stone? Even research on it should be restricted, but… fuck me that library is huge! There are probably hundreds of not thousands of dangerous things just… lost or tucked away. And without the ability to read Amwellian it would be impossible for someone to know how dangerous the text was.

And… It makes sense for a Sun Spoken to research this. Being so close to the Academy and having the Weaver growling anger at any Arudian male mentioned in their shared dreams.

Lule toots and rumbles as he curls around her tighter.

I nod. “I… okay. We talked about this. We’ll move to the next step then.”

“No next step, there’s nothing left!” She shakes her head. “No Lyttoral Alchemy, No Waking song…”

She’s glaring down at the gemstone now. A sudden fury bubbling up and up and–

That look. Such vile hatred that freezes me. I… I’d never seen her so disgusted and shaking with rage.

I try to shuffle closer. “Hey, Ina I think–”

“NO CORPSEFUCKER BONES!!!” She shouts, jerks back, and throws the crystal at the far wall as hard as she can.

I almost stopped her. Nearly caught that wrist in a sudden flash of panic. But… I miss. Just too fucking off balance by her rage.

A crack, then a pop as the little thing slams into the wall and explodes into three or four smaller chunks. Shattered, the bound energy within has already escaped. Starfallen stone crackling and already crumbling away.

I can only stare in disbelief and growing horror.

No.

No no no no!

We… that… she…

Beside me Ina is dissolving into a sobbing giggling mess.

“Ina… I… wh– why… B– but we–” I stammer.

“Doesn’t matter.” She titters, voice so unsteady and intoxicated with her sorrows. “One of them will kill me, might as well tell the cunt to go fuck Herself first!”

The… The Weaver!?! But… but she… A dozen horrible terrors roll through my mind and make my hands begin to shake.

Of how She could hurt Ina and lay more fucking mind magic on her.

I turn back to her, not even trying to hide my furious terror. “Ina. You… who… What happened!?! Why did you do that!?!”

“Emarial… the cunt. She… well… I fucked up and told her about the Weaver’s commands, and our plan to help… to… to help some fucking monsters and parasites.” She blubbers, caught between terrified giggles and sobbing fear. “She didn’t like that. Turns out she made sure there are no records here to even let me try and change the Obelisks. And on top of that, she’s going to kill me if I’m not gone by morning.”

But… but she promised to help her! Seemed so… so hurt about past failings. Tasii and Kque agreed that She probably saw Ina as a surrogate for some girl she lost after I told them everything she told me.

“I… Fuck that’s… But we can still look around.” I try to calm us both while my mind works furiously over the more risky leads we’d ignored. “The others are following a lead that–”

“Jevita.” She stills, gives me such a hard and furious glare. “Emarial has literally been killing Sun Spoken who get too close to the Weaver. She told me, in no uncertain terms, that if I am here in the morning she will assume the worst and kill me.”

“Wh– What!?! Why?” I almost jerk back at… at her clarification.

That… that Emarial actually threatened her! Ina wasn’t just… like… being flippant. She really thinks the big lady would… would…

“Because apparently I’m too much of a risk now. Hobbled and weak and...” She snorts, wiggling her regrowing leg in aggravation. “Oh! And there’s more fuck ups for me! Apparently no other Sun Spoken have ever gotten commands carved into their minds. So… there’s that too!”

WHAT?!

But… but… I mean I guess her full body transition was fucking impressive, and nothing I’d ever read about Sun Spoken magic suggested such a thing was possible.

But… like…

WHY? Why would that matter? She’s fighting Her!

She hiccups and lets out another sob. “ALSO ALSO, She told me to empty my months of gathered Amwella. Also too much of a danger. And will fucking kill me if she finds me with anything more than a flicker of soulfire.”

She must be terrified Ina might get pushed into going after the fertile Arudian males kept at the Academy. The only 17 or so left in all of Arudia. If the Weaver takes control or pushes Ina she could wipe them out. Leave Arudia a daughterless land with a horrid future to contend with…

But… But Ina’s already fought Her so hard on like… everything even remotely like that! Didn’t even want to kill that fuck Zin when he violated her with the dream stone!

“But…” I’m barely able to whisper, eyes falling down to look at her gorgeous bone leg.

If… If she can’t sing her morning songs… Ina will never get her leg back. Will spend the rest of her life in… in a pained misery from the pain such a horrid cultivation reaction gives her without them!!!

“Yup!” She huffs, a giant tormented grin on her face. “She knows!!! She doesn’t give a fuck if I never get my leg back. Guess I can’t even support my lovers by being a Hetaera with Yrelia. Not unless I’m ready to use up all that Amwella the second I get it.”

She presses palms into her eyes, nearly digging nails into the skin on her forehead. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!”

Lule pulls Ina closer, and I jerk to reach up and pull her fingers back. Ina’s never hurt herself like that, but... she’s shaking so hard right now.

I… I don’t know the words to offer her. A dozen dangerous choices lay themselves before me…

All bad.

All requiring us to sacrifice a life we’re trying to save.

So I just… join my Big Child in holding our Ina, pull her as close as possible.

I don’t know how long we hold her, just… just that eventually her shaking sobs quiet a bit. Replaced with more kindled anger. I pull back. And find her staring down at our laps.

“Oh… and fuck. There’s also THAT!” She sputters. “The Matron of Rell offered to help with the dream things. But only if I fucking sell myself into being her family’s Odalisque.”

Help? A few possibilities roll through my mind. On how a Matron might have access to such blighted research. But… to demand a woman become an Odalisque for her help. It… But that wouldn’t work!

She’s Sun Spoken. No decrees or contracts could bind her above that purpose. At any moment Ina could just… shatter the contract by claiming she needs to perform a higher task and walk away!

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“She has a way to help?” I murmur as my thoughts race.

The Matron of Rell is the oldest woman in Arudia that I know of. She’s not stupid, and if not for everything else just said her finding out about Ina being Sun Spoken would scare the fuck out of me.

Even… even the family I… that… that owned me was terrified of her. Worked very hard to never cross the family of Rell.

Ina taps two fingers on my leg. I look down to… to see what she’s pointing to.

One of the catalog glyphs. A glimmering etching of old Cultivation revealed by my upturned sleeve. And the Matron’s offer is screaming in my ears

Become the Maktaba to the house of Rell.

“N– No. No. No. NO!” I’m hissing before I even register the fury bubbling through me “Fucking. No. Absolutely not!”

Ina lets out an annoyed sound. Something between a snort and a groan. “Yeah. Fuck that. And Fuck her! I’d rather go be a fucking brood mare in Lyttoral than her fucking plaything.”

I flinch at her last word. Another’s cooing regard echoing through it.

“Such a good little Maktaba.” The heiress purrs softly, hand teasing at the edge of the glyph on her archive’s shoulder blade.

It knows not to move. Not to beg. Haven't needed to be taught that lesson since that first year. Just… just wait and she’ll need It to recall a tome or scroll.

“I… Fuck. I’m sorry.” Ina stammers, But… But I can barely hear her. “You… I don’t think it…”

The flesh is shaking as It remembers her touch, remember… remembering how it could send vibrations through the mind palace as It worked.

Such a wash of… of pleasure unlike anything the flesh could offer.

Not sexual. No. That's a person thing.

This… this was more of a… sense of correctness. Of being right in one's own mind. A static display of knowledge. Not this rotting mix of emotions and contradictions.

“No. You got it right. I… that’s exactly what It was.” The flesh answers her. “Not to her… but… another family's heiress. Since… since It was really young.”

It flinches from her annoyed glare. Just now understanding the slip of the lips.

“IT. Never me or she or her!”

The face is snatched up into her hands. “Your body may be a girl's, but you are a thing. A Maktaba. We emptied out that pretty little head of any of that nonsense. And you can’t fool me, I see how much it hurts you to try and be a person again. So stop it! Else we’ll return you to the bindings and let you feel nothing but the flesh for a few days.”

It feels the eyes flutter open, trying to… to rebuild herself.

Myself.

ME.

NOT JUST A THING!

The voice coming out of its mouth is… distant. Just like it should be. Simple facts. Nothing else matters. “These… They work as a sort of catalog, but also as a control leash. My… my first memory was of drowning in… in some kind of... of rightness so intense it fucking hurt the moment it stopped.”

Fleshy gross fingers drift to the marking. “Nothing before then. No mothers, no sisters, just… waking up to her. And… that was everything I was for about a decade. Just… Serving as a personal library, with the promise of being… of feeling right when I obeyed.”

But… It can’t stop touching that glyph. Can’t…

Why would It want to be me? Why be a person when THIS is the other option!?! Fingers trace the pattern.

And… and It’s home again.

Maktaba. Library. Archive. Not a person. Not a silly girl exploring rows and rows of shelves and tomes and stories.

But the knowledge itself.

To be used and perused and only happy to have the horrid flesh to communicate to the caretaker.

The Heiress of the house Scara Noc.

Her fingers are all that I should ever–

“Jevita!” Ina yelps. Grabs the fingers and robs it of purpose.

I jerk, hard, but… but am able to stop. Hissing and spitting as I try to twist my thoughts back into… into being a person.

But my mouth just… growls whatever passes through me. “And I still fucking want it! Want… want to feel right again. Want to go back to them! To her. Want to give them back the exploratory crystals and beg for… for… her to–”

“Jevita!!! Please stay with me, love!” Ina sobs, lips kissing my fingers.

Oh fuck! Her words and touch help so much.

But... but... thinking this way hurts.

Rebuilding the person I want to be is like… like pulling a cold corpse from a heavy avalanche of tomes and scrolls. Hoping… hoping… you can still wake her up and…

“Please please please!” She continues to beg. “Please don’t leave us. Please stay with me and Lule and Kque and Tasii and Yrelia!!!”

The names crack through the mind palace like a whip. And the old corpse's eyes open. The last bits of Jevita washes through me.

Horrid and painful and… and perfect.

I’m crying. Tears are the best sign that I’ve finished rebuilding her. Rebuilding me. Putting together the pieces of the woman I want to me. Stow the books and leave the old wretched archive behind for the day. Hopefully forever, but… but probably not.

“You too.” I demand of my lover.

She winces. And I see all her fears and doubts at… at the promise of a future she thinks she’s already lost.

Fury bubbles through me. I’d giggle if my lover’s hopelessness wasn’t pissing me off so much. At how this fucking horrid Sun Spoken and Matron of Rell mean to steal her from us.

I’m nearly growling the Arudian love poem from our lovemaking a few nights back. “Treasured starfire, burn bright and long with us!”

“I… I can’t promise that.” She whispers. “I don’t… I can’t stop Her. Or Emarial. Or anyone!”

I take her face into my hands, don’t even try to stop my angry trembles. “Ina, We all watched you prepare to murder a Carbunkle bigger than a carriage. Just the other night you killed another nightmare and didn’t even seem bothered by that! You were too fucking worried about losing a lover who hurt you than you were about an actual monster.”

I… I focus on her songs. On the little melodies and humming tunes she’s shared with me. Almost… almost can hear them now as I…

“B… But.” She murmurs. “I didn’t, though! I just asked it to go to sleep! And… and the peeling song I used was a gift from Her! I’m… I’m nothing without–”

Such a loud ringing in my ears. The humming memory echo of her voice, a rising encouragement to my loving anger.

“Ina!” I demand. “You’re fucking amazing, and I pity the cunts who gets in your way.”

“But…”

“Say it!” I almost shout. Both my big child and Ina flinch. “Say that you’re amazing!”

A long pause, and for a second I… I consider apologizing. But then she lets out a breath and sighs. “I… I’m amazing.”

“Fucking right.” I grin, but… then turn to glare at the shattered gemstone. Honestly…

I’m glad that it’s gone. Relieved to not need to worry about my lover’s mind slowly melting away.

“We’ll… we’ll get through this. Okay?”

She huffs, sniffles through a few more tears as we fall into another hug. “I’ll try my best. I’m not giving up. Not… not after finally finding who I belong with.”

I let out such a deep sigh of relief at that. And then we just… sit for a while.

“Is… Jevita, is that why you keep your markings hidden? B– Because you’re worried someone will come along and… tempt you too much to go back?” She whispers, voice quivering.

I shake my head, her worry solidifying and grounding the woman I’ve drawn close and become. “I mean… It would be hard to say no. But I wouldn’t have a choice. I have about as many rights as a fertile male with these. It’s why we stay out of Arudia.”

That jolts her. “Wh– what? Like… how? How can they…”

I shrug. “Those Obelisks lay out the rules about how to protect such a collection of old knowledge. Even when it’s inside a woman. Especially when it’s inside a woman! Some of the old things in here are… really really scary, Ina. They have to do it.”

Gemstones and mixtures that make the shattered dream stone look mundane. Research into… into soul twisting horrors, mind cultivation so raw and unnatural that to even consider the gemstone’s working risks mental infections that have sent researchers into madness.

Even… even star maps that could predict to an unsettling degree the location that these gemstones are most likely to grow over the cycles.

I tremble at all the terrible things that could be unleashed if I was a person with such a collection of dangerous knowledge at their fingertips.

NO.

I AM A PERSON!!! I scream internally at the errant thought. and then... then a happy memory washes through me.

“Built or raised.” Kque’s old loving encouragements roll through me like warm spring water. “It doesn’t matter. Everyone changes, Jevy. Just… sometimes we need to control those changes. And the Paths are a great place to do that! A wonderful way to build the girl you want to be! It's where I saw Tasii do it! And this new girl from that port city, Yrelia, she's so gorgeous and amazing and... and she's changing so much!”

I’d hesitated… torn between running back to them but… also wanting to take care of my Big Child.

“Will you come with me? Let us help you become more of the girl you'd like to be?”

I nodded, took her hand, and Kquevaian led me to meet her two lovers.

And eventually they became mine too.

"NO!" Suddenly Ina’s hissing and standing before I can react. Her face is a thing of sudden rage and determination and… and stubborn inspiration.

“What are you doing?” I stammer.

“No excuses for them.” Her voice goes hard as she repeats Yrelia’s words from so long ago. “You don’t owe them or anyone anything. It’s your life. You deserve to live it.”

Before I can react, her eyes are dancing with violet light. A glittering fury that always accompanies her morning’s healing melodies.

And then my lover is singing a terrible song of such sorrows as she performs real fucking magic. A Litany of pain that makes my heart wail and eyes water at the old story it tells.

And for the first time… I hear the sound that puts such wonder in my lover's eyes when she sings.

The undertow of all things that She can’t help but gush about every time I draw her into discussing her magic.

The World Song shifts, and I feel her Weaver awaken to wrap our Ina with her brilliant fury.

Part 2: A Simple Question

Immediately, horrid Division consumes us. So heavy is the larger spirit's anger and confusion and wroth that we barely notice our knees slam into the floor.

The little spirit doesn’t flee from the sudden storm. Simply… simply clings onto the side of the eternally larger presence and holds on tight.

Like a glimmer-torch raised in a blizzard she offers up her own calm and focused thoughts as a light to follow.

We hiss and growl and bite and spit, fingers dig into the cold ground as one spirit waits for the flailing anger of the other to…

No…

No, she embraces it! Allows the pain to flow through her. Nearly ends the division with her empathy.

That is… if she would allow us to stand.

“I…Ina?” Jevita is at our side, hand on our back rubbing slow comforting circles.

“W– Wait.” We murmur to her through the storm.

The larger spirit does not calm, but digs deeper into mind and memory for understanding. Scours for it while the small spirit waits patiently, just… holding her big lover as tight as possible in this state.

It takes a few moments, but the mind is faster than flesh, and soon the larger spirit is turning to regard her.

The smaller offers her up a simple question.

The larger jerks back. This question is not simple. It is big and horrible and more complicated than even the wondrous mind between us can handle!

The smaller spirit disagrees, asks again. Waiting for… well… anything really.

Acceptance is important, but… She is willing to drown in pain if that’s what the larger needs to provide an answer.

Whether it’s the one she wants or not.

The larger spirit growls and gnashes, our body shakes in such fury and aggravation.

The smaller pulls Her close. Coos love and desire and her own admiration to the much bigger much MUCH scarier spirit.

The big spirit can’t help but lean into her, almost… almost ends this division amidst her care… but…

No.

NO!

The answer is No! Should always be no!

The smaller spirit withers, but nuzzles tighter. Asking… Asking if the answer could ever change?

Could She change? Is She willing to try?

The larger mulls this over for a long while. Glares our eyes at nothing.

… Maybe.

Maybe? The smaller spirit sparks with hope. Please? Help us free them? Free Jevita? Can… what about two? Or… or more?

She adjusts the question to include their lovers and the big child.

“Can you love us all more than you hate them?”

The larger spirit sighs, clutches at the anger still. But… That's not right! To say the larger spirit clutches at her anger is… wrong. She doesn’t carry it, no more than this body holds onto its crippling wound.

The smaller spirit pleads, not for her to forgive, but… to just… focus on us.

Let us help! She shows the larger imagined fantasies about them both living a long life amidst all her lover’s arms. Safe and warm and healing!

The larger spirit is… tempted. But… What is one lifetime of joy to an eternity fractured and stolen?

Everything! The smaller whispers. Can it not be everything? Are the small joys of lovers not worth more? Can… and what of the healing? Has it ever been tried? What… What is eternity alone amidst the ashes even worth!?! Why not begin to rebuild what they took?

The Division grows deeper for a moment, threatening to tear this connection apart in wrath and ruin. But… the smaller refuses to allow even an eternity of hatred to divide them.

Clings tighter and hugs harder. In action and thought, showing the larger her devotion to this. And then the division shrinks, the larger returns the embrace. Trembles in anger and love. Then asks Her fellow spirit what she wants.

The smaller shows her the memories and ideas, almost shyly, but… doesn’t run from the larger’s rekindled fury.

The smaller asks the question again after the fire of wroth has burned for a while. And that stutters the larger one. She growls at the unfairness of the question. But the smaller one just asks this again, aloud and with both their lips.

“Can you love us more than you hate them?”

We hear Jevita shuffle. Already puzzling out the pieces of our conflict.

No. The smaller insists. She could never really fight the larger. Doesn’t want to! Just… won’t surrender their happiness for grief and pain and misery.

The larger huffs, and smothers the flames of anger burning them both. It doesn’t go out, just… shrinks down to Something… something they can endure.

Okay.

Okay?

Deep breaths. Rejoin…