//BATTERY DELUGE DETECTED.

//FEEDBACK LOOP INITIATED.

//WORKING….

///WORKING…

////WORKING…

//ERROR.

//PRIVACY BREACH DETECTED.

//PERSPECTIVE TRANSFER TO [OKERIA PEREK] RECOMMENDED FOR THE POSSIBLE SAFETY OF [SEBASTIAN CORMIER PERSEPHONIA].

//INITIATE?

//[Y] SELECTED.

//PERSPECTIVE TRANSFER COMMENCING.

Okeria Perek held his tongue at what he’d just heard. It wasn’t the first time he’d been made aware of the Keratilys’... quirks, but it was the first time he’d met someone who hadn’t fallen to them. He’d assumed that the shattering of innocence was something that happened back on Sotrien even though he’d overheard that Juniper still prayed to Moricla on their first meeting. To know that it was something that happened before his eyes, and that he’d probably met a few Keratilys who hadn’t been destroyed by the others…

He shook his head. That was so much less important than a single word Juniper had uttered, and Sebastian had repeated a few times. ‘It’. It had said something to Sebastian. ‘It’ knew something he didn’t. That coincided with how people talked to the Embodiments they were chosen for, and Okeria had figured out that Sebastian was a chosen for one of the human Embodiments, but did any of them go by ‘it’?

Or was it only ‘it’ that did? The one ‘Embodiment’ that wasn’t really an Embodiment, but something so much more? No, it couldn’t be. The End couldn’t choose. If it was dead and gone it was made into one of The Ossuary’s inhabitants, not a chosen. Not a living human. He needed a second opinion.

“Keratily, what do ya think about Sebastian?” Okeria asked the woman who was working with a slew of floating glassware that she molded with her bare fingers like clay. “Who do ya think he’s chosen by?”

“Endurance, obviously.” Keratily said without turning from her work. “Endra sensed the incursion of another species, somehow sourced the destination of the lone chosen afforded to her competition, and attacked. It’s as simple as that.”

“Well, yeah, but what if it ain’t that simple? How’d Sebastian get so separated from the rest’ve his kin? How’d he end up with your great-granddaughter in a hazard that still doesn’t register on any of our scanners?” Okeria pressed, commanding one of the drones that let him ‘see’ to the other side of Keratily’s workstation to see her face. “It’s plain wrong, Keratily. Persephone gave him her inheritance; her entire life’s work just a month after meeting him. That’s not something she’d give away to an Embodiment’s chosen that could kill hers, even if she wasn’t on the best terms with Endra before her passing.”

Keratily was silent for far longer than Okeria was comfortable with, her face scrunched and focused while her hands were completely still. Eventually she let out an exhausted sigh and laid her head and arms down on the workbench below her.

“Every single day I ask myself what I could’ve done for all my little grandchildren. I made elaborate plans, lined pockets that I hoped would get me close to just a single one of them, and put myself through a living abyss to try and get to them before my descendants…” Keratily’s voice caught, and she cleared her throat before continuing unsteadily. “Before they ruined them. But nothing worked. I was lied to every time. I watched as innocent child after innocent child was broken down and indoctrinated into the warring cults of my descendants. But Juniper is… alive. Happy.”

“Innocent.” Okeria cut in grimly.

“Yes, more so than anything else, yes.” Keratily agreed. “Her core raised her hazard tolerance to one, and so she was caught in the in-between of worlds. A hazard that only exists for a millionth of a second, and that had to write itself into existence because someone was now experiencing it. And because of that delay, the Keratily who was supposed to shatter Juniper instead left something of a present to do the deed in his stead.”

Okeria tilted his head to the side and crossed his arms. “Ya talking about the needlemaws or the ‘eel’ as Sebastian calls it?”

“The needlemaws.” Keratily clarified. “And, once again, Juniper was saved because she was not alone. She had Sebastian there to protect her. He had to be sent there for a reason. He had to be a part of someone else’s grand plan. Everything else was so tightly coordinated, secret, and viciously efficient. Random chance cannot be the only reason Juniper is with us today.”

Okeria raised a hand to his scarred-over eyes, feeling the waxy wounds that were the only reason he was where he was. And he disagreed. “What you call random chance is actually a whole lot of other stuff happening that ya can’t see that directly leads to Juniper surviving. If humans didn’t get pulled into this, then Juniper might never have met Sebastian. She makes it out alive, but then gets killed by the needlemaws swarming her. Or she don’t, and the Keratily who brought ‘em comes along and indoctrinates Juniper once they’re sure she ain’t innocent any more. The big question we gotta ask is how the heck Sebastian found himself in a staura hazard?”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“I’ve been asking myself that ever since I first laid eyes on him.” Keratily sighed. “I don’t want to trust him blindly, as Juniper did, but I find myself grasping at straws to find anything he’d done to warrant it. Especially not since he saved your life when he could have easily let you die. Or interrupt your regeneration dealie to cripple you for quite a long time.”

“But he didn’t. And we gotta give that ta him.” Okeria agreed. “But there’s something that’s been bugging me ever since I found the entrance ta that hazard in that open field. It ain’t ours, Keratily. It might’ve been modeled after Juniper’s mind, but it’s not a staura hazard.”

Keratily lifted her head and craned her neck to look at Okeria while her hands continued to work. “What do you mean? How couldn’t it be ours?”

“I couldn’t access it. Plain and simple. It ain’t ours, and it’s so protected that it’d take a team of hazard-breakers months ta crack it open enough for one person ta get in. I’ve thought that it was a weird coincidence that Sebastian and Juniper came through the same hazard, but what if it wasn’t a coincidence? What if there was a real good reason Sebastian came through a hazard that should’ve ended, but didn’t?”

Okeria nodded to himself excitedly, like a small child who’d just solved their first puzzle “What if Juniper saved something that wasn’t supposed ta happen, and something else took advantage of it ta send someone through that shouldn’t’ve been here? What if something happened ta the humans like what happened ta the Maqdim?”

Keratily was nodding along to Okeria’s excited pace at that point. “What if we combine that with the assumption that Sebastian is not a chosen of an endurance Embodiment, but that Persephonia only passed on her inheritance due to seeing a kindred soul in a moment of confusion and weakness. That Sebastian was a… how to put this… an old soul in a young body, as were the first of the Maqdim, and he confided that fact in Persephonia to earn her trust.”

“It all fits together way too well.” Okeria laughed. He didn’t seem to be disturbed by the assumption of what Sebastian was hiding. “Persephonia gave him her inheritance because she didn’t know either of us were there, and she couldn’t risk Endra having it for herself. Or, ya know, she didn’t want either of us taking it because she knew what we’d do with it.”

“She was always the ever-paranoid one.” Keratily chuckled fondly. “Even though I dragged her up from her lowest depths, she always held a glimmer of distrust thanks to my status.”

Okeria agreed with a silent nod. “...Ya know, it’s kinda our fault Persephonia didn’t make it.”

“Yes, an unfortunate truth. But there was nothing we could have done, so there is no point dwelling on it.” Keratily said with a wave of her hand.

Okeria frowned and pinched his mouth into a line, but he knew there was no changing Keratily’s mind. Her love and empathy only extended so far as her name, but her kindness was for all. It was a truly strange dichotomy, and it meant he’d have to make sure Persephonia got a proper burial all by himself. With Juniper and Sebastian’s help, of course.

He decided to say the silent part out loud and see how Keratily reacted. “I think Sebastian’s the first chosen The End’s ever taken.”

Keratily’s face lit up with surprise, then confusion, then grave understanding. She motioned for him to continue.

“Well, think of it. If we’re right, and he’s from a dead home like the Maqdim, then that’s one end he’s survived. What if he lived through the same ‘simulation’ the Maqdim were put through, but then his Embodiment didn’t want him? What would happen to someone who’s got unerased memories that gets put through the simulation reset without an Embodiment protecting them?”

“They would die. So I assume.” Keratily said.

“But they’d die without a connection to an Embodiment, and a mind ripe for a new connection. How strange do ya think it would be for The End ta step in and try ta take Sebastian for it’s own in that case?”

Okeria spread his arms as Keratily considered his words. “...We need to speak to a chosen as soon as physically possible. If The End announced that it has chosen, then I think it would be fair to assume that Sebastian is that chosen.”

“Yeah. Being cautious is good.” Okeria agreed, but he’d already made up his mind.

Both Sebastian and Juniper had called whatever was talking to them ‘it’. All Embodiments, even if their species didn’t have gender, were always called ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘they’, or a pronoun from their species’ language. None of which translated to ‘it’. It was such a small thing to latch on to, but that was Okeria’s specialty. He’d felt something off about Sebastian, even from the first time he’d met the man, and it hadn’t gone away when Sebastian was outed as human. But now that all that had fallen into place, theoretical as it was, Okeria’s mind was at ease.

Sebastian was The End’s first chosen.

Something happened to him in the simulation before his home world’s demise that led to an opening for The End.

He still had his memories from before, which let him help Juniper survive in their first hazard and befriend Persephonia.

It all made so much sense. Even Endra’s attack could be chalked up to abusing the endurance Embodiments’ agreement being broken by one uncast vote, and her using one of her most powerful chosen as a host to get through before the loophole was sealed. Everything fit together almost seamlessly.

Which left Okeria with the most important question of all: how could he profit the most from this new information without pissing a Primordial Embodiment that would most certainly annihilate him if he did anything to Sebastian? One so powerful that the rules only applied to it so long as it chose to obey them?

A question to ponder for later. At the moment, however, Okeria needed to find a way to convince Keratily to use a little bit less of the ingredients he’d offered. Ten percent of each of his individual stashes was a little steep for his liking.

//SECURITY THREAT CONFIRMED AS [MINIMAL].

//POINT OF VIEW RETURNING TO [SEBASTIAN CORMIER].

//SYNCHING…