Tiriz did not appreciate the dark. But it was into the dark her journeys so often brought her.

Darkness and cold nurtured hunger. Hunger brought weakness and savagery to her kind. They craved the warm flesh and blood pumping through a human’s heart and if denied that, they might even feast upon plants and animals. Tiriz discovered maintaining a fire was sufficient to at least prevent slumber, but as her rel correctly discerned, it was better to eat something than to burn it. Fire only proved more efficient for small groups.

Regarding slumber, if one’s hunger was not satiated, one must rest. Her kind entered a state of hibernation until roused by warmth or somehow forcefed or given fresh ichor. There existed spawn with abilities that made them resistant to the cold and capable of reviving others from slumber. Such an example would be a princess who dwelled in the deserts where the night’s chill came quickly but her songs controlled the temperature around her.

Fortunately, the air in the tunnels they traveled through was warm and humid, warm enough to sustain Tiriz and her kind even without the sun. However, it also stank of sulfur. A smell akin to rotten eggs clung to everyone but not a single organism voiced a complaint. No surprise to be found in that, they entered the place through a lava vent.

The endless scratching of clawed feet, clopping of hooves, and other means of locomotion echoed against the rough stone. No one could mistake to falsely accredit human hands for the passage. The walls were scarred with clawmarks and corrosion from acidic excretions.

A princess that had been content to burrow beneath until that time joined their procession. She lacked eyes and possessed massive clawed hands for digging along with almost purple hair like red clover. This one was the most timid of them all yet also the most powerful if one was to compare size to strength, able to carve through stone with ease.

Stone gave way to dark volcanic soil once they journeyed beyond the base of a fiery mountain, rich in nutrients. If the sun went only a little deeper, it would have been ideal for farming. Instead, it existed as if to testify how not even stone could resist life itself.

And indeed, life itself proved victorious. As they ventured deeper, rather than bedrock, they met a smooth wall of red flesh. The flesh wall opened to let them in like the chamber of a heart.

The Seed moved but her kind's homing instinct returned them to it without fail. Beneath the surface were countless tunnels carved out over the years that allowed the spawn to travel anywhere in the world, even the side the sun's rays never reached.

Through the network ran capillaries from the Seed, roots or tendrils for the spawn to enter and exit through. Often, as was this case, they rested near volcanic vents sustaining the Seed with heat alone.

The slick crimson material that surrounded them pulsated gently in the dark. The fact Tiriz with her less than perfect eyes even knew what color it was due to her foreknowledge of the matter. It could light the way for them but they asked nothing of their progenitor, not after they failed to protect what was most important to all.

The capillary could expand and contract to accommodate larger creatures or close the way for invaders. As it currently was, a whale could slide through and have room for several human sized spawn to slip by in the opposite direction without issue.

New spawn joined them as they crossed paths with other veins. All headed in the same direction, homebound. They traveled many leagues and passed through multiple valves to reach their final entryway, a soft scarlet glow lit the way in the distance as they made a turn. That light swiftly grew greater in scale but slowly in intensity and lightened until a vision of radiating tint of peach and coral was all they could see.

The wall of the Seed was solid, so vast that it appeared flat, its gentle curves too subtle to fully reveal it was only a glimpse of a perfect sphere. It glowed internally but nothing could be seen on the other side at the moment, like looking at the daylight sky through a stretched canvas.

The wall rippled and opened an ovoid window for them. Through the aperture could be seen another world, one alight with warmth. Everything was bright, lit from all sides by bioluminescence. The many neon colors of life banished all shadows. Before them was a glowing reef serving as a cliff. Beyond that cliff was an ocean.

While the exterior was smooth as an apple seed, the growths within were complicated and branched out like coral but had the elasticity of boneless flesh. It was the same material Tiriz’s own body was composed of but granted a different form the way coal and diamonds were comprised of the same element.

Though the sight of that ocean was concealed by the army of creatures gathered. The cliff branched out further to match their numbers so there was no fear of them overflowing and dropping into the mixture below.

The liquid beyond was inky with tints of every color derived from a rainbow. It could not be seen through like water ripe with silt. It could be as shallow as a puddle or deeper than any sea, one could never discern.

The ocean would have been vacated. Only those yet to be born remained within. None would join in the union while the Arcos remained as she was. Tiriz’s company stepped through the gap. Once Tiriz made her way inside, she could see the outline of their progenitor in the distance.

In the center of everything was a leafless ivory tree, the tides of liquid lapped at the base of its roots. The tree’s branches stretched to the ceiling, a ceiling so high that it appeared to be a false coral sky. Too far to be seen but most certainly there would be human-sized fruits.

The fruit was the closest thing any normal spawn knew as a childhood stage. Once a spawn started to develop within, the fruit dropped into the ocean where it shrank or grew. A spawn emerged once it was fully developed. Normally they gestated within the liquid but the princesses and the Arcos were said to have remained attached to the Seed until the moment they were born. This was their birthplace. An oasis in a lifeless cosmos or an island in an ocean of fire.

Her rel once described how the Seed’s form was a giant blossom rather than a full tree while the Arcos was being cultivated. The Seed changed its form as it decided.

The tree glistened with a rainbow sheen and at rare moments flickered into a different color as her core recognized it to be some unknown color but her own eyes lacked the sophistication to convey it. Her consciousness painted it white rather than collapse her perceptions into black.

Black was when many colors combined just as red and blue merged to purple but truly there was more to the world than black born from such unions. Hidden within what one might think was darkness was a myriad of shades and tints that remained mysterious to Tiriz. Even between the bands of the rainbow were colors yet unseen.

Tiriz looked at the world around her. It bothered her that she saw the world through such a limited spectrum. It must have been even more beautiful to her more blessed kin’s eyes. Her eyes were the same as a human’s in receptibility. Her rel once had similar eyes but Grafin Herst’s grafted eye could see colors Tiriz could not. Tiriz counted over a million shades and tints within her trivial vision but reality was painted with at least a hundred times more. She, like humans, only saw a single percentage of the world.

More advanced spawn could easily see four times as much as a human. Camouflage meant little when prey did not even know what it was their hunters saw.

A short princess with cloven hooves with black hair walked to the ledge and turned to address all gathered. “Who is here to accompany the Arcos?” she asked, her blood red eyes scanning the crowd.

“I am,” Grafin Herst and the two other rels stated as one.

“Please step forward,” the princess requested.

Grafin Herst, being the only rel burdened with such trappings, removed her garments, folded them, and placed them on the ground. The flesh where her arms met her torso formed thin rings where both sides appeared to merge. The rings were broken where either side trespassed into the other almost like interlinked fingers. A ridge of what appeared to be segmented bone at the base of her spine showed such signs as well.

Tiriz’s rel stepped forward to knell before the princess. The princess rested her palm on top of the rel’s head and the air immediately over Grafin Herst’s skin shimmered and glowed. Flowers bloomed in seemingly random locations where human blood and other detris might have been.

A group of cyfts, spawn of simple thought and capability, came to uproot the newborn plants and wiped away any other substance that the princess’s power might have left untouched with tendrils, hands, claws, and other appendages. Unguided cyfts were little more intelligent than animals. Fortunately, their enemy proved less wise than most animals. Even ants and bees could construct complex structures.

Some cyfts were so liberated from thought that they might function for a short time after the destruction of a core. Such spawn were why beheadings were still a common choice among humans for dispatching spawn as they had for Tiriz herself. Losing the head would neutralize the mindless and render those with cores weakened enough to allow for humans to target their center of thought.

The other two rels already completed the rite while Grafen Herst had put away her trappings. “Is this all that remains?” the princess asked aloud, surveying the three leaders gathered.

“Wait,” the princess that lacked eyes declared as she raised a massive hand and tilted her head upwards.

A distant neighing reached the ears of all and soon the shape of the rel called the Storm flew into Tiriz’s vision. In appearance the Storm appeared to be a winged horse with a horn sprouting from the center of its head. Its capabilities were similar to one of the princesses, able to conjure lightning.

But the Storm was not the only one approaching. Not even perceivable to Tiriz at first, something or rather someone was climbing upon the ceiling that served as their sky.

The other soul to join them dropped down from above, landing on all fours with a violent crash. The impact sent shivers through the living ground. ByTiriz’s estimate, the Devil as humans called the rel reached their destination before Grafen Herst’s company and made her way across from the other side of the underground ocean.

If the Storm bore a heavy resemblance to a common creature, the Devil’s appearance ran contrary to that. Large and faintly humanoid in appearance, she usually carried herself with a hunch. Her body was covered in large spikes growing from an armored exoskeleton. Her tail reminded Tiriz of an enlarged human’s ripped out spinal column, the appendage ending with a sharp venomless barb. Tiriz's rel liked to call the Devil, Fósforos, but no one else adopted the use of that name as of yet.

The Storm landed gently in comparison to its fellow rel and both were cleansed as those before them had been. They were cleansed of all filth and impurity through the sacred rite.

Their ritual completed, all eyes focused on the surface of the underground ocean as it roiled and broke, mighty waves rippling out at the emergence of the whale-like rel. It let out a single long moan that echoed throughout followed by a click to address its fellows.

The cloven hooved princess leapt from the cliffside onto the back of the living island below. She laid her hands upon it, though it had already begun to glow when her feet first touched it. For its size, little sprouted from it, the waters it passed through already having washed away most contaminants. The swarm of cyfts refrained from approaching any closer to the Arcos and the other rels were already cleansed of all so the responsibility fell to the princess herself who gently collected what flowers took root upon the living island’s body.

The rels on the cliff dived into the ocean where they either floated or swam as smoothly as they could, doing their utmost to not disturb the waves.

The living island opened its maw. Cradled gently upon its massive tongue rested the Arcos, her arms crossed over her chest. The tongue lowered into the sea of life and her body slowly drifted out.

Tiriz felt a strange sensation or lack of sensation as she witnessed the Arcos once more. The ominous calm that she somehow knew was just the prelude to tears she knew too well. The moments before a dam might break.

Having already witnessed the horror of such a wondrous being laid low, Tiriz could focus now on the finer details of the Arcos’s guise. For that time, the Arcos chose olive skin, an almost golden tanned complexion. A rather common appearance among the humans that called that world home. Only those hidden in the mountain shadows possessed a pale complexion beneath an unsettling sun, though some human type spawn such as Tiriz herself could turn pale from time underground.

The other rels circled the body and each laid a hand, hoove, flipper, or claw upon her. Then they sank beneath the surface.

If Tiriz’s eyes ever strayed from the Arcos, it was to catch a final glimpse at Grafin Herst as the rel dived into the unseen depths. The rels escorted the Arcos to the end as was their duty.

Tiriz barely even noticed how the remaining princesses followed after the rels. The cloven hooved one, the one without eyes, all those sixteen that survived converged and trailed behind like a vanishing funeral procession beneath the waves.

She kept her eyes fixated on the spot where she last saw the Arcos yet her mind lingered. If she dwelled on the lost great one, then she would wish her own core had been broken in that battle. Oblivion seemed preferable to lingering when the Arcos was gone

So, she imagined what dwelled beyond the edges of her vision. Somewhere on the shores of that underground ocean was Ad Scy and Ad Eu with their severely injured.

Finally there was a disturbance, an eruption as all sixteen of the princesses emerged from the liquid. Those that might have been defeated were reborn to complete the arrangement of not quite human forms. The more aggressive ones escaping out like steam from a geyser while the more patient ones slowly broke through the surface.

A majority resembled the myths they inspired or perhaps inspired them. Some were recognizable to the least knowing of eyes while others were more distorted and detached from their image.

One could see the similarities of a centaur, gorgon, lamia, mermaid, harpy, werewolf, arachne, cyclops, and faun. However there were also those that inspired the idea of a flying horse, hundred handed giant, arae, unicorn, siren, catoplebus, and minotaur. Perhaps most obvious among those departed from their legend was perhaps the one akin to a hecatoncheires, though her default form possessed only six arms instead of all one hundred, like a goddess of war though she could not be called giant by the standard of myth.

Some Princesses stood shorter than average by the standards of the modern era so a modern observer could justify not seeing the image of a minotaur in one with pink hair and small straight horns on her forehead. She more deeply resembled a satyr and perhaps even inspired that in turn.

Though only one was of lower stature than Grafen Herst, the rel had been modeled off reality while the princesses followed a pattern of form and function, the faun like one that cleansed the rels.

Then the rels surfaced one by one. First was the living island followed by the Hybrid then the rel with the face of their foe and the Storm. Finally emerged the Devil and finally Tiriz’s own rel.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Tiriz’s eyes followed her rel as Grafen Herst slowly but steadily climbed her way back up. The hand that once was Tiriz’s had merged seamlessly with her arm after bathing in the aqua of life. The rel walked straight to Tiriz and with only the faintest of gestures said to the dyte what needed to be said to all those gathered. “It is alright, she is safe now.”

For an instant, all thought ceased and Tiriz forgot herself and all else, her consciousness subsumed by the moment. She heard the words “Thank you,” without realizing they came from her own lips as the edges of her vision blurred. A remaining tear pooled in eyes she thought dry.

How could she say something so vulgar in that sacred place? How could she use such a human expression?

She told herself she did not speak for herself but for all. There was not a particle of doubt within her that the relief she felt was anything less than universal and no words she knew could ever be sufficient to express that.

That the Arcos was secured was all that mattered. The sun could be dying and the universe be reduced to dust but all would be well because the only person that ever meant anything was safe.

Grafen Herst observed the hand she received from Tiriz, the chitinous brass exterior of her left arm appeared to have stretched to cover the hand as well, then looked to the stump on Tiriz’s matching arm. “Sorry, I can not give this back to you now. Well, I guess I could but it would upset your balance.”

Tiriz regarded her stump without the faintest emotion. It had been offered to one more important than herself, it seemed only natural. “We will grow a new one.”

The rel flexed her newly encased fingers. “Then I hope you do not mind if I keep it. I missed having fingers on this side.”

Tiriz was more curious as to why her rel even asked. “We do not mind.”

As the rel and dyte spoke, the princesses scattered, mostly in pairs. One with aspects of a wolf vanished from sight. The princess resembling a centaur grew bony spurs over her hooves and galloped on the walls. A princess with bent legs traveled the same route and raced across like lightning. To no surprise to anyone, the arachnid-like princess proved she could walk across the ceiling if she pleased.

A cyclopean princess encased herself in a massive shell of coiled sinews and swam across. Riding atop her was a princess with a pair of horns. A finned princess accompanied them, gliding across the liquid as if it was ice,

A princess like a lamia hummed and slithered across the bridge of black and grey ice that formed in front of her from the ocean of life. Following her was one with many arms.

The princess without eyes tunneled into the living ground to be followed by a shaggy one and the one with cloven hooves.

A winged princess flew away while one with a horn in the center of her forehead took a moment to summon a large clump of iron ore from outside and stood upon it to float across in the air.

A princess with snakes for hair and one most seemingly human remained.

As that transpired, the rel with their enemy’s face dived back into the ocean and its army followed to disappear into the depths. If it proved to be the same as all the times before, they would not be seen again until the Arcos returned.

The other rels led their wounded into the liquid but, unlike their compatriot, they chose to remain swimming upon the surface, populating the once empty waves with moving bodies.

Grafen Herst proved no exception and invited all to accompany her as she returned to the ocean. Tiriz stayed behind for a short time as she removed her soiled garments then joined as instructed.

Tiriz mimicked her rel and entered head first, the liquid washing over her as she broke through the surface. She inhaled as she entered, letting the fluid saturate her every pore. It felt natural, there was little difference to her between it and empty air except the liquid’s warmth and pleasant viscosity proved more welcoming to her. It was almost oily, rich with ever present gradients like a salt lake but of opposing nature.

She let her own buoyancy pull her up to the surface where she floated upon her back in that ocean of life. As it became a part of her, she felt herself become a part of it. Without even noticing, she became whole, the content of the liquid around her gravitated to her wounds and filled the gaps, forming into what she once lost.

The voices of seventeen maidens in perfect sync filled the area. Even if Tiriz covered her ears, she would have heard it. Many spawn, desperate for purpose, joined in the tune, hoping somehow that might make them forget the ache that the Arcos’s absence left. They lent their voices as instruments rather than as a chorus. The only ones with the heart to form words for the song after such a recent loss were the princesses.

Larger organisms stomped their feet like drums or released heavy thunderous breathes akin to a chant to a slow and steady rhythm like the heartbeat of the world. They went quiet when the princesses sang, as to not overwhelm the voices with their pounding but pronounced the gaps between verses with a low drone, the beat ingrained into their being.

The song would go on for one cycle, or close to two years by the measure of a long dead world, concluding at the anniversary of the Arcos’s downfall when they would disperse. The world’s longest performance. Thirty-three cycles was close to sixty years in an old world.

The song was for those that remained. It was all one song. Little need for repeated lyrics as they recounted their ages long conflict with humanity. A string of past events would be punctuated with a promise of the future before the next set was woven together.

Her kind knew the truth of the world, it was relayed through the music. Though the basic chronology befuddled Tiriz’s calculations.

No one else seemed to be bothered by it but her kind were created after humanity. That would suggest as if to correct an error. The Seed and Arcos were perfect. They could not make mistakes.

An acceptable conclusion was that humanity was planted in advance of her own people’s coming to have prey to combat against. If humanity came after the onset of spawn, the weak creatures would have been immediately uprooted,

Within the song, there was also times when each princess sang alone dispersed across the arrangement. It was always in the same order, though the verses changed at times. It was in a language older than the world itself only the Arcos and the princesses ever spoke, though Tiriz was beginning to piece it together. The songs offered her little understanding as they lacked context beyond the tone the words were carried in but the more Tiriz overheard the rare occasion the princesses deemed to speak that tongue to each other, the more precise her assumptions became.

The solo sessions told of a flower and beast, the battle between life and death. That much, Tiriz was certain of.

However, the song disturbed her. When she was younger it granted her at least the resignation to mourn but as she came to understand the words, a slight heat like an ember in her head burnt.

The need to never hear the song again always dwarfed her compulsion to understand the meaning behind it. It was a reminder that the Arcos was felled and with the words came thoughts of ending the chain, the urge to wipe the stain of humanity from the world completely and utterly.

The feeling that once was alien to her came with every downfall. Tiriz told herself her logic was sound, that her mind was of the Arcos but it did not feel that way. Her drive to protect the Arcos did not burn that way, it did not “hurt” that way. If she described it to her rel, she feared, “fear” was not a word she wished to use but it fit too well, that her rel would call it something as profane as “hate.”

Spawn did not “hate.” Did wolves hate sheep? Did humans hate cattle? No, and humans were less than cattle to Tiriz’s kind. Spawn did not need to eat humans, their relationship was not even predator and prey but destroyer and casualty.

Yet, then was not the time to purge. It was the time to rest and wait for their Arcos to return. The emptiness still gnawed at her core but now she was certain that it would one day end as it always did. The Arcos would return and Tiriz needed to be prepared, more prepared than last time.

She lifted her newly formed hand from the liquid and stared at it. She made tests and it moved as if it had never been severed. She then brought it to her throat.

She rubbed her neck, trying to find any lingering trace that her head ever parted from her body. Her fingers ran over her chest, her every wound gone.

Just because they were gone, did not mean they were not once there. Even if she had been restored, it still had been a hindrance to herself and others. She would rather not find herself in that state again.

She did not want to be a burden.

In her mind, did she use the word “want?” Spawn were only required to need. They needed to protect the Arcos. They needed to serve the Arcos. They needed to kill humans because that was what they were told to do. Individual wants and desires were unnecessary.

To harbor even a desire to be useful was a flaw. A tool was either useful or it was not, concerns only decreased efficiency.

Then how would she remove such a flaw before it compromised her further? An option came to mind. She could crush her own core.

The core was where their experiences were stored. To mortals, it’s destruction was akin to “death,” the dissolution of the self developed so far. But spawn could not die so long as a piece of themselves remained. Losing a core would simply result in the spawn becoming inert until revived.

That seemed extreme at first but the very thought of it justified itself. A sound course of thought would not have led to such a judgement unless the conclusion was correct or her logic was unsound and in need of correction which meant that option was appropriate. If self destruction was ever to be considered, did that mean she possessed an irreparable flaw and should be sent back to the beginning?

Would she be serving her function by returning to optimal thought and form or failing in her role by purging the resource of knowledge and experience without instruction from her rel? The fact she did not immediately know the correct choice meant there was a fault in her reasoning. Did she lack key information?

If she eliminated her consciousness without informing her superiors why, then the error might reoccur and she would need to repeat the process. It would be best to find a solution to the problem while she was aware of it.

If she told her rel, it was all too likely her rel would dismiss the threat.

“Why” should not even be a concept for herself. She only needed to know what it was that she needed to perform, how to execute her task, then where and when to do so.

Removing why from her thoughts, she presented herself with a set of questions.

What was her purpose?

To serve the Arcos.

How should she serve the Arcos?

As best she could.

Where should she serve the Arcos?

Where the Arcos placed her.

Where was she placed?

In her rel’s custody.

How could she best serve the Arcos?

Her mind calculated numerous possibilities. Asking how often led to contradictory answers. The simplest answer was to do what she was told to do.

To best protect the Arcos, one could perhaps try to hide the Arcos yet the Arcos rejected that course.

They obeyed through instinct rather than philosophy. Those key instincts conveyed their meaning of life. They required not food or shelter yet possessed an urge to kill humans on sight. Nothing else captured such a response.

The only drive greater than the need to fight and kill humans was their inability to disobey the Arcos and their protective compulsions towards their supreme one. The Arcos was both their source and their own offspring. To not shield her was unfathomable but ordered.

She continued her inquiry but ignored “how” for that moment.

When was she told to damage her own core by her rel?

She was never told to do so.

When should she serve the Arcos?

At all times.

If she damaged her own core would she be using her time effectively to serve the Arcos?

No.

She could not damage her core then, not if it inconvenienced the Arcos. She looked to her restored hand. If her core had been damaged, she herself would have been reborn from a severed limb or dismembered torso.

There was a way to start anew and not disrupt her ability to contribute.

She could create an offshoot of herself.

All that would be needed would be a piece of flesh and another her would be born.

Offshoots though not born purposefully were a common occurrence. A lost spawn might have more than one piece return or a functioning one might somehow have an offshoot created by some accident.

Most offshoots were cyfts, bereft of the experience of the original. They possessed cores like any other but their centers of thought began empty. Those that proceeded to act only on instinct might never awaken their former intelligence.

She could have the lost digit restored as easily as her hand was returned to her. Then her offshoot could be informed of the situation. Would there be any more need for herself if another was given time to properly inherit her information?

She brought her finger to her teeth, the extremity resting along vertically with the joint above the center of her tongue and bit down. There was a crunch and a jolt of pain as she broke the more rigid flesh beneath her skin that served as bone. Ichor filled her mouth but the digit was not yet severed. She needed to bite deeper.

“What are you doing with that fresh hand of yours, Tiriz?” A voice called out from nearby. With the other spawn splashing all around her and the song echoing throughout the space, Tiriz failed to notice her rel drift near her.

Grafen Herst, floating with her chest facing the ocean’s surface, kicked up some liquid as she drew close enough to look down into the dyte’s eyes. They were facing opposite of each other, nearly forehead to chin.

The dyte loosened her grip on the digit and removed it from her mouth to speak. “We are preparing our replacement,” Tiriz answered.

“Why?”

There was that unnecessary thought, “why.” Though she had no right to voice that when she said very word earlier when they found the corpses of those that defiled their supreme one.

Tiriz froze for a moment, she already knew the answer, what hindered her was an uncomfortable reluctance. “We…” she began to assess but realized her phrase only applied to herself. “We found that I developed a flaw.”

“Who is “we”?” Grafen Herst inquired softly. “I do not recall noticing such a thing.”

Tiriz could not answer.

Grafen Herst rested her left hand on Tiriz’s forehead. “Because I think you are improving. You finally said “I”.”

“We should not say such a thing,” Tiriz contradicted. “We were born to think for the sake of the Arcos.”

“Yes, you were born to think,” Grafen Herst agreed. “So, it is your ideas you bring to my attention. Though I do not recall giving you permission to create an offshoot. Then again, I did not tell you not to. Well, stop for now. If there is supposed to be a second you, the Seed would create another like you.”

“It is a possibility that another like me is gestating or unrecognized,” Tiriz considered.

“Even if that is so, we have forever to win, Tiriz,” Grafen Herst stated. “We do not need to rush, Tiriz.” The rel said the name with an odd warmth. Tiriz felt her own lips subtly be pulled down as she heard the word repeated again and again. “Especially at the cost of the sanctity of the Seed. We follow the Seed’s designs, it does not serve ours.”

“Understood.” Tiriz would have offered silent acknowledgment but the rel seemed to prefer hearing it. The dyte lowered her hand back beneath the waves and let it be restored.

Grafin Herst tilted her head. Tiriz noticed that she seemed to be fixated on the dyte’s mouth. Her faintly blue left eye reflected the faintest frown. “What is wrong, Tiriz?”

“You refer to Ad Eu and Ad Scy as a single name,” Tiriz observed. “For Yourself, we never hear you call yourself “Grafin.” It is Grafin Herst. Yet you call us “Tiriz” when you named us “Tiriz Eben”.” Tiriz failed to recall a time that her rel called the dyte by her alleged name name. “Why? Are we Tiriz or Tiriz Eben?”

“You are both,” the rel replied with little confidence as if asking a question in return or confused by the question. “I supposed.”

“Why are we both?”

“Because I feel like it,” Grafen Herst replied adamantly with a far too human smile. “And you seem like you could use two,” she added almost playfully.

“Feel,” such a troublesome word. Tiriz expected her rel to eventually settle on a name beginning with “Ad.” The significance of the term “Ad” only had meaning to Grafin Herst and was not a name in itself but rather a title of sorts to show favoritism. One of the names Tiriz almost received was Ad Zi.

“Is there anything else on your mind, my dyte? It is not like you to be… so expressive.”

“Is that an order?”

“If that is what is required for you to speak, yes.”

Tiriz thought to the beginning of what led to her actions. She traced it to the thought of I do not want to be a burden. What led to that assessment?

She remembered that when the Arcos was felled, she was but a decapitated head.

“We failed,” Tiriz concluded.

“Failed what?” Grafen Herst inquired.

“We failed to protect the Arcos. While we were incapacitated, the Arcos was defeated. We defeated the enemy but the Arcos was still lost. Our actions were without meaning.”

“It was not meaningless,” her rel corrected. “If that army was there while we were most vulnerable, we could have been butchered and the Arcos stolen from us.

Tiriz could not disagree, the assessment was sensible. Or maybe she had to agree, for your own mind’s sake as the pain of the Arcos’s loss still ate at her. Though with the Arcos finally safe, she could convince herself that someday the lingering pain would disappear.

“Nothing we do is in vain,” the rel continued. “Every day and every night we get closer to the Arcos's wish. We have eternity to see it through so even a little progress is fine. So, let us settle for what we accomplished.”

“Still,” Tiriz began as she sought an escape from the pain the only way she could. “We must request that you give us a purpose, our Rel. Give us an order.”

“Alright,” Grafen Herst agreed without scrutiny or hesitation. That earned a blink from Tiriz to a proposal so readily accepted. “How about something only you might be able to do. Create something. Concoct some ideas and show them to me in four and a half cycles.”

Tiriz stared at her rel. What was it that her rel needed from that? “What do you need us to create?”

“If I told you what to make, it would not be so creative, I would guess. And Tiriz, this order is just for you. You can demand the support of whoever you may need but you would be the one making things so I think you should ask “What do you want me to create?””