"So," Penelope says about twenty minutes later. "About what you said regarding getting up and talking to other people…?"

"But you're just so comfy, though!" I whine.

Okay, so maybe my resolution towards productivity and self-control isn't quite so easily achieved as simply deciding that I'm going to do it. But Penelope is very warm, and she's very squeezable, and I love having something for my tendrils to hold, and she's just… gah! Why would any sane Vita willingly leave?

"I've done all I can do for your extra eyes at this point," Penelope chuckles. "And as fun as this is, I do have things to do and places to be. Sorry, Vita."

"Wait, you've done all you can for my eyes? They're all still here, though!"

"Vita, do you really think I can remove entire organs from your body in less than an hour?" she chides. "This is going to take days, possibly weeks of work."

I go a little stiff at that. That's… not good.

"The rate I'm growing them is accelerating, though," I tell her. "I grew my shoulder-tentacle today."

"Is that so?" Penelope muses. "Well… in that case, come find me the next time you feel something start to grow. Maybe I can figure out a way to stop it. Or perhaps I can figure out a way to make bodily modifications that quickly as well."

I snort, sensing she's a lot more excited about the second prospect than the first. Oh, well. One does not date a scientist without expecting to have a lot of experimental science done to their body. I knew this would happen when I agreed to this relationship.

Though speaking of, it's still vaguely weird to be in a relationship. I got a lot more used to the idea of 'Penelope is my girlfriend' while I was incarcerated, and though I certainly worried that wouldn't be the case by the time I got out I'm thankful to find that my fears were for naught. I still don't really know what being my girlfriend means, though, at least not beyond the fact that I can request and receive cuddles without my whole body entering instant fight-or-flight mode on contact. Except I can also do that with Lyn, and she's very much not my girlfriend.

Like, according to my extremely limited understanding of relationships, a girlfriend is just a female friend you either have sex with or intend to have sex with in the future? But we… don't do that. Nor will we. So is she just… my favorite friend? No, wait, that's 'best friend.' Besides, she's more than a friend. Norah is a friend. Penta is a friend. Penelope is definitely something else entirely. She's… more like family? Is that what it means? Not very helpful, if so; I don't exactly understand the concept of family that much better.

Eh, whatever. Words and definitions aside, I still need to stop cuddling her and go do other important things.

After another five minutes, Penelope stands up of her own accord and, despite my protests, carries me out of the tent before plopping me down on my feet.

"Alright, time to get things done," she cruelly orders. "I'm going to go speak with Jeremiah like you suggested. So you should…?"

"Ugh… I should probably start with my backup mom?" I regretfully admit. "Then Penta. Then I'll wing it."

"Child, did you just call us 'backup mom!?'" Altrix snaps at me from the other side of the clearing. …Though given her response I guess she's definitely Sano. I wince, not having thought she would have heard that.

"I intended it as a term of endearment!" I shout back honestly.

"We were your first mom!" she reminds me. "Your current mom is the backup!"

"I guess that makes sense?" I admit, walking away from my now-laughing girlfriend to approach Sano. "I just meant that you were next in line to be primary mom if something happens to Lyn."

Not that I'm planning on anything bad ever happening to Lyn, but it's always important to have backup plans. People die.

"Don't give us ideas," Sano grumbles, walking into physical view. She's not being serious, of course, so I don't have to kill her. "We're glad you're finally back, Vita. You're horribly filthy, though. We'll find someone to heat up a bath for you."

"I don't know if I really have time?" I hedge.

"You will make time," Sano insists. "You made time to snog a noblewoman, you can certainly make time to ensure you don't ruin her outfit when next you do it."

I look down at myself, then glance back at the retreating form of Penelope. I guess I am pretty muddy. I'm glad she's not the kind of prim-and-proper person to care much about that, though I suppose a big part of her apathy comes from being safe in the knowledge that she has a very effective cleaning spell, and also other people to do her chores for her. Either way…

"Penelope doesn't have a problem with it," I insist. "Why should I?"

"Watcher's eyes, it's like you're still five years old," Sano grumbles. "You are in charge here, Vita. You need to look the part."

"...I do?" I ask, not seeing the connection there. "Why do I need to look a certain way to be in charge? And how is 'covered in monster blood' not that way?"

Sano sighs.

"People will like you more if you're clean, Vita."

"I don't care if most of these people like me," I argue. "I just want them to listen to me."

"And they're more likely to listen to you if they like you," Sano counters patiently. "Have you not noticed that?"

I scowl a little. I mean, yeah, I guess that makes sense. But I don't see how that translates to taking a bath. I guess baths aren't that bad, but out here in the forest privacy is enforced less by walls and more by threat of death. I don't really feel like dealing with that.

"We've noticed you latch onto a few people that catch your interest to establish mutual respect with," Sano continues, "but for most people you just intimidate them into obedience, ignoring everything else. Humans are more complicated than a series of threats and consequences, Vita."

Yeah, that's for damn sure.

"I wish they weren't," I complain. "I'm not really much of a bather, but fine. If that's what'll make you happy, I'll oblige."

As usual, Sano does something unexpected. Rather than be happy I agreed to her demands, she just gives me an odd look.

"Do you even remember how to bathe yourself properly, Vita?"

"What?" I snap defensively. "Of course I know how to bathe myself. What kind of question is that?"

"You don't, do you?" Sano continues, ignoring me. "We will help you. Go talk to your slime-friend while we get things set up."

"Okay?" I answer, getting an instinctive impression that saying no would be a bad idea. I don't really want to be 'taught' something I already know how to do, but I suspect that going along with it will be a lot less annoying than trying to stop it, and I've been meaning to spend more one-on-one time with Altrix anyway.

Speaking of my 'slime friend,' I find her dozing on a rock near Margarette's still-unfinished teleportation circle. I don't really want to interrogate her about whatever terrible revenge Penelope no doubt concocted, but it was probably a bit unnecessarily mean to leave her with Penelope in the first place. I give her a friendly jiggle by poking her with a finger, to which she responds by trying to suck up and dissolve said finger in her pre-lucid waking moments. Penta quickly notices what she's doing, however, and transfers the parts of her body trying to eat me for breakfast towards the much more productive task of quickly pulling herself up my hand, then my arm, and finally swimming all the way up to my shoulder. Moments later, her slimy body is reshaping itself into the humanoid form she crafted for herself the day I left.

"Well, look who's back," Penta comments dryly. "You get that dragon?"

"Nah," I shrug slightly, jiggling her entire body. "Turns out that dragons are cowards and they all ran away from me."

She makes a dismissive scoffing noise, though considering the fact that she's tiny enough for me to hold in my hands it comes off as more adorable than anything.

"Shame, that," she says. "Though I suppose I can certainly empathize with anyone who finds you terrifying."

I wince.

"...Uh, speaking of terrifying, how did your chat with Penelope go?"

She shapes her face into a flat glare.

"You know damn well it wasn't a chat, Vita," she accuses. "How do you think it went? She puppetted me around for a while, tested out a few animancy torture methods—which is a thing that she has, apparently—then left in a huff. At least it only took a few hours. I'm even mostly sure she even undid everything she did to me, which was a pleasant surprise."

"What… did she do?" I ask hesitantly.

"I'd rather not talk about it," Penta answers firmly. "Suffice to say it was appropriately ironic. Exactly the sort of thing I'd expect from her. I'd hoped that would be the end of it, but it sure didn't seem to make her feel any better when she was done."

Stolen story; please report.

"Oh," I answer, my tentacles drooping a bit. "Well, did she at least leave you alone after that?"

"Yes," Penta acknowledges. "If anything, she's been weirdly polite."

"Huh," I say. "I wonder why."

"Couldn't say," Penta grunts. "I don't know what either of you are thinking anymore. It's… odd."

"Well, you did miss out on a couple years," I remind her, to which I interpret her resulting indignation as a resounding 'I know.' I cough awkwardly and continue. "But, um, other than that, how have things been? How's having your own body treating you?"

"It's… strange," she sighs. "I've been trying to increase my biomass but it's slow going. Ozoids don't seem to be very efficient digesters. More importantly… well, it's frightening, I suppose."

"Oh?" I ask. "I just figured your fear was of me."

"That too," she admits. "But in general, I have a constant fear of being alone. In my own head, I mean. Throughout most of my life, feeling this way meant I was only a short time away from personality death. It's funny how the thing I wanted most—my own body—now causes me constant anxiety."

I nod slowly. Constant anxiety due to the nature of one's existence? I can understand that.

"Maybe you'll get over it?" I suggest. "It's not like you're very old. You've been both conscious and sapient for like… less than a month, I think?"

Penta's body loses a bit of cohesion for a moment as she reels from that thought.

"Oh Watcher, you're right," she realizes. "I was Penelope for… what, a few days? Then the trip to Litia was only… holy shit. I'm a month old. I mean, plus the uncountable amount of time I was a fucking burrow hound, I suppose."

"Damn. The burrow hounds. That feels like a lifetime ago."

"It literally was," Penta remarks. "I just got brought back to life, because I happened to become friends with a baby goddess."

"Hey! What do you mean a baby goddess?" I protest.

"Well, you don't even have your first cult yet, do you?" Penta sardonically remarks. "You're not really an adult goddess until you have at least one cult."

"I don't even want a cult!" I complain.

"Well, no one wants to pay taxes when they grow up either, but at some point you're just going to have to leave the nest."

I groan with exasperation as she chuckles at me, a disturbingly exact copy of Penelope's classic demure giggle. Ugh, this is the moment, I guess. I gotta say it now or I never will.

"...I'm sorry I left you with Penelope like that," I manage. "I was mad about what you said regarding Vitamin and I, but… I still shouldn't have just given her free rein, you know?"

Penta gives me a searching look, which considering her body is a very purposeful decision. It seems a little pointless to me since she knows I barely pay attention to faces and read emotions from her soul anyway, but it is what it is.

"You probably shouldn't have," she agrees. "It wasn't exactly a fun way to come back to life. Still… it's not like I don't deserve it. I never wanted to torture Penelope in the way she tortured me, but I still did it. She seems to have gotten her pound of flesh now, so that's that. Now I'm just… worried for her. Penelope is both more and less broken of a person than she thinks she is, if that makes any sense."

"Not really," I admit.

She barks out a dry laugh.

"Yeah, I guess I expected that response."

"U-um, excuse me!" I hear Altrix call out. Aw, fuck, it's a different one. Nix, I think her name is? "The bath is ready!"

"Welp, I guess I need to take care of that," I sigh. "You wanna come with, Penta?"

"To a bath? Ugh, wouldn't that be nostalgic? But no, unfortunately, there's no real point. Large bodies of water could kill me if I lose cohesion, and I'm self-cleaning anyway."

Self-cleaning, huh? One point for the ooze body column, I guess. I stretch my hand out towards the rock Penta had been dozing on when I found her, and she quickly twists down my arm to plop down on it.

"I'm going to try to revive some humans in a bit," I tell her. "Can I count on you to help?"

"Not sure how much help you expect from me, but I'll be there," she agrees.

I nod, turning to approach Nix. I hope she assembled something suitably private. Public bathing is the default in Valka, and I've gone to public baths plenty of times. Still, I'm never excited about the prospect of being naked for any reason, let alone with other people around. I'm not modest, just… paranoid. Even now that my bones can survive explosions and my muscles can rip a man in half, I can't get over the discomfort of exposing weakness. Bad, bad things happened to street kids that caught the wrong person's eye. More clothing was always better than less.

Thankfully, construction seems to have progressed quickly while I was away, To-Kill-From-Above still directing groups in the creation of small wooden cabins. After meeting up with Altrix—er, Nix, she's Nix right now—she takes me into one of them. It's pretty much just a small shed with a barrel full of water in it, but the water is hot and the room is private so all things considered I'm pretty happy with it. I start to strip down, tossing my things in the corner of the room until Nix starts stuttering in protest.

"O-oh, um, if you could give us those, we'll have them w-washed as well!" she stammers.

I shrug, tossing them her way. My outfit isn't important enough to worry about, it's not even real armor. As long as I get something to wear back before I'm done bathing, I don't care what it is.

"O-okay, so, h-here's the soap," Nix says, holding it out to me. "You, um, know h-how to use soap, right?"

"Pretty sure step one is not eating it, which was always disappointing," I answer dryly, accepting the stuff. "Is this all a plot to do mother-daughter things with me?"

Nix squeaks with embarrassment, bringing her hands up to her face.

"Um, we, uh… it's not really a p-plot?" she answers. "We're not even used to h-having a daughter. It's n-nice in some ways!"

I'm not really sure how to respond to that, so I don't. The bath is… fine. Predictably, my self-care skills don't live up to Altrix's standards, and I get taught a lot about the 'proper' way to use soap. I humor her, seeing no reason not to, and I have to admit that I end up feeling squeaky clean afterwards, which is a very strange experience. I literally haven't taken more than a shitty sponge bath in two years.

Afterwards, I even get some new clothes. Even better, I get armor! My new outfit is a cool black segmented gambeson, designed with joints and multiple layers in mind so that when Norah turns the outer layer rigid I can still have padding to help me absorb heavy blows. I look a bit… puffy, I guess? But it's very practical and exactly what I need, so who cares? The dumbest-looking parts of the outfit are covered by my new cloak anyway.

"Thanks, Nix!" I say, happily noting how well it fits me. A little bit tight, but overall it's almost perfect. "This is pretty great, actually."

"Oh! Um, you're welcome!" Nix answers. "I believe Margarette's friend Nugas made it? It was teleported over a few days ago."

I pause. That would explain the fit, yeah. Did she use her own measurements for this…? Oh well, it's hardly the weirdest thing in my life.

"Is the teleporter working?" I ask, deciding to focus on that instead.

"Well enough for n-nonliving objects, yes." Nix answers. "Only a small chance of m-material loss."

"Material loss sounds like it'd be bad for living objects," I agree offhandedly.

"P-pretty bad, yes."

I nod understandingly. There are a lot of important body parts, I think. Either way, now that I'm dressed for success, it's finally time to bring my sister back to life! Y'know, probably. I assume Melissa has gotten her mass back while I've been away.

Sure enough, when I finally spot her I see she's about the same size she was before we started cutting bits off of her and putting slime souls in them. Which is probably good! She's currently chatting with Penta, who slithered over there to wait for me, presumably.

"Hey, Melissa!" I greet, waving at her. "How are you doing?"

"Vita!" the girl chirps, half-running and half-flowing towards me at my words. She moves right up next to me, seems to hesitate, and squirms slightly before asking me a question.

"C-can I try to hug you?" she asks. "I think I can do it!"

Hmm… that's actually a tough question. I want to say yes; while Melissa would and absolutely has hurt many flies, she certainly wouldn't intentionally hurt me. And damn does this girl need hugs. But at the same time, if she makes a mistake and gets caustic goop on my new gift clothing, that'd be kinda sad. Oh, wait, I know!

"Norah!" I call out, raising my hand towards the sky.

My scythe dutifully spins through the air, flying rapidly towards me and landing in my grip. Without needing to tell her, I feel Norah's talent cover my clothes, protecting them from harm.

"Hug away!" I tell Melissa, opening my arms and accepting the small, gooey mass of girl child flopping her body into them. She erupts into a gleeful set of giggling as her body retains its form, not even attempting to burn my clothing.

"Hey, you're really doing it!" I praise her, patting the back of her head. "Awesome job!"

"Yeah!" she agrees, giving me a tighter squeeze for a moment before stepping away. "Ms. Penta is really smart and good at things! She helped a lot!"

"I didn't help that much," Penta protests.

"Anyway, I'm healing way better and remembering things really good, just like you said I would!" Melissa cheers. "Thank you, Ms. Vita! If you need any more bits of me, I'm ready for it!"

"I do, actually!" I confirm. "This next soul is really, really important to me. It's my little sister Angelien! She's about your age, actually!"

Not counting all the years she can't remember experiencing, anyway. …Er, for both of them, I guess.

"Oh wow! Is this a human soul?" she asks. "She'll be like me?"

"Exactly like you!" I agree. "So everything should go just fine. Are you ready?"

"Yes!" she chirps, bravely holding out her arm.

I triple check to make sure Norah's vrothizo-tooth edge isn't currently active—we don't want to be cutting soul bits, here, the ozoid has its own natural process for that—and lop off exactly enough to make a new baby goo girl. Just add soul! Which is, of course, what I do, pulling out Angelien's soul and nestling it carefully into the new body. She's gonna be back! She's gonna wake up! I'm super excited. I probably shouldn't be, I guess; it'll likely take her a few days to interpret her new senses and learn to understand language with her new body and stuff like that, but still! She's alive! She's aliiiiive!

And almost immediately, she starts silently screaming in panic.

Angelien's new liquid body starts moving erratically, her soul struggling to identify her new experiences as anything other than a nightmare. An all-consuming confusion grips her as she tries to move limbs that aren't there, breathe without lungs, and open nonexistent eyes in a vain attempt to wake from what she cannot, must not believe is real.

I freeze, not sure how to react to her sudden, existential agony. Is there something wrong…? No, I don't think there are any problems with her body or soul. She just… doesn't know how to handle suddenly being an ooze.

"She, uh, doesn't look so hot," Penta says hesitantly.

I don't answer. I don't know how to answer. My sister writhes on the ground.

"Vita?" Penta presses. "Hey, Vita, she is having a bad time there. Vita?"

Will she be okay if we wait? Will she figure things out? How long will it take? Minutes? Hours? Days? How much torture is an acceptable tradeoff to reincarnation?

"Vita!" Penta shouts. "Hey, answer me! What should we do?"

"I don't know!" I snap back. "You tell me! She… I don't want to kill her again!"

"So you wanna leave her like this?"

"I don't know!"

I feel my sister's soul start to cry, begging for help from anything that will listen.

"Is being an ooze really this bad?" I ask Penta.

"I… maybe?" she hedges. "I was born an ooze, my senses as an ozoid are better than my original body. But I guess… she has no experience with that?"

"It feels like being stuck in a dream," Melissa says softly. "I remember that. I… it was bad. It was scary. For a long time."

"...Just take her out," Penta says.

"That would kill Angelien," I remind her.

"It would return Angelien to the way she's been for the past two years," Penta says. "Revival is possible. We already proved that. The only question is how, and there has to be a better way than this."

"Damn it," I hiss. "Damn it!"

I reach into her and, moments after bringing her back, I kill Angelien again.