“Well, in this case, the Great Mind is a god who eats its children,” said Rosemallow.

Several things happened at this point that prevented Lilijoy from following up on Rosemallow’s pronouncement. First, Skria darted over and wrapped her thin arms around Lilijoy, followed by her legs and tail.

“I’m so sorry we abandoned you,” she whispered.

Immediately after this, a new great slime mold entered the other side of the clearing, thrashing forward enthusiastically as it followed a trail of dhrowgos parts. Only seconds later Dart flew up.

“That was unpleasant,” she announced. Interspersed with her words were a number of chirps and clicks, that Lilijoy could only assume were untranslated invective.

Lilijoy began untangling herself from Skria’s cling, only for both of them to be gathered up in Jessila’s powerful arms.

“Thank you,” was all she said, her melodious voice trembling.

Rosemallow crossed her arms and looked on. After a few more seconds she cleared her throat.

“Ahem. You three are going to start attracting alicorns if you keep that up.”

Did she just reference...nah. Although someone has to cultivate friendship, right? Lilijoy’s mind reeled with implications nearly as disturbing as being somehow eaten by Guardian. Or at least nearly as distracting.

After the reunion, there wasn’t much to do but watch as more and more great slime molds made their way to the Greatwood, cleaning as they moved across the clearing and onto the mighty trunk. Lilijoy explained the events of the day as best she could to her friends, though she glossed over everything related to Nandi’s boon and her developing abilities with mana, as well as her first step along the path.

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her friends, but that she needed time to wrap her head around what it all meant. That, and her newfound respect for just how powerful Charm could be. She now truly understood that the only secrets she could keep were those that stayed within her own head. It was a lonely feeling, but until she understood how dangerous the information might be, or how it might impact her friends, she wasn’t comfortable sharing it.

She wanted to continue her conversation with Rosemallow, but the Oni had performed one of her tremendous leaps and made her way back up the tree. The only new information Lilijoy had obtained from her was that Doctor Quimea had self-destructed not long after Rosemallow had recovered from the effects of the suppressing array, once the last of his men had been hurled from the Greatwood. That left the three girls standing by themselves, as Dart had returned to the camp once more to spread the news, hopefully with more success.

“So what now?” Skria asked. “We still have six days to make it back to the Academy.”

What now indeed. Lilijoy thought. She wanted to get back, to find Attaboy, though she was very nervous about who he might be when she found him.

Any part of him is better than all of him dead. At least I hope so. I wonder what he’ll think of me?

It occurred to her that the changes to her were possibly just as substantial as anything that had happened to Attaboy.

Will he even recognize me, past my appearance? Not long ago we were making mud pies and scrounging for food pellets. Now we’re god chow.

“I need to get back as soon as I can,” she replied. “This whole expedition was a waste. Attaboy found his way Inside, to the Academy not long after we left.”

Skria processed that. “Oh. Lily, I’m sorry. But please don’t call this trip a waste. Think of everything we’ve done. Jessila found a source after all. Oh!” She flapped her arms as she exclaimed, rising several feet into the air. “I forgot to tell you! Or really Jess did.” She looked up at Jessila.

Jess shuffled her feet and generally looked uncomfortable. “I lost my accomplishment.” She had a shy smile on her face.

“Isn’t that great? The elves don’t hate her anymore, so she's not Despised anymore” Skria added. “It happened earlier today. Thankfully, almost all the elves in the Wraiths were tempered, so it didn’t matter that much when we were hanging around their camp, but something about what we did must have percolated through, and now she’s only disliked!”

Seeing Jessila smile caused a small wave of happiness to pass through Lilijoy, and an insight struck.

Maybe this doesn’t have to be all about me, my experience. Empathy and connections with others is another powerful source of meaning and experience. It’s another form of externality.

She giggled internally at the thought of telling Doctor Quimea that the secret to growth was the power of friendship. It was definitely stretching the truth, as she understood it, but it was a funny image nonetheless. Then she realized that her insight was not truly a new one, just a different angle on the question of simulation. Human biology was specialized to simulate the neural processes in others when they experienced emotions, to the extent that the degree of a person’s empathy could be measured by the extent their brain activated mirror circuits corresponding to the emotions they perceived.

She remembered her argument with Quimea on the rooftop.

It keeps coming back to Rule Three. If I can emulate a system, it implies that I can empathize, and the better the emulation, the more empathy there should be. But is it a necessary connection?

It wasn’t an easy subject to examine, but she thought the difference might be in whether the emulation was behavioral or motivational. She thought of her combat models, which were certainly behavioral; they tried to predict a future movement based on the recent past, not based on the internal state of the being doing the movement. The problem was, the two types of modeling weren’t mutually exclusive, they could be combined to varying degrees, and overlaid with knowledge about the system as a whole. If she knew someone practiced a particular martial art, one she also understood, then she could predict their movements much better than one she didn’t understand. Did that mean that the knowledge functioned as a kind of constraint, something like a probability cloud in physics?

There was something tantalizing at the end of this rambling chain of thought, and she promised herself she would return to it sometime soon, but she didn’t have nearly enough time to think it through in the middle of a social interaction.

“That’s amazing, Jess!” she exclaimed.

Over the next few minutes of conversation, Lilijoy learned that Skria and Jessila had each reached level thirteen, which they were both very pleased about. It gave Lilijoy an excuse to ask them about gathering experience from an Insider perspective.

“It’s like there’s a fog,” Skria explained. “Every time we learn something or feel something new, the fog clears a little bit.”

Jessila gave her a strange look, but didn’t say anything.

“What is it, Jess?” Lilijoy asked.

“For me, it’s digging, like uncovering something buried.”

“So how literally do you mean it?” Lilijoy asked them both. “And how is it that you’ve never talked about it with each other?”

Skria and Jess looked at each other and shrugged.

“It’s more a feeling than anything, though I’ve heard it gets more vivid later on. I talked about it when I was newly tempered, with others of my kind, so I just assumed everyone felt the same way,” said Skria.

Jess just shrugged again and Lilijoy was reluctant to put her on the spot by inquiring further. She imagined that the big girl hadn’t talked with many other Insiders, besides Skria. So she was a little surprised when Jessila started speaking.

“Master Rosemallow says I’m uncovering my foundation, and that later on I can build on it. It’s a place in my internal awareness. I can see it.” She reached down to pat the ground. “Like this.”

Lilijoy found it apt that her air oriented friend had a more diffuse, fog model, and her earth oriented friend had a more concrete one. What confused her a bit was that both spoke of revealing something that already existed. It was a stark contrast to her chaotic multi-dimensional swirl.

And what about other Outsiders? she wondered. Or is this just another way I’m not like them, due to my system? Or something that I was supposed to get later, like Rosemallow was saying.

“What about you, Lily?” Skria asked.

Lilijoy thought fast to find a metaphor beyond a food processor being fed the contents of her experiences.

“It’s kind of like a ball of yarn, always spinning and gathering more threads,” she finally said. “I have no idea what it’s supposed to look like or how it’s going to end up.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Skria chimed in. “It must be like Jess’s foundation. Once you have enough yarn, then you can weave it into something.”

Lilijoy felt her jaw drop a little. “That...” She rolled the idea around in her head. “...is really helpful.”

It was all a metaphor on some level, created by her system, fed by the Inside. Her soul vortex was much messier than her ball of yarn comparison implied, and she didn’t expect to be weaving metaphorical sweaters out of it any time soon. Well, ever. But on a meta level, Skria’s notion dovetailed with what Rosemallow had told her, that she needed a critical mass before she could build the connections that would allow her to truly leverage her experience. The soul vortex was simply a tool for doing so.

Outsiders and Insiders have very different modalities at this stage, she mused. I wonder if that changes in Purgatory? It certainly seems like I’m closer to the Insiders in this way. Though it raises the question of my Outside experience; it certainly seems to add to my soul vortex, so why doesn’t it impact my Inside experience? I guess that’s part of being some weird hybrid, that the simple system of points used by Outsiders applies to leveling up for me. I wonder if I could change that?

The bomb that Rosemallow had casually dropped in her lap before her friends arrived was still ticking in the back of her mind as well. What could it mean, that Guardian was going to eat her? Her personally? And why would Rosemallow tell her? The extent to which a subset could work against the collective intelligence of Guardian, or the Archon, wasn’t entirely clear, though it seemed like they did have a lot of independence. Was telling her an act of rebellion? Or was it such a certain outcome that it didn’t matter whether she knew or not?

If it’s a useful warning, I could just leave the Inside, and never come back, right? Turn off my connection to all external data, and live the rest of my life Outside. Once I pass along the warning to Attaboy, anyway.

She decided to defer any more thinking on the subject until she had a chance to talk to Rosemallow, and possibly Professor Anaskafius, but she filed away the possibility as something she should prepare for emotionally.

I wonder how Nandi fits into all of this? He seems to like me… maybe I can talk to him somehow. Or maybe he already gave me a hint. That riddle. It didn’t seem like it had anything to do with using the boon.

With a new sense of urgency, she played the riddle back for herself. Four have come before, only one persists. Seek out the master of five eyes so that there may be two.

It’s more like a warning. Like I need to seek out the master of five eyes to save someone, possibly myself. If he was warning me personally, then it means that…

She took a moment to review everything she had learned from Rosemallow: A handful of Guardian’s children. This time there were two of them, which was unusual. Great Cycles.

This would likely be the fifth Great Cycle since Guardian came to be; Dean Reunification said they happen about every thirty years. I would be the fifth. If one remains, that means there’s a way to escape the situation, and this ‘master of the five eyes’ might know what it is. Except this time, there’s two of us, so does that make Attaboy the sixth? Or are we both needed?

She thought over the timeline. If Nandi’s message came from when he first gave her the boon, then it seemed likely he wouldn’t have known about Attaboy. That could explain why the numbers were the way they were. It didn’t explain why Nandi would give her such a warning, or what he and now Rosemallow were doing by warning her. It also didn’t explain why Nandi used a particularly obscure riddle to do so.

So all I need to do is find the master of five eyes. Or is it the Master of Five Eyes? Five eyes...

Not long ago, she had wracked every ounce of her internet memory, looking for any clues from Outside mythology, literature or history. She had thought that the 'master of five eyes' might be some obscure deity or spirit incorporated into the Inside, or perhaps it was a character from a book. There were a few possible clues from her search, including a group of plants from the nightshade family, and a species of flounder. It was also the name of an intelligence sharing alliance between five countries in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

None of those things jumped out at her as an obvious connection, but she had filed them away in case further connections arose. She decided that her next step would be to find out as much as she could about the previous Children of the Great Mind, who they were and what happened to them. Who was the ‘one who persisted’? If they were still around, she could probably learn a lot from them too.

So I’m back to information gathering. I wonder how sneaky I should be? I don’t know just how secret any of this is. Argh.

She decided that Rosemallow, Anaskafius and the mystic library would be her starting points. After that, she might know enough to begin to think about next steps.

She came out of her thoughts, to see Skria and Jessila staring at her.

Did I really think for that long? I guess I’m starting to abuse my fast thinking.

“Sorry!” she said. “So do you get actual experience points, or do you just pop up a level whenever it’s time?”

Due to Rosemallow’s interference, but she hadn’t seen any kind of running tally of her progress to the next level since the very first days of her Inside experience. She felt a little deprived by this, though not too much anymore, not since she had so many other things Outsiders didn’t.

“Nope, no points,” Skria said. “It just happens when it happens. My wit-mother hasn’t leveled in years, but she doesn’t mind because she has nurtured her kin during that time.”

“What’s a wit-mother?” asked Lilijoy. It was the first time she’d heard the term.

Skria scratched her head. “She’s my closest relative who’s also tempered. My blood great-grandmother.”

“You mean...” Lilijoy had never really thought through the implications of tempered versus untempered individuals within a family. What would it be like to grow up, and one day realize that all your closest relatives weren’t self aware?

Oh, wait. I know exactly what that’s like. Heck, I bet most normal Outsider teenagers felt that way.

“...your family isn’t tempered? What is that like?”

Skria gave her a funny look. “Normal? I mean, there’s way more untempered, and you only notice that they’re a little predictable when something unusual happens.”

“But what about tempered parents? They’re fine with having kids who aren’t?”

“I wouldn’t know. It’s not something we talk about much. I’m sure they love them just the same. I mean, no one’s tempered for at least the first ten years, and usually longer than that.”

“But do they try to temper them? I mean...”

Skria held up a hand, and her words were clipped. “Please. It’s a sensitive subject.”

Now Lilijoy felt bad. “I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I’m just trying to learn as much as I can so that I understand… all of it.”

Skria nodded, and her ears, which had laid back on her head, popped up a bit. “No, I’m sorry. It’s...”

At this point, Rosemallow landed nearby with an enormous crash. She gestured to Lilijoy and spoke.

“Hey kid. The tree wants to talk to you.”

***

Lilijoy looked out over the forest of Averdale through the gaping hole in the side of the wooden caldera’s rim.

“That’s where the annoying guy blew himself up.” Rosemallow commented. “It’s a shame. I was really looking forward to giving him a taste of his own medicine, but he wasn’t taking any chances with his respawn.”

Looking at the size of the hole and its jagged black edges, Lilijoy could only nod in agreement.

No, Quimea wouldn’t leave something like that to chance. I wonder what happened to that Nykka person? I hope she wasn’t too traumatized. Except she could be just as bad as the rest. Maybe worse, if she’s Quimea’s assistant.

Lilijoy didn’t have much sympathy for the Sinaloa members who had been at the tender mercies of the Drowgos. As far as she was concerned, if it prevented them from ever logging in again, that was all the better.

I suppose they all logged out before the worst part anyway. Hope they enjoy the twenty-four hour debuffs as much as I have.

A thought occurred to her. “Rosemallow, are the Dhrowgos going to respawn here?”

Rosemallow pursed her lips. “Tricky. It depends a bit on what happens now, with the tree. If it wants them to, then they will, otherwise they’ll come back somewhere in the forest, would be my guess.”

Before Rosemallow had brought Lilijoy up the tree, carrying her like a sack of potatoes as she leapt from massive limb to limb, she had pulled her away from the others and explained a little bit about what was going on.

“Becoming tempered is never pretty. Some of us call it a second birth, and it tends to share a lot in common with the first one.”

This gave Lilijoy pause. She had never considered the details of how new Insiders came to be. Given that Outsiders didn’t need to go to the bathroom, she had, to the extent she thought about it at all, assumed there must be some less messy Inside version of such events.

Guess not.

“Thanks to Eskallia’s methods, this tempering was about as bad as they come. Bad enough that the Archon sent me to help. That’s never happened before.”

Lilijoy nodded along, but it wasn’t what she wanted to be discussing, interesting as it was. Unfortunately, she had a feeling that Rosemallow wouldn’t respond well if she tried to change the subject to child-eating gods.

“Anyway,” Rosemallow continued, “most newly tempered are a bit disoriented, and they tend to rely heavily on who they were in their first life. Our problem here is that our little friend…” she gestured expansively “...didn’t have much of a life. More than you might think, I’m guessing, since it was sort of hooked into the elves, but unfortunately, the elves it was hooked into most recently weren’t exactly good role models. Not their fault, of course. But even when they turned into Dhrowgos, the tree was still connected to them.”

Lilijoy nodded some more. She had picked up that much from her own experience with the Greatwood.

“So what am I supposed to do?” she asked. “Use my ability again?”

Rosemallow winced. “Well, about that,” she started, “you know how the newly tempered tend to cling to their first life? Thing is, your ability seems to have put a new spin on that. I don’t think the tree got any of your memories, but it, or maybe I should start saying she, seems to have picked up a bit of your...personality? Anyway, lets get up there and see. She won’t talk to me any more, and there are a few other complications that are easier to see than explain."

Back at the top of the tree, Lilijoy turned away from the newly created view, and looked out over the floor of the open space of the caldera. It seemed to have been cleaned up some, as there was no longer a hint of stone, and most of the roots were gone as well, whether destroyed or absorbed by the tree, she couldn’t guess.

The ambient mana was also fresh again, or at least far less corrupted. The slime molds were only about halfway up the trunk, and Lilijoy hoped they wouldn’t be too disappointed if they got to the top.

Or maybe that’s why the mana is already cleaner up here?

Her plan, such as it was, had been for the slime molds to help clean up the corruption from Sinaloa and the Dhrowgos, and hopefully make the tree a bit happier. Or less insane. Something like that. When she had been merged with the tree, she had channeled her own rage and desire for destruction to match that of the nascent mind, filled herself and been filled in turn with the darkest aspects of nature.

It had been necessary, but also very easy.

It’s really at my core, she realized. Underneath all the knowledge of the internet is Lilijoy from the Piles, who crushed and tore a dog’s face with her teeth. Who faced hunger and abuse every day. Who does whatever is necessary to survive. If it weren’t for my friendship with Attaboy, I would be… well, I don’t know. But it wouldn’t be pretty. I wouldn’t be on a path of joyful anticipation, that’s for sure.

That same darkness was within the Greatwood, and what it, or she, needed was balance. To understand that the darkness within was a tool for survival, not a goal in and of itself.

That’s the difference between nature and evil. In nature, the darkness has built in limits. If the parasite is too greedy, if the disease kills too fast, if the predator kills for sport, then the system will correct against their success, eventually. Evil is when a process proliferates without balance, whether that proliferation is within the mind, or out in the world.

It wasn’t a clear distinction, she realized, but a continuum, or a curve even, where evil could be said to occur at a certain inflection point.

It was Rule One.

Oh boy. There’s a rabbit hole I don’t need to go down right now.

She resisted the temptation to pull up and analyze Rule One, and turned her attention to the wooden figure standing in front of the heart of the Greatwood.Roughly human shaped, over six feet tall, and covered with a thick mesh of overlapping roots, it was one of the things Rosemallow had thought too difficult to explain.

What’s so hard to explain about that? she wondered.

She approached, and as she did, she realized that there was a human body at the center of the of the root bundle. Closer still, and she realized that the roots mingled with flesh, penetrating and weaving through the body. All she could make out of the original appearance was the lower face, which sported a thin mustache and goatee.

She reached a position just a few feet away and looked up.

“Hello?” she said.

The figure's jaw worked back and forth several times with a dull cracking sound before opening. A high pitched voice, slurred and indistinct issued forth. A girl’s voice. Her voice.

“Hello.” The voice said. “I miss you. Why did you leave?”

Lilijoy shuddered, repulsed and sympathetic at the same time. It wasn’t entirely clear to her what she was supposed to accomplish by talking to the tree, which she assumed was using the body as a horrifying ventriloquist’s dummy. She decided that being as clear and honest as possible would be a good way to start.

“I had to get away from the Dhrowgos and the bad people who hurt you. But I’m back now, and I brought the slime molds to help get you cleaned up.”

The jaw worked around a few times. “Are you going to stay? I kept some of the bad guys to play with.”

More of the root infiltrated bodies rose from the wood around her. Lilijoy knew they were just the abandoned shells of the Sinaloa Outsiders, but it was still a grotesque spectacle. Almost as disturbing as listening to her own voice issue from a grown man root-puppet.

Now it’s a real torture garden. This is such a mess. Why am I the one who’s supposed to clean it up again?

“It was fun destroying all their buildings and punishing them, wasn’t it?” she said. “I don’t think they’re very fun like that though.”

“But I can move them around!” The arms of several of the bodies flopped limply. “I’m getting pretty good at it.”

Lilijoy could see Rosemallow, off to the side, shaking her head with her hand over her eyes.

“Wow…that’s...impressive,” she said, trying to be encouraging, while not entirely sure if she should be. She stopped herself from suggesting the tree form a dance troupe.

Although a kick-line would be pretty funny. Maybe I should teach her how to sing while I’m at it.

Some part of Lilijoy, a part of her that was so, so, tired of being used, of being pushed around and told what to do without knowing why, wanted to use this situation to push back.

The Archon sat on his butt and let Sinaloa torture Insiders for decades. The Archon let Eskallia do whatever it was she did to me. I’d like the Greatwood to be happy, but if what makes her happy is playing puppets with Outsider bodies and farming Dhrowgos, why should I stand in the way? Let the Archon fix it if he wants.

“You know what?” she said. “I think that’s pretty cool.”

“Thanks. I think I could do more, but I’m really tired from before. I can’t move many roots at all right now.”

“So what are you going to do with the Dhrowgos?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t really like the way they feel, but they’ve been with me for so long. I miss them. Do you know where they went?”

Lilijoy decided now was not the time to educate the tree about death and respawning. “Not really, but I’m pretty sure they’ll come back eventually. Of course the slime molds will eat them when they do, if they are still around.”

“Oh. I kind of like those too. They tickle.”

“The slime molds may want to eat your puppets too,” Lilijoy warned. “If they do, the puppets won’t ever come back.”

“That’s okay,” said the tree. “I’ve got lots. I’m keeping them alive with my roots. Would you like to stay with me forever and be a puppet too?”

Well, that took a dark turn. How is she going to react if I say I don’t? Change the subject, quick!

“Do you remember the elves? They used to live on you, and some of them turned into the Dhrowgos because the bad men hurt them so much.”

There was a long silence. Then the bodies around her began to twitch and jerk. The one she had been talking to tried to say something, but Lilijoy couldn’t tell what, because the jaw kept flopping shut in the middle of words.

I think I hit a nerve or something.

“I’m sorry!” she called out. “I can’t understand you.”

Rosemallow was making some kind of hand signal, which Lilijoy ignored. Finally the Greatwood calmed down enough to get out a few words.

“They left me! Left ME!”

The entire tree shook with her last word and one of the bodies was ripped apart, showering Lilijoy with blood.

Oookay, she thought as she wiped her face with one hand. Some abandonment issues. Guess that’s understandable. But again, not my problem.

She walked over to Rosemallow, dripping as she went.

“Whatever you think I’m supposed to do here, which no one has bothered to explain to me, it’s not going to happen.” She drew upon her recovering system to maintain her calm. “This tree needs a therapist, not a thirteen year-old.”

The tree shook more and several more of the puppet-bodies exploded in showers of gore behind her. She ignored it.

She also ignored Rosemallow’s expression as she continued, her hands finding their way to her hips.

“If the Archon wants this fixed he can get someone else to do it. Or get off his ass and do it himself. I'm sure there must be some Gongen who cultivates… I don’t know, emotional attachment or something. Or he can just wave a hand and keebler up the tree again or something. All I know is, I’ve had it with mysteries and riddles. I did what I needed to do, which I didn’t need to do anyway it turns out, and now I’m going to go back to the Academy and get Attaboy. And...”

At this point, she became aware that Rosemallow was no longer looking at her, and that the air had become still and silent. A bird hovered in the distance, stopped in mid flight. She turned slowly, following Rosemallow’s gaze, and found a figure in brown robes standing behind her. He had a hood over his head, but she could make out a gray beard and dark eyes.

“… seriously?” she finished.

“Seriously.” he replied. “I have a gift for you, wrapped in a parable.”

She tried really hard, but her eyes rolled anyway. “Can I ask you a question?”

“I’m sure you can.” the Archon replied.

“You know, I do kind of get why you don’t just fix things all the time. You need to generate meaning; consequences, and struggle, and discovery and all of that stuff. It’s pretty much your reason for existence, right? So you’re always trying to balance bad things and good things, ignorance and knowledge, creating opportunities for struggle and growth.”

He nodded.

“So why now? Why drop in now, and offer me a gift wrapped in a parable, or whatever?”

A hint of a smile crossed his shadowed face. “Just a little gardening.”

“And you can’t do that through the Gongen?”

“That would be the same for me, but not for you.”

So I’m just being manipulated. He figures a personal appearance will sway me to...what? Stay Inside so I can be eaten later?

“No,” he said. “That’s only a half-truth. Your teacher means well, but she can’t help but create conflict, even when acting from compassion.”

Aaand he’s reading my thoughts. Hi! Stay out of my mind, please.

“I am in your mind, you are in my mind… it’s interesting isn’t it?” he said.

She split her mind and partitioned the areas of her senses impacted by the Inside, making the outward facing part of herself, the part connected to the Inside, little more than a vehicle for passing along her words.

“Well done!” he said. “Now imagine running a couple million of those. It gets tiresome, so you end up giving them enough processing power to get along on their own. Sometimes, they get a little out of balance and create situations that require a more direct approach. Though keep in mind, the avatar you are talking to is basically the same thing, an outward facing sub-unit that can relay my intent. It’s mostly symbolic.”

“Thanks,” she said, unsure if she was being sarcastic or not. Mostly not, she decided. It was refreshing to get something approaching an answer, even to a question she hadn’t asked. Although…

“But you still haven’t answered my question, not really. Why now?”

“Because I want you to decide. It is your right.”

He pulled a ripe fruit of a kind she didn’t recognize from his robe. The fruit was radiant, red and firm, it looked delicious. She could smell it where she stood, and felt her mouth water.

Am I Eve or Snow White? she wondered.

He approached and offered her the fruit.

I guess this is the gift wrapped in a parable. Yay? I think I already learned the ‘don’t take candy from strangers’ lesson from Head Treetouched. Although I really wasn’t given a choice, at least initially. My mistake was using her ‘gift’ without understanding what it was. Still…

She hesitated, not sure what she might be agreeing to by taking the offering.

“Don’t overthink this,” the Archon said. “Or rather, think carefully about real sources of danger.”

Real sources. Right. Like everything around me. He doesn’t need to trick me; it’s not like I’m Persephone eating in the underworld. This is all sensory data, but even if it wasn’t, it could come through my eyes just as easily as my hand.

She took it. At the touch of her hand, the fruit began to wither, the skin wrinkled and blemished, decaying before her eyes. A strong, sour smell hit her nose, and she reflexively looked around to make sure Slimey wasn’t near, before she remembered that time around them had stopped.

She looked from the disgusting mess in her hand to the Archon.

“Thanks?”

He nodded, then vanished. Time resumed.

What the heck was that?

She looked back at the rotten fruit, contemplating what to do with it, wondering what this was supposed to convey to her.

I suppose I should think it through before I throw it over the side. Wasn’t I just complaining about riddles and mysteries?

She had to admit that she was intrigued at least as much as she was annoyed though. Maybe because this was a puzzle she could hold, or ultimately throw away if she wanted.

The gift of rotten fruit. Except it rotted when I received it. He did say it was a parable, so I shouldn’t overthink it. Could it really be that obvious? We are in the Garden after all. So the fruit would represent knowledge of some kind. It was whole and beautiful in his possession, but it became disgusting and useless when he transferred it.

She was pretty sure that was the message. It was a warning, or maybe an apology, that knowledge couldn’t be given freely without corrupting it.

So then, what’s the gift? What does a rotten fruit have to offer to my circumstances?

The answer felt obvious, once she thought like a gardener. She threw the fruit onto the ground, smashing it into pieces and revealing a silver seed. She heard a sharp intake of breath behind her from Rosemallow.

“Do you understand what that is?” her trainer asked. Her voice was strained and tight.

Lilijoy looked back at her, to see a look of absolute shock and sorrow upon Rosemallow’s face.

What could have such an impact? “No, I don’t,” she replied.

“That-” Rosemallow’s voice broke. “That is my oldest friend. That is Eskallia Everbough.”

Head Treetouched. This is my gift, and my choice. It’s not much of a choice, really, but still a nice gesture.

Now Lilijoy understood. Eskallia had been punished, reduced to this small, silver seed. Once she had held Lilijoy in her grasp and manipulated her fate, now Lilijoy had the same power over her.

The gift was justice. The choice was… obvious.

She walked back to address the Greatwood.

“How would you like a friend who will never abandon you?” she asked.