The universe wasn’t as large as it used to be. It hadn’t physically grown smaller in size. Quite the contrary, actually. There were systems of the Throne designed to expand and populate the physical universe in perpetuity. No actual conscious effort was needed to do so, though it also wasn’t a constant or quick thing. But, for Alyssa Meadows, even what little expansion there had been felt like nothing in the grand scheme of things.

It was a consequence of taking the Throne. It was everywhere. And everything. She could see the happenings of the past, of the future, and the present. All at once. Location didn’t matter. She could see Kasita on Earth, talking with her father. It happened a long time ago. Or maybe it hadn’t happened yet. With the Throne, she wasn’t sure that it mattered. If Alyssa desired, she could step in and stop anything from happening before Kasita got the idea, even though she already saw what transpired.

She didn’t. She didn’t want to interfere with anything. She didn’t want to bump, nudge, or otherwise influence anything. Kasita thought she was afraid of mind controlling people. She was—taking away agency seemed like a fairly reprehensible action—but that wasn’t her true fear. If Alyssa didn’t want Kasita to talk to her father, it wasn’t just that she would take away the choice by changing something. There never would have been a choice in the first place.

After meeting Tenebrael and discovering what those black books were for, Alyssa hadn’t liked the idea of them. In the battle between fate and determinism, Alyssa leaned heavily into the determinism side of things. The idea that her life had never been under her own control was a frightening one. Having come into contact with the Throne, she knew that she hadn’t been part of some grand plot of fate… and she didn’t want to inflict that upon others.

At the same time, giving everyone completely free choice to do whatever they wanted led to dictators, torturers, rapists, murderers, and all manner of atrocious sorts. At the moment, she had ordered the Guardian Angels and Archangels to guide people, subtle influences toward escape from horrible situations or, where possible, to prevent people from becoming horrors in the first place. She had to do something. She couldn’t just… not.

But how much was too little? How much was too much?

Would it be better to completely rewrite reality? Have people live in little theme-park versions of the universe where everything went just perfect all the time? A Truman’s Show for everyone? Shove everyone into the Matrix and be done with it all?

If she wanted, she was pretty sure she could literally give every unique individual their own universe to play in, populated by soulless actors that would go about, doing whatever. If the unique individual wanted to kill them, love them, or even ignore them, that would be possible. But… was that the right thing to do?

Alyssa didn’t think so.

And going to that extreme would likely have detrimental effects on reality.

It had to do with the way souls interacted. Alyssa had seen it back when she only had access to Tenebrael’s power. Little slivers of souls jumping around to other nearby souls. Those little jumps brought with them an enriching effect. People rubbed off on each other, literally. Every interaction built someone up, filling them full of life and energy.

Which, when they died, ended up returned to the universe, effectively powering all things. It wasn’t far fetched to say that the currently living populace of the universe would not be able to exist without their ancestors… for more than the simple act of being born, that was. The Throne did have some reserves, packed away deep within its burning engine of all things. Those reserves could probably last for several thousands of generations.

But for Alyssa, thousands of generations was a mere blink.

She could see no way of altering the universe to work differently, even with all the power of the Throne. It had likely been designed this way originally because it was the best way to operate the universe. Sure, she could obliterate the universe entirely. Maybe starting over from nothing would reveal a different way to go about things. Those generations of energy stored up would last for a near eternity while not powering something like the universe, so she would have time to experiment, explore, and figure things out.

Obliterating inhabited universes seemed like an even worse thing to do than to simply mind control everyone.

So that option was out.

Right out.

Even thinking about it felt dangerous. Alyssa didn’t think she would ever actually do it, but it being a possibility was frightening enough as it was. With eternity to spend sitting on the Throne, she couldn’t claim that it would never even happen. If there was one small consolation, it was that she was still immune to the Throne’s predictive machine. She couldn’t see a future where she would do such a thing. Her present self didn’t have to watch something so terrible. Of course, she couldn’t see a future where she never decided on it either, but the absence of something was not proof of its nonexistence. There was always the possibility of either outcome, so long as she remained on the Throne.

So for now, the universe would tick forward as it was with as few changes as possible.

Most of those changes, she was leaving up to Kasita. Another reason she didn’t want to interfere with Kasita’s eventual—current—past discussion with Irulon and Companion. Maybe Kasita had the right of things. And Kasita was significantly less omniscient than Alyssa was, which somehow made it better. Like she wasn’t plotting her changes to have a definite eventual outcome.

If there was one thing that Alyssa was glad to have discovered, it was that she might be able to be the same again someday. Someday soon, hopefully. Alyssa’s omniscience came from the Throne. While, at the moment, she and the Throne were almost synonymous, that almost was equivalent to the gulf between two stars. She should be able to distance herself from the Throne enough to at least be seen by mortals without doing what she did to Bercilak. And she was hoping that the distancing would come with a little less omniscience and omnipotence.

For some reason, imposing her will on others through battle, argument, or simply asking someone to do something seemed a whole lot more acceptable when she didn’t know everything. Or maybe it was the method. But when she could simply know the right words to say to someone to get the result that she wanted, conversationally asking someone was the same as mind control.

It was a dilemma and, if she were being honest, it was the main reason she was still here. That she hadn’t really tried to leave since visiting the demons. She couldn’t not know everything.

At least not until now.

Alyssa was fairly certain that she had figured out how she might be able to live a relatively normal life. Disconnecting from the Throne was simply not possible. Not now that she was connected to it. Simply standing up and walking away didn’t work. The Throne was everything and everywhere. After having hooked into its direct access point, she couldn’t break that connection. But, most importantly, she was still a separate being from the Throne. Alyssa was still Alyssa. The Throne was the Throne. They were not synonymous with each other, even if they shared a great deal elsewhere.

And that one degree of separation was enough that she thought she should be able to walk around without the full flood of information that the Throne constantly processed going through her head. She would still know that she was the Throne, but she would be able to ignore it. More or less. The exact details remained to be seen. Although she was connected to the Throne itself, the Infinite-State Machine’s Tree Diagram could still not predict her with any degree of accuracy. In fact, she was pretty sure that it was even less adept at discerning her actions than before, though she had no real proof of that.

She was, she had discovered, an aberration in the mortal code. Not a completely unique one. Just an uncommon one. Or so it was suspected. Most people like her probably lived their entire lives without interacting with anything divine. Some might see an angel as she had, but just dismiss it as a cosplayer, a trick of the light, or them being too tired and not seeing things right. Most angels didn’t stick around to chat, after all. A figment of the imagination was the likely answer most minds would jump to. Especially when most angels would not wind up teleporting the aberrations to a whole other world to be let loose to do as they wished. The Throne didn’t know what they were—what she was—only that they were the most capable beings in terms of managing, running, and otherwise ruling over the Throne. The Throne’s previous occupant had likely created the Seraphim with the express purpose of removing all threats to their rule. Threats like Alyssa.

And then got bored and walked away to find something else to do? That was the best guess Alyssa had. Details on the previous occupant of the Throne were scarce. The great library that recorded everything apparently did not record the Throne itself. It was too esoteric even to the Virtues that were designed to understand such things. No matter where she looked, she couldn’t find any of the Second and Third Sphere angels that had actually interacted with her predecessor. They all seemed to think they knew someone who had, but when asked who, they all came up blank. They weren’t faking either. Alyssa could tell.

The First Sphere angels were… not really conversational. If they spoke, it was solely to report diagnostic information. Even the Virtues and Authorities had some personality, buried as it might be. Going with that, the First Sphere angels very much lived in the moment. They weren’t designed to remember everything they came across, only to respond to various things they were programmed for. If any of them had met their creator, they wouldn’t even know it themselves.

Although the Seraphim were designed to kill beings like her, Alyssa hadn’t gotten rid of them just yet. Locked in her moral dilemmas as she was, Alyssa might not be the most effective ruler of everything. But she could think of several individuals off the top of her head who would be far worse at the job. Worse in terms of people who might actually decide to wipe the slate clean. The Seraphim were protection against that, at the moment. Though she wasn’t actually sure that they were needed.

Knowing what she did now, Alyssa couldn’t see any possible way to take the Throne’s power while someone was actively sitting on it. Even with Tenebrael and Kasita at her side, she doubted she would have been able to do what she had to a populated Throne. Maybe there was some other thing that the previous occupant had feared that would make the Seraphim necessary, but she couldn’t fathom what it might have been. As it was, she was just glad that the Throne had been vacant and the Seraphim operating off only their most base of instructions with no guiding hand behind their movements.

“Procrastinating again?”

Alyssa glanced up, already knowing that she would find Tenebrael drifting past the line of Seraphim defenders. Despite Alyssa having effectively elevated the angel’s privileges to the same level as the Seraphim, she still gave them a wary look as she floated past. They didn’t even register the Dominion of Nod’s presence. They were blind to angels under most circumstances.

Angels, after all, lacked souls. Individually, anyway. With the Throne being an engine fueling the universe from souls, and angels receiving that power…

“Why not go for a walk? Get up and stretch your legs a little. You don’t even have to go somewhere populated. I hear the insides of black holes are quite the experience.”

Blinking, Alyssa found herself experiencing everything there was to experience about black holes. It was certainly a wondrous experience, looking out into the universe… Or it would have been an exciting experience, were it not for the Throne. For one, the Throne immediately drilled everything there was to know into her head the moment the thought crossed her mind. All without the wonder or awe that such an experience should elicit.

For two, the Throne was so much more that all she could utter was an unimpressed, “Huh.”

“‘Huh,’ she says.” Tenebrael slowly shook her eyes. “Spotted Kasita talking with your mortal friends. The two that share their souls. Don’t want to go pop in and say hello?”

“No matter when that actually occurs, I can always join them. Waiting a while won’t change anything.”

“It changes you,” Tenebrael said, voice suddenly a little hard. “You might not think I’ve noticed with my own little project underway, but you haven’t come to visit me even once. I thought you said you enjoyed our little chats.”

“It was always you coming to me.”

“But now, you can come to me. And you haven’t. You haven’t gone to anyone except those demons and that first guy, whatever his name was.”

“Would it make you happy if I went to you at every step along the way? Each of those moments and this moment are so close together that it would be like walking across a room.”

“See? That’s what I’m talking about… Mortal Alyssa wouldn’t have hatched that kind of a plan. I mean, maybe… but probably not. Not after we got to be friends, anyway. The longer you sit on this Throne all by yourself, the more you’re going to be like this. The more you’re going to think that it is acceptable to us to do these kinds of things.” Tenebrael crossed her arms, putting on an obvious pout. “Honestly, I’m surprised you’re not just making me think that we’re having this conversation to placate me while you go off and brood in the corner.”

Alyssa just about told her that she wouldn’t notice one way or the other, but that was probably the wrong decision given the direction of the conversation. An instant revelation of the proceedings had she actually spoken her mind revealed that her decision was the correct one. Unless, of course, she had decided to speak and went back to change it to where she hadn’t spoken… That was a possibility. She wasn’t even sure if she would know the difference.

The Throne really complicated even little things.

Alyssa was fairly certain that she hated it.

“Come. Speak with Irulon. Actually speak with her. Not just…” Tenebrael waved a hand vaguely about the Throne.

“I can’t. If she sees me—”

“I know you’ve been working on a way around that. I know you finished shortly after we visited the demons.” Tenebrael tapped a black fingernail against her temple. “Connected to the Throne, remember?”

“It isn’t perfect yet.”

“Nothing ever is. And if you wait, you’ll just fall further from your mortal roots. It happens to angels. Guardians, Principalities, even Dominions all get to see humans often. Frequently. For some of us, it is our jobs. But the Virtues? Authorities? The entire First Sphere? They—”

“Are designed that way.”

“Were they? Or did they simply shed everything they didn’t need to perform their duties, lacking stimuli outside the Throne.” Tenebrael extended a hand up and out, reaching for Alyssa. She stopped part way, unwilling to be the one to actually initiate contact. “Come for a small walk. A break. You need to get away and I know you’ve figured out a way to do so without everything falling to pieces.”

“That’s…”

Alyssa appeared in front of the Throne, standing on the first step that led down to the rest of the room. Tenebrael didn’t flinch, but she did back a respectful distance away, lowering her hand as she moved. Though Alyssa found herself confused. She hadn’t… meant to do anything at all. Not that she could remember, anyway. And, oddly enough, trying to remember came up blank. The first time anything she had thought about came up blank. She blinked twice, looking around.

And instantly understood what she had done as she looked at the Throne.

She saw herself on the Throne, seated in a menacing pose. Slouched. One elbow planted on the armrest with her knuckles supporting her head. One leg crossed over the other. The kind any hero would hesitate to approach upon seeing. The kind of pose a villain would have in a comic book.

In her defense, it was a very comfortable pose on a mildly uncomfortable seat.

But seeing that copy of herself, she knew that there was nothing inside it. Well… Nothing active. It held her soul at the moment. That soul, much like the twin souls of Irulon and Companion, was linked to the body she was currently inhabiting. Her consciousness was in the body standing on the steps. The Throne held an empty shell. One that was still collecting all the information the Throne could provide, but it wasn’t transmitting that information to her. It was her plan, her way of getting around being the Throne. The one degree of separation required to live a relatively normal life.

She must have wiped her own memory of future and past events, for Alyssa knew only a little more than she… felt she should have known were she mortal.

At the same time, she could feel the precautions she had built into herself. If this body died, her soul would snap back into the body on the Throne. If something approached the Throne, this body would go idle as the consciousness of her soul would be forced back to the Throne. There was a certain passphrase etched into the back of her mind that would send her to the Throne as well. Just in case. Just in such an event that the Throne come under attack by angry angels, other aberrations like her, or even other unplanned events.

So… it should be safe to leave. At least, in terms of letting the Throne out of her sight. Whether or not mortals witnessing her would still cause… issues was a question that she could no longer answer. Not without going back to the Throne. Surely she wouldn’t have let herself go about on her own if it would cause issues, but perhaps a quick test was necessary.

Without even thinking about it, Alyssa was in front of a certain jail cell within Lyria. Not the dungeons of the palace, but the more conventional cells for regular criminals. This particular cell contained an old friend of hers. “Hello Cid,” she said, keeping her tone pleasant and light.

It was the middle of the night at the moment. He didn’t have windows in his cell, but there were some at the end of the corridor for him to tell the passing of days with. But despite the late hour, Cid was not sleeping.

He hadn’t been sleeping well as of late. The already itchy blanket that was essentially all he had for a bed had become infested with vermin. He was scheduled for a shaving and a bath, but not for a week from this point. Alyssa remembered that much from before, meaning she had deliberately left herself with that knowledge. She couldn’t just close her eyes and picture anyone else’s immediate future.

But knowing his immediate future would mean that she should know if her presence was causing any problems.

So far, it didn’t seem to be. He was just staring at her, squinting slightly. The squint was probably because of the bright glow in her eyes.

“Remember me? It’s been… almost a year now, so I don’t blame you if you’ve forgotten. I hear you’re being used for labor these days. Harsh labor. Probably the least that you deserve.”

“Who are you?” His voice was raspy. Not from overuse, but lack of use.

“It doesn’t matter. If you do as I say for the next few moments, I’ll make your stay here slightly more pleasant. How does that sound?” Cleaning up the vermin was honestly not even for him. It was for the poor guards who had to interact with him. “Close your eyes,” she said. He obeyed a whole lot quicker than she would have expected, and without objection or further question, making her a little nervous about her using Throne powers to force it, but… She had left memories of his future intact meaning that she had known he would be compliant beforehand. So she didn’t wait long before asking her question. “Can you still see me?”

After making a disgruntled face, he blinked his eyes open. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Alyssa shrugged. That was as good as a response as she cared to get. Without answering, she returned to the Endless Expanse, taking all the vermin of the jailhouse with her. Every rat, flea, mite, and everything else instantly vanished upon arrival, dispersing into nothingness.

Tenebrael was still waiting, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s fine,” Alyssa said. “I was just checking something really quick. On to Irulon?”

Tenebrael glanced up to the body on the Throne then back down to Alyssa. Slowly, she shook her head. “Well, at least you’re going for a walk. I think.” With that, she turned and started drifting away.

Alyssa followed in tow. Not that they had to go very far. Neither of them were particularly restricted by spacial limitations and the Endless Expanse had very few such constraints as it was. They appeared in a velvety alcove in just a few seconds.

Which caused Kasita to jump right up from the chair she was occupying. Alyssa could feel space twisting, moving in the way that Kasita tended to make it when she got bored. Alyssa could tell that she was trying to seal off Irulon and Companion in their own little universe before they could catch sight of Alyssa. But there was no need for such protections at the moment. Alyssa just waved a hand, canceling the changes before they could truly begin.

“It’s alright. I think I’m fine to be seen at the moment.”

“Are you sure?”

Alyssa looked to Irulon and Companion, both of whom had to stand up to face Alyssa. Neither of them would be able to see Tenebrael—not now, but perhaps that was something Alyssa could fix—but they could clearly see the fleshy body standing before them. “Feeling any headaches, nausea, impending feelings of doom, or early-onset insanity?”

Neither spoke for just a moment before they both crossed their arms as one.

“Hm,” Companion said.

“Good to see you, I suppose. How long were you planning on hiding out here?”

“I’m not sure how long its been. Had to erase a large chunk of my memory. I…” Alyssa shook her head with a small chuckle. That chuckle turned to a sorry laugh before she took a few more steps forward and wrapped an arm around both Irulon and Companion’s shoulders. “I should have done it a long time ago. Sorry.”