ROBIN SAT ON the stone tiles of the main hall while Rook and Medea pushed the long wooden tables aside to allow them space to work. Sweat-stained clothing clung to his skin; his breath came harsh and fast. It was as if the acid were still melting his flesh even now, the pain only just manageable thanks to Sesara’s herbs.

Medea had changed his bandages earlier and applied more leaves, almost losing her stomach during the process, and he'd elected to limit himself to stretch their supply and to be fully aware for what was to come.

He was starting to regret that decision.

Rook paced over, flipping through a thick tome in his hands. He glanced at Robin, expression unreadable; the same look he’d been giving Robin since he’d seen the extent of his burns, as if unsure of what to make of his existence.

“We… doin’ this?” Robin asked between labored breaths.

Rook stared a moment longer, eventually giving a slow nod before directing Medea to sit across Robin, gesturing toward her and the floor to make his point. She nodded and joined him on the cool stone as Rook began to read from the tome, often pausing to reread a passage several times to discern its true meaning. It was immediately clear they were working from a rough translation at best, and Robin found himself wondering if perhaps he should’ve have placed more stock in Medea’s reluctance to tamper with the soul.

The process involved Medea using her aethersense to gain a feel for both her own inherent aether and Robin’s, as well as the aether lingering in the atmosphere around them. The idea was to bridge the individual’s aether with the passive aether in the atmosphere using the Tempering method described in the tome, apparently providing the soul something like a battery to perform its primary function—which according to the Syrenese people was growth.

They believed a soul would always seek to better itself, and in fact founded their very society on the principle of constant advancement… perhaps to a reckless degree. For such supposedly powerful practitioners, the Syrenese people were conspicuously absent in the annals of history, disappearing without a trace many centuries prior.

Robin did his best to relay everything to Medea, who always had an astute question ready on her lips which he almost never had an answer to, leading to a back and forth between all three of them that was as enlightening as it was exhausting. Thankfully, Medea eventually seemed to have a basic grasp on what she was supposed to be doing, which was good because Robin certainly didn’t. It was all abstract nonsense to him; something about allowing the aether to flow and simply opening the way as opposed to directing it, which was obviously far more dangerous… for some reason.

He wasn’t stupid… or at least he didn’t think he was stupid… but it was like knowing there was little to no gravity in space and actually experiencing weightlessness. Like gravity, Aether was a powerful force that didn’t like being controlled; that was easy enough to understand. But much like floating in space, Robin simply couldn’t fathom what such a thing would feel like… or how gravity was related to time and space as a whole or how aether made fire on the palm of someone’s hand…

Yeah, so maybe his understanding of the universe was just shit all around. He blamed public education.

“Shall we?” Medea met his eyes, her knees bumping up against his as she grasped for his hand.

Proximity was supposed to make the bridging process easier. It was strange how comfortable her touch was… even if mildly distracting. When was the last time he’d been close enough to feel another person’s warmth? After Robin left home, there’d been little time to pursue such things; he’d had to grow up faster than most. That didn’t mean he thought he was mature or anything, just that he’d had to learn to fend for himself. He wasn’t proud of some of the things he’d done, or who he’d done them with, but that kind of thing tended to put one’s priorities into perspective, and at the very least, it’d given Robin plenty of time to contemplate how he felt about connections with other human beings, physical or otherwise.

Like he’d told Medea, and like his brain kept screaming at him, everyone was out for themselves. If someone were bumping knees with him or wrapping their soft fingers around his or staring at him with their big damn puppy eyes back on Earth, he’d instantly be on guard and assume they wanted something of his and had already set in motion their plan to take it. If he wanted to stay safe, he needed to pull away, push her away, something. At the very least make it plain her casual touches weren’t welcome—he wasn’t sure how that’d even started happening in the first place.

“Robin?” Medea gave him a reassuring squeeze, concern etched on her face.

“Yeah.” He sighed, doing nothing at all. “Let’s do it.”

She nodded, closing her eyes. Robin followed suit, doing his best to ignore the wildfire raging on his skin and allow the world to fade away. His only real task was to remain as relaxed and open as possible, whatever that meant. So he’d opted to take the spiritually enlightened approach and try to meditate his problems away.

Clearing his mind wasn’t something he’d ever been good at, however, and thoughts of pretty girls with violet hair intermingled with swarms of Blighted monstrosities, one close enough to stab him in the neck, the other waiting just beyond an iron gate to tear out his heart. He fought down the urge to fidget, wondering if that alone was cause to disrupt whatever it was Medea was trying to do.

After perhaps half an hour of meditation Robin felt himself begin to slip into unconsciousness, the toll of his wounds adding to his relaxation to induce sleep. There was a clear moment just before he nodded off where he felt something shift in the air.

When he opened his eyes, Medea was gone. Rook was missing as well, no longer sitting at his perch quietly deciphering tomes. The main hall was devoid of life, the silence smothering.

Had he fallen asleep, or had Medea succeeded?

“Why not both?”

Robin turned, coming face to face with himself. Not a mirror; more like a dream-haze doppelganger or something.

“Well, that’s fun.” Robin laughed, shaking his head. “But if this is some kind of Tempering thing, shouldn’t Medea be here too?”

Not-Robin raised an eyebrow, motioning to something beside him. “Isn’t she?”

Robin blinked, turning to the pile of dismembered limbs nearby. No, pile didn’t do it justice—all those severed appendages had been lovingly stitched together to form something beautiful; throne was more appropriate. At the crown was a decapitated head with its eyes scraped out, chunks of purple hair ripped from its scalp. How strange he hadn’t noticed her when she’d been there all along. Stranger still, he didn’t remember her having so many hands.

Not-Robin paced over and offered him a seat on Medea, which he accepted, and a moment later Not-Robin had seated himself on his very own Medea, identical to Robin’s in every way. Now they could speak properly, like gentlemen.

Not-Robin began the dialogue with a single word. “Magic.”

“Acquire magic, we will,” Robin agreed. “Make a plan, we should.”

“All in favor?” Ever the impetuous one, Delta-Robin brought it to a vote almost immediately. His Medea seemed more like a chair than a throne, and it was difficult to tell if she was laughing or screaming. How sad.

“We need to vote to make a plan? Really? Are we stupid?” Mu-Robin laughed. “And why the fuck is he talking like Yoda?”

There were noises of discontent among the council, though just as many hummed their agreement.

“Shut up, assholes,” Zeta-Robin said, voice flapping from underneath his eyepatch. His Medea had eyepatches too for some reason—one for each missing eye. Didn’t seem fair, really; that was basically double the authority. “Remember what Danny always said—”

Despite his commanding eyewear, there were howls of rage from the council, accompanied by the slapping of severed hands against the table.

“Shut the fuck up!” Zeta slammed his fist down. “Yeah, he was a prick! But he always told us if a man wanted something, he had to take it! And you know what? He was fuckin’ right!”

After a pregnant pause, the council roared its approval. Severed hands clapped.

The council were a fickle bunch.

“Very astute, Zeta… if somewhat distasteful.” Omicron adjusted his monocle, demanding the council’s attention. “However, I have questions and I hope you will enlighten me with answers. Firstly, from whom do you suppose we take our magic? Secondly, how? Have you forgotten we know nothing of this world?”

Zeta grit his teeth, the arms of his throne squishing beneath his grip, while Zeta-Medea’s eyepatches seemed to shrink in on themselves. Predictably the applause died as well, the fair-weather chumps sitting with bated breath as they waited for Omicron to tell them what to think. Robin was personally of the opinion Omicron was not to be trusted. Nobody trustworthy would choose to wear a monocle.

At Zeta’s silence, Omicron addressed the rest of the council. “Have we not already charted a course for our success and set sail unto unknown waters? Why, I daresay I’m not entirely certain what purpose the meeting of this council serves.”

Something splashed into Robin’s eye as the debate raged, coloring his vision red. He used Medea’s severed hand to wipe it away the first time, and again when it happened a moment later, but after the third time, he grew frustrated enough to look down. They turned out to be blood splatter from where he’d been chopping through Medea’s femur with his axe. Those thrones weren’t going to make themselves, after all.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Danny said, yanking the axe away as he fixed Robin with an icy gaze, his disappointment plain. “Knew you were a worthless little bastard… but even I didn’t think it was this bad.” He reared back, readying the axe for a powerful overhead chop. “Watch closely, son… this is how you swing an axe.”

As Danny cleaved through his shoulder, Robin felt the axe tear more than cut through the muscle and bone, its blade long-since dulled from the creation of so many thrones. The axe only managed to make it about halfway through Robin’s ribcage before it got lodged. Danny grabbed his arm and began to yank, steadying himself with a foot pressed against Robin’s side before using all his adult strength to finish the job of tearing him in half.

“Robin.” Medea’s head interrupted.

He shook his head. Surely she’d see he was busy—Danny had made good progress ripping the piece of him off, and he didn’t want to miss the moment the last bits of stringy flesh snapped.

“Robin…”

He tried to ignore her, getting the sinking feeling he would miss the best part if he so much as risked a glance.

“Robin!”

“What?” He whipped towards Medea’s severed head, meeting her eyeless sockets.

Of course, now she had nothing to say. And just as he’d suspected, he was already in two discernible chunks by the time he looked back. Robin gave a deep sigh. Teeth sank into the flesh of his remaining arm. “Ow! What the hell?”

“You gonna answer that?” Not-Robin asked, painting them all red as he took a mighty swing with his own axe.

Robin frowned. How come he got to keep his axe? “Why should I?” he said, not at all jealous.

“Dunno.” Not-Robin shrugged, taking another swing. “Seems relevant to the whole magic thing, I guess.”

Robin rolled his eyes, but secretly agreed. He lifted Medea’s severed head by the hair, bringing the mouth to his ear. “Hello?”

The head let loose a piercing shriek.

Robin screamed too, instinctively chucking the head into the distance. After a few moments of panicked breathing, he shook his head. “Fuckin’ telemarketers…”

Medea shrieked again, and though Robin hated talking on the phone, something in her shriek made him feel he should. After the third time, he went off in search of the head with a solemn vow to change his ringtone.