“I need you to save my child. But I can’t offer anything meaningful to you in return. I will answer all your questions... at least those that I can”

“Huh, what happened to ‘we’?”

“Short answer, we was an Empress speaking to you, I is coming from a mother.”

“Long answer, I have a short time window. To maximise the number of souls I could check out for the job my staff put together a technique using multiple prana-constructs infused with a bit of my soul to interact with various souls in the Soulscape, where we are right now. My brain is also connected to a similar number of high powered computers each running an AI that simulates my personality and evaluates likely candidates. My mind acts a bridge connecting the prana-constructs in Soulscape through my partial souls to the computers When any potential candidate is flagged by the AI I am able to move whole consciousness to that construct. In all I have 729 prana-constructs floating around here moving from soul to soul. Earlier it was the AI prana-construct representing an Empress, now it is me speaking to you as a mother”

“So, mom...”

She knew he was still being snarky, but something still struck a nerve. She felt something which she couldn’t explain. She put it aside for later. She knew what he wanted to know.

“You died. I don’t know how, when, where or why. All I can tell is you were young not yet an adult. The Soulscape is where souls end up soon after disconnecting from their bodies. Its where the souls get processed, have their memories cleared before being sent off to be reborn. Some souls get cleaned faster, some slower. There is no link between where you died and where you show up in Soulscape and souls constantly drift to their rebirth pit. Souls don’t carry marks of their bodies death.”

He sighed, as if letting go of some hope he’d been holding in. He gave a wry smile, murmuring “same shit, different everything”. He then pointed towards the wolves, “And that was...”

“A test. There are many things I don’t know about what I need your help with. But I do know it will be in Soulscape and I needed to know how you’d handle yourself here.”

“It was a pretty rough test.”

“Other souls were tested with a single level 2 memory absorbing beast. You got two level 4 beasts. Its ... if a child will act up then the child should also expect to be punished.”

“Mom, that was cruel and unusual punishment. Those bites hurt really badly.”

Something tugged at her heart again.

“You weren’t in any real danger, true-souls are indestructible. Before you were pulled into this scape-shell, the beasts were already feasting on your memories. They exist to remove memories off souls so that the true-soul can reincarnate. You didn’t notice because your mind was working in the background, not caring about the memory loss since that is a natural process. In scape-shell you mind was conscious so it couldn’t ignore losing memories, and translated that as pain.”

“Wait, what... I was already being eaten, even though I am invulnerable. That doesn’t make sense.”

She sighed, “In Soulscape a soul has 3 layers, memories, mind and true-soul. The true soul is indestructible. The mind sits mostly within the true soul so its also protected. Its considered a layer because of how it connects the true-soul to the rest. Memories form the outer layer and get consumed by the Soulscape during a soul’s transition. When you transit your mind your mind sifts through your memories, to convert them into instincts for the true soul to carry through later incarnations.”

“And the beasts?”

“They are how the Soulscape strips your memories. Outside the scape-shell they are amorphous, like clouds. They encircle a soul and slowly absorb your memories. In the scape-shell they take form, choosing something from your memories that is compatible to their level.”

“Mom, can you please stop mothering me? Its smothering.”

“Huh...”, she faltered, “... mothering you?”

“Giving long winded explanations for even the smallest things. I had a teacher like that. He would try to ensure we all learned everything about a topic. I always thought parents would be like that, wanting their kids to know and understand the world in detail”

“Ok. So...”

“Relax. You had me at save my child. As long as I can do something about it, I am never going to let a child suffer. I suffered enough.”, he finished clearly with a lot more unsaid.

The sadness, pain and anger she saw in his eyes when he paused then, made her heart stop. Even more so when she saw him suppress it all, smile and say, “I know you can’t do anything for me. My only request is, if you can, ensure my soul reincarnates somewhere it can be happy.”

He took a deep breath, exhaled and then added, “Ok then, mom, shall we get to the point.”

She controlled her heart, gave a wistful smile and asked, “I can see you never gained levels or activated chakras. Do you know what prana and shakti are?”

“Prana is breath, life, vitality. Shakti is power.”

“Yes and no. This will require me to provide some background.”

He rolled his eyes, but kept his mouth shut, waiting for her to continue. She smiled at her small victory.

“Prana is what underpins everything. You can think of it as the basic building block from which everything is built - all energy, all matter and everything else. Shakti is the force our bodies generate using prana, that allows us to control the prana around us and through it everything else. Shakti needs to be circulated throughout our bodies, to cleanse our bodies and also to purify shakti before storing it.”

“Biologically, evolution should mean that a person’s ability to control, purify and store shakti gets better with each generation. However talent depends not just on the body but also the soul. Once a soul connects to the fetus the mind unconsciously directs how the body develops and generates, purifies and stores shakti.”

“Ok, so mess with the soul...”

“...and you can mess up the body making it less powerful”, she cut in between, “You make it less talented, in everything.”

“So, why not just say that your enemies are looking to hurt your child’s soul and you need me to guard it?”

“I felt you should know how they are planning to hurt my child.”

“If you know who they are and what they are planning, and you are an Empress, why not just have them vanish, permanently?”

“An Empress has lots of power over others lives, but little over her own, being bound by rules and tradition that she cannot deny. As my father explained it to me, I implicitly cede power over certain parts of my life to explicitly have power all of theirs.”

“Uh, huh... so is there a timeline for this?”

“At 50 plus 7 days from conception, the royal baby is tested to determine its talent and future prospects. Its a tradition that has run for over 30 generations. I have reason to believe that my enemies have used this test to undermine my talent, my father’s and my grandfather’s. Now they seek to further undermine my child’s. I am at day 16 and in 41 days the testing ceremony will be held.”

“The plan then is... and please, you really need to learn to summarise.”

“News has spread that I am pregnant, natural conception and it is my first birth, however the father is my third favourite husband so I’ve had an embryo prepared and implanted, using DNA from me and my most favorite husband, making it a royal twin birth. The embryo is real, the implantation is false. There are two embryos. One will be implanted closer to the test date, so that a soul is not attached to it for the test ceremony. You will instead be attached to this embryo. This embryo will eventually perish due to this procedure, no matter the outcome and will be replaced with the second one. Then I will carry both to term.”

“Whoa. So, technically I will become your son! Is this your plan?”

She hesitated, “Yes”

“Devious. I guess while they hurt your talent, they failed to restrain your real strength. You win even if you lose, sacrificing nothing of yours.”

“Yes... I am sorry.”

“Don’t be. Nothing changes for me. Do we know how my sibling and I will be attacked?”

“No. My intelligence officers have uncovered that the soul of my child will be attacked using the traditional talent plate used during the ceremony, but the details are not known.”

“Is there anything I can do to prepare?”

“No, not without a body to channel prana and shakti. All I can do is tell you all that we know about souls.”

“See, it is so much faster and better when you don’t waste time on exposition. So now what? I get thrown out of this shell and get eaten till...”

“No, the risk of losing critical memories is high. Especially with level 4s around. We are going to let the beasts out of the scape-shell and you will have to stay awake till then. My avatar will stay here to maintain the shell, while I will leave for a while.”

“Ummm. Can you get me books to read or something, to pass the time?”

She sighed, “No. We are not speaking in the conventional sense. Souls communicate ... differently, directly. I am not speaking your language and your are not speaking mine, our minds our sensing and understanding each other. No one has worked out how to record mist-speak, so there are no "books" that you can "read". I can however arrange for you to be visited by others so you can get all you want from them.”

He was silent for a while, “No. That might make things difficult. I’d rather stay alone."

As she prepared to go, he suddenly said,”Mom, I don’t agree with grandfather. You don’t have power over others because they have some over you. You have power or you have none. Tradition and rules don’t prevent tyrants, they make them possible by tying down those who would act. Where I came from there is a story of a non-traditional king who struck down a tablet of laws with his axe, proclaiming ‘I am the king. I am the law. With this axe I rule. I will be corpse or king. If you won’t fight then you will obey. I will not have laws withered by time, rotten and unjust. I will have laws that are just or they will be dust.’. I always thought he made for a good king.”

Then with a cheeky smile, he said, “See even I can give long winded explanations.”. As she pulled her consciousness from her avatar she saw him take a meditative pose. It was the last bit of shock from the encounter for her.