“We cannot ignore the efficiency of this tool.” The man is not merely made of rock but is stoic as his stony flesh. “This collar, if used appropriately, could increase our work efficiency tenfold.”

“By turning our people into slaves.” The tree-woman says, her branches swaying wildly in an emotional display of shock. The council listens closely to her complaints. “Worse, slaves to a foreigner who is clearly out of his mind. Are you really so daft as to go along with this?”

“Clearly, we need to discuss the particulars of appropriate measures, but there is too much on offer here for us to ignore it outright. Even if we only use this collar on the criminal element, it would make dealing with the powerful beasts much safer for everyone here.” The stony man counters.

The woman responds outwardly emotional, yet…

In their minds, different thoughts are stirring.

I can’t get a full read, their minds are spinning out new thoughts faster than I can keep up with, and I do not doubt that they have something along the lines of a multi-mind Skill to keep all their plots in order. They’re watching the reactions of their own council members, their allies and enemies, trying to manipulate them and anticipate their reactions.

Neither is so deeply attached to their arguments as they seem, playing the game of politics without a heart for the people sure to suffer the consequences of their choices. They’ve both already decided to try and steal a supply of collars from Gale, to use them to their own advantage. I don’t think they even had to speak with each other to come to the same conclusion.

They’re already vaguely planning to use these collars to gain power and influence over their neighbours, with petty little dreams of collaring the president of their own republic to stand above all others.

Seeing this so plainly before me, a thought comes to my mind. It’s not a new thought, not at all, but this just reinforces my opinion so much more.

“Politicians are foul creatures,” Malea speaks my feelings aloud before I can do so. We’re still walking out of the council hall, but I don’t think either of us cares if we’re heard. “They have no true allegiance but to themselves.”

“You think nobles or royals are different?” I ask, raising a brow at her, but she fobs me off with a wave of the hand.

“I’m taking the rest of the day off,” I tell her, shaking my head clear of all the sour thoughts and feelings inside.

“What are you doing? Or shouldn’t I ask?” Malea asks, more casual now than she has been recently. Our shared distaste for nonsense politics set aside our differences for a time.

“I’m taking the chance to get to know my ‘harem’ a little better. Unlike the ordinary person, I have four people to share my life with and I’ve been neglecting them all. We need to spend more time together.”

“Ah yes, the pervert in you must surely be sour for all the time wasted away from them.” Malea’s dry comment isn’t worthy of reply. It’s not like we’re going to a hotel to make out or anything, the pervert in me will remain frustrated for a while longer.

“Do what you want here, message me if you need me,” I say, heading out towards Nel and the others. They’ve got a head start on this date without me, and if I’m gone too long, I might not be welcome the next time.

Marching the empty streets towards them, my mind starts to wonder all on its own.

Even with the world set aflame, some people can sit with a smile and sip at a cup of tea like they’re warming their toes by a pleasant fireside in the frigid winter. It’s an attitude that I’ve long admired, and now, with my plans slowly failing, at least in regards to this cavern, it’s something that I need to embrace.

Thus, it’s time to ignore the stupidity of this local council and enjoy a day off with my lovers. Nel welcomes me with a warm smile, her twitching stance tells of how uncomfortable she is right now, but already it’s fading now that I’m here with her.

“Did it all go well?” She asks, hooking her arm through my own as we turn towards Eshya and Adler. It seems to me that our elf is pulling the ex-welfare officer along in some sort of word game, and Adler is always a step behind.

Vii flutters down beside me, her curious gaze taking in the environment all around us, never focusing on the one thing for more than a fluttering moment. She is still listening, but she’s ever the awkward girl and doesn’t want to show it.

“Horribly, but that doesn’t matter now.” I say, “Did you get up to much while I was gone.”

“I know that I’ve wanted more of your time,” Nel says slowly and carefully, her gaze intense as she analyses my expression. “But are you sure that we should be wasting this time? You must focus on politics; we need to win these people.”

“We don’t,” I reply lightly. “It would be good to have them, but we have allies enough to survive comfortably as things are, and the reason I’m doing all this is to make a better world where we can have more dates. If I’m always off doing other, more important, things, then what’s the point of it all?”

“We should be trying to form important alliances,” Nel says, shifting about as she looks about the bright cavern. There are resources here that would be worth gaining access to.

“That’s not happening here,” I say, shrugging. “I don’t have much hope for this cavern. The council is too deep into politics and without decisive leadership, I can’t trust any alliance with them anyway. The only ones who want me here are those trying to play politics against the other half of the council.”

“It’s good experience for you, then,” Nel says, looking up at me. Her refractive eyes sparkle in the diffuse lights as we wander through the gardens kept separate from the common people. Rather than trees, there are towering mushrooms covered in long vines that trail down to the ground, covered in glowing bulbs of various colours. No matter how many new sights I take in, this wide and chaotic universe proves that there’s more to see.

Will I one day grow weary of it? Will I one day see so much that everything new is just another variation on what I already know? It seems like it should be almost inevitable should I live for as long as I ought to, but that’s not something that I should worry about.

“It’s pointless effort,” I say. “The council here is considering allying with Gale and his Unified States nonsense. They’re even going through the pros and cons of widespread use of collars.”

“Are they insane?” Nel asks, her voice is level, but the violent clicking is impossible to ignore.

“Worse, they’re selfish,” I reply. “They think that the collars are only for everyone else. They believe that they’re in a special position and that by collaring the filthy working-class citizens, they’ll establish themselves more firmly as a ruling class.”

“How do you know that?” Nel asks. “Is your new Skill really so useful?”

“The mind reading thing?” I ask. I’ve discussed it with her and the others, and they didn’t seem much surprised to learn of it. Adler was a mite nervous at the concept, but she didn’t say anything, and I’ve kept myself from reading her thoughts.

“It gives me an edge in matters like this. I can probably use it to manipulate the council into siding with me, but then I’ll have to keep the effort up. Or I can cause some sort of political upheaval and have a puppet leader installed, but I’m not sure how that will be affected by the new Grand Council rules. More importantly, I just don’t want to.”

“So, you are thinking about it,” Nel says, nodding slowly. “What are you going to do, then?”

“I think I’m going to sit down for a bit, and just enjoy this place properly while it’s still here,” I say finding a seat and pulling Vii and Nel down beside me. Vii is still a bit fluttery but she’s not uncomfortable by my side, and finally, with them so close my own quiet anxieties start to unravel.

These are people that I love, people that I can trust with my life. I don’t need to scheme, I don’t need to keep up a brave façade, and if I want to break down and cry, then I can do that too.

“You’re not going to do anything?” Nel asks.

“I believe in freedom,” I say. “I’ve compromised on that value more than enough already. I’ll treat them how I want to be treated, and that includes the freedom to make mistakes. These people are free to make the mistake of trusting Gale, the furthest I’m willing to go is to give these people the choice to immigrate to our cavern, should things here sour for them.”

“Do we have the room?” Nel asks.

“For now,” I reply, but she knows that well enough, and that’s not what she’s asking. If we continue bringing people in, then I’ll have a different answer to the same question. “We have a talented space mage in the making,” I pull Vii close, “so I’m sure that things are going to be easier for us than I was anticipating.

“We need to get a ship with enchantments scrawled onto it, and everything that comes with making that function… anyway, we’re working towards breaking out of this world so that we can gather all sorts of resources in the wider universe.”

“Good, good,” Nel says, pulling at my arm and leaning her head against me. She relaxes properly only now that I’ve proven that I’m not acting immaturely and skipping out of work, I’ve done my due diligence and decided on our plans for this council.

“It’s beautiful here,” Vii whispers, slowly easing back into the soft lounge where we rest.

Hundreds of glowing lights surround us, filling the cavern with limitless light, the vines and glowing bulbs spread throughout the wide, low-ceiling cavern. It’s not so bright here as to be glaring. No, it is a scattered, multicoloured glow that surrounds us, revealing the beauty here.

A shame if it were to disappear under the boot of Gale and his cold aspirations for a better world.

Yet, my own aspirations could easily destroy all this the same as his. I want to change the world and pull us all away from the cruelty of nature, and all the other horrible things in life, but I don’t want to destroy everything in that process. There is a diverse abundance of life, culture, art, and so much else that I do not want to crush in my pursuit of power. For a while I thought that perhaps I would need to thread a needle, finding the perfect balance between freedom and authoritarianism, but now… I don’t think there’s such a thing.

Instead, leadership here is more about compromising on my values, I need to sacrifice the privacy of my people in order to give them safety. An offer I’ve heard a dozen times from dictators and authoritarians, yet I must not let it be a lie this time. One day soon, I may need to limit reproductive rights in order to secure quality of living for those who are already citizens. I choose for my people what compromises will be made, and I hate it so very much.

“Kyra?” Nel asks, nudging my side. “Where are your thoughts? You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself.”

“Sorry, I’m a little distracted,” I say, shaking loose the obsessive thoughts that have been sneaking back into my mind. In this moment I should give up on being an empress.

Nel bites her lip and pulls closer beside me, her anxiety bleeding through in the tightness of her grasp. After her eyes wander for a little while she finds the strength to say what’s on her mind.

“Is this a proper romance?” She asks, her voice tender and weak. “We’re here together, but I feel like we’re apart, like something is missing from this moment.”

Her question takes us all by surprise. Even Eshya and Adler pause to listen in, though they aren’t willing to outwardly show it.

“I’ve asked the same a dozen times.” I reply, sliding down in my chair. “We’ve had this conversation before.”

“Something feels incomplete for you too, then?” She asks. “But what? Is there something left undone between us, some touch of love that we haven’t already expressed. An official celebration of our relationship perhaps? I don’t believe it’s that, but still, I have some lingering doubts about all this.”

“It’s normal,” Vii says, shuffling about on my other side. “This entire relationship is unreal, unreasonable, and outright silly. You’re figures of legend to me, people that aren’t even written of in proper history books, but still I… I shouldn’t belong here in this relationship.”

“You do, and you no longer have a choice to leave us,” Nel replies sharply, her own affection for family something that she doesn’t disguise. “Should we lay together more often? Dance, and sing, and make merry? Is there something that we’re doing wrong, that makes this relationship improper?

“Whatever it is, we can fix it, because I will not let this go.” Nel clutches tight to Vii and I, silent threats glowing from her eyes as she glares between the two of us, even glancing over towards Eshya and Adler. The former laughs warmly, but the latter squirms under the attention. “Even if uncomfortable and improper, you will be here for me and these children.”

“That’s obsession, not love,” Adler says, looking a little awkward as she pulls Eshya closer to the conversation as a shield.

“Love can be obsessive,” Nel replies sharply. “It’s better when it is, else what sort of empty bonds do you regard as love? Some slight affection, the same as shared between friends? Is it the matter of lust? We aren’t short of that here, with Kyra and Eshya to prove it. No, love is obsessive.”

“Not for all of us,” Adler says defensively. “For me… for me, it’s warm. I’m still not even certain that it’s love at all, but I’ve never known a place quite so accepting and comfortable as… as here with all of you. I don’t want to leave, but at the same time it’s not an obsession, and there are things that you all do that bother me. You all frighten me at times.

“Obsession would be thinking about you all the time, which I’m not,” Adler says, waving to Nel. “I’m happy with just this, or is it not enough?”

“It’s… not my place to say if it’s enough,” Nel grumbles, looking down at her own hands in her lap. “I do not want to make you explain yourself, I just… I want you to know how serious this all is to me, and even if we’re doing things wrong, I want to repair our relationship not abandon it.”

“How did we get to this conversation in the first place?” Eshya asks, shaking her head with a laugh and sitting down beside Nel, wrapping her up in her arms. “None of us are leaving, you’re just being overanxious.”

“I’m being overanxious?” She asks, grumbling warningly.

“It’s not anything mean,” I explain for her. “You worry because you care, because you don’t want to let this go. That’s fine, but sometimes you can get a little too overbearing.”

“It just feels like something is missing,” Nel explains again.

“That’s what this date is for,” I say. “To get to know each other even better.”

“Is it working?” Nel asks, “I feel just as uncertain as before, just as worried about everything collapsing.”

“Well, that’s nothing new.” I laugh, as I squeeze her hand. “We’ve known that about you for a while, that’s the very reason that you went so far as to get yourself pregnant, and that’s partly the reason that I didn’t go mad in my fight against Loekan.”

“What is the purpose of a date?” Nel asks, “We haven’t got much time to spend together, so I want to make the most efficient use of our time.”

“It’s so we can get to know each other better and enjoy each other’s company in different settings,” Adler explains. “It’s used among many cultures as a means of finding or exploring prospective partners.”

“Was that from a textbook?” Vii asks, chirping in with a laugh as Adler turns red. “Does it matter what dates are about? We’re here so that we can have fun together. ‘What is love?’, is too crazy a question to be trying to ask on a date, let’s just go do something fun and be together without having to fight tides of monsters. Life is so much better when we’re not fighting tides of monsters.”

“Speak for yourself.” Eshya laughs, rubbing the hilt of her sword.

“There’s this fun game that the locals are playing down the street,” I suggest. “It could be fun to join in.”

“Hmm?” Nel hums thoughtfully, gazing up at the massive fungi garden, and the multi-coloured glowing lights. “Perhaps in a few minutes. I want to rest a moment more, and get my mind back under control.”

“I’ll go ahead and check it out, first,” Eshya says, pulling Adler away with her into the streets, a winding mess both unique and yet still like every other city or town we’ve visited.

“I feel uncertain,” Nel whispers to me. “A gnawing fear in my guts is telling me that something is wrong, but I just don’t know what. I don’t want to lose all of this because I decided to ignore this sensation.”

“It’ll be fine,” I reply, rubbing her back. “I’m anxious too. I might feel invincible, a flaw of mine, I know, but this relationship feels something more delicate. It feels undeserved.”

“Undeserved?” Nel asks, turning towards me with a sharp look in her eye. “Relationships aren’t about being deserving, it is something built, not won. You cannot be undeserving of what we build together when it only exists because of our efforts.”

“I guess it’s just… I never imagined having people love me.” I answer. “It always felt like some distant dream to me, something for someone else, or for a me that would be better, kinder, smarter. Here I am, and I feel like I’m not good enough.

“It’s why I’m running around improving myself, making my empire better. I don’t deserve any of this, I’m not good enough for any of it.”

“How can you be undeserving of what you built with your own efforts?” Nel asks, holding my hand tight. “Everything will be right in the end.”

“Life isn’t like a story,” Vii says, joining our conversation though with a slightly nervous tremble to her voice that calms after a moment. “Life isn’t like a story, with a structured beginning, middle, and end. If we were to write this story, we could tell the tale of Loekan’s defeat and how we claimed a city with freed prisoners and an army of celibate warriors who you freed from their ill fates.

“It would be a grand story, and it would end with a glorious city that you grow into the heart of your empire. The end would be beautiful, but it would miss everything else. The bits that we build for ourselves afterwards.

“Romance stories… at least the ones I’ve read… They tend to be about finding love, a big confession and a happy ending when the couple forms. Or there’s an issue that they must overcome, and then when it’s over they come together again, happily ever after.

“Life is different, there are so many more boring, droll moments between all the action, and when we fall in love or affirm our relationship, there’s still more to come. We still learn new things about each other, and experience challenges, some new and some recurring issues that never go away.

“We’ll never live a storybook romance because there’s no such thing as a happy ending without things ending, the best we can get is a happy today and a hopeful tomorrow. We’ll find trouble, and we’ll overcome it, we’ll argue—I have a few things to start on that… but I’ll save it for later—and we’ll make up again and again.

“I feel anxious not knowing how things are going to be for us in the future, but also because I’m not sure I know how things are today. I’ll always feel anxious, and like I don’t belong here, but that’s okay, so long as we stay together, then I don’t mind being a little uncertain, a little anxious, a little unworthy.”

“Is that what you’re writing down all the time in your little notebook?” I ask, smiling as I catch her eyes. “I bet you have poetry in there too that you’re keeping from us.”

She blushes, looking away.

“That was beautiful,” Nel says, taking her hand. “But does that mean that this anxiety, this uncertainty, isn’t going away? That I’ll feel like this relationship is on the verge of collapse for the rest of my life?”

“Maybe?” Vii squeaks uncertainly, as Nel gets uncomfortably close and painfully intense.

“Woah there.” I step in, wrapping Nel up and squeezing her. After a few seconds, she calms back down again, looking down at her trembling hands.

“I’m sorry,” Nel whispers. “I’m being silly.”

“It’s not silly,” I reply, grabbing her hands and squeezing them tight. “Is… is this from the crash?”

Nel freezes and doesn’t move, her breath stilled.

“I just know that it affected me in many ways, even now I’m still racing ahead and trying not to think about everything. It made me realize how fragile life is, how everything I have can be taken away from me and there’s nothing I can do to fight it.”

“It’s… The ship never crashes.” She whispers. “It was my everyday life. Work, rest, work. There were no changes, it was simple. How can it all be destroyed so easily? Every new pattern, every new peace we find, even in our relationship. It feels comfortable, and I’m building habits, relying on the idea that you’ll always be here. When I settle down and start feeling comfortable, it scares me.

“There are powers that can destroy this peace, just like the day our ship fell from the skies. I hate being comfortable. I hate peace, because it’s all a lie and one day everything we’re building here, and between us, all of it is going to go away.”

I squeeze her tight, but I don’t reply. I can’t.

I’m grasping at power, gathering forces and trying to make myself untouchable for the same reason. I’m afraid.

I don’t want any of this to be taken from me. I don’t want to let anything disrupt our lives, our relationships. Yet, I know that peace is only ever temporary.

“Nel,” I say, spinning her around, Vii watches on, her head bowed in thought. “We’ll protect today. Then tomorrow, after. Each day that follows we’ll struggle to keep everything that we love. Our relationships, our home, our kids. We will struggle, and we will win.”

“Until we don’t,” Nel replies, pressing her head against my chest and hiding her face. “One day, we won’t win. One day we’ll lose it all.”

“Then we’ll pick up the pieces and start again.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stats and Skills

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 39,298 / 60,892 units

Current mana volume: 19,536 / 30,271 shards

Mana volume at crystallisation density (Max. mana volume):

Kyra: 30,271 shards

Kyra’s armour: 20,777 shards

Kyra’s throne: 1,109,298 shards

~Forms

Mana Canon

-Annihilation Heart (Adapted)

-Blood Fuel (Adapted)

-Bone Magic Storage (40,000 mana shards)

-Nail Shifters (50,000 mana shards)

Dancer

-Flash Nerves (Adapted)

-Quick Perception Mind (Adapted)

-Burst Reflex Muscles (35,000 mana shards)

-Layered space Muscles (80,000 mana shards)

Turtle

-Rebinding Tissue (Adapted)

-Catalyst Sweat Glands (140,000 mana shards)

-Repulsive Skin (80,000 mana shards)

-Prehensile hair (10,000 mana shards)

-Fatty Tissue Blood Storage (100,000 mana shards)

Investigator

-Wide eyes (Adapted)

-Wide ears (Adapted)

-Sharp nose (Adapted)

Misc.

-Clean bowels (Adapted)

~Favourited Skills:

Magic:

-Annihilation Magic (Customised)

-Fire Magic (Functional)

-Space magic (Broken)

-Force magic (Functional)

-Ice magic (Broken)

-Wind magic (Broken)

Movement:

-Hand-to-hand casting (Functional)

-Mana surge movement (Functional)

-Stealth (Functional)

Senses:

-Eyes of an Empire (Customised)

-Combat Awareness (Functional)

-Watchmen (Functional)

-Hidden bug (Mastered)

-De-tagging (Mastered)

-Anti-stealth sight (Mastered)

Special:

-Spirit Transformation (Broken)

-Conformity (Broken)

-Training mana form (Functional)