Leon sighed as he waited for Anzu to return from flying around the Border Mountains. The griffin was taking his time, and as far as Leon was concerned, he could take all the time he needed to explore the domain of his kin. So, as he waited, Leon cast himself down into his soul realm. After all, he had a new Universe Fragment, and while he felt like he was going to have to wait until he got home and put it into Nestor’s containment unit to get any hard data on the Iron Needle, since the Thunderbird had mastered it first and held it the longest out of anyone—as far as he knew, anyway—then she ought to have more than a few insights to bestow as to the nature of its power.

So, as he closed his physical eyes where he was sitting on one of the hexagonal pillars outside of Rakos’ cave-palace, he awoke on his throne in his Mind Palace. Once there, he found the Thunderbird in human form staring lovingly at the Iron Needle while Xaphan watched from a distance. However, after a moment’s inspection, he realized that the Thunderbird was doing something else, as she was emitting just a little bit of magic that surrounded the Needle.

“What’s going on?” Leon asked, a hint of concern in his tone as he hopped down from his throne and went to the table that the Needle hovered over.

“It’s been so long since I last saw it…” the Thunderbird whispered in awe, her eyes gleaming as they remained locked upon the Iron Needle, only straying away a moment later as Leon moved around to the other side of the table. “I need to make sure it’s all right. Much can change in eighty-thousand years, and the will of Universe Fragments aren’t immune to the ravages of time.”

“Does that mean… it may have weakened?”

“No, they don’t weaken in that sense.”

Leon grinned thinly and asked, “Then are you saying that your insistence that the Iron Needle would only accept one of your blood may have been wrong?”

“I’ll admit that that was certainty born of experience with the Iron Needle, but there was always a chance that I could’ve been wrong…” the Thunderbird smiled and took a step back away from the Needle, her magic withdrawing as she did. “But, as always, I wasn’t wrong. The Needle still responds to my power, as it always has. It’s still yours, of course, but the Iron Needle will always have a connection to those who bear my power, for my power is as much born of it as it is of me.”

Leon’s bitter grin softened, and he turned his attention back to the Needle before calling over his shoulder, “How are you doing, demon? What do you make of all this?”

“Tis a curious thing,” Xaphan haughtily responded. “A Universe Fragment is a unique existence, and even though it’s of lightning rather than fire, I’ll admit that I would’ve loved to possess such a thing back in my prime. As I am now, that thing would likely destroy me with a single touch, so do be a good little human and keep it over there.”

Leon chuckled. “I’ll see what I can do, Xaphan.”

For a moment, Leon went silent and trained his magic senses upon the Iron Needle. It was an artifact of unfathomable power, but in truth, that wasn’t particularly obvious. It had been more obvious before he’d claimed it, but now that it was here, resting in his soul realm, submitting to his will and his power, the thing seemed quiet and docile. Leon could feel it emitting power and feeding his soul realm, but there was barely even a hint of that power escaping the Iron Needle on inspection.

“Curious…” he murmured.

“Indeed they are,” the Thunderbird said, drawing his attention. “Universe Fragments, I mean. Most laws of magic determine how magic interacts and is used by humans and those of human intelligence. Universe Fragments are not conscious, they are not sapient, but the amount of power they contain can often seem to exceed, bend, or even outright ignore or make up laws of magic that only apply to them. It’s the biggest reason why they’re called ‘Universe Fragments’.”

Leon frowned lightly as he regarded the Iron Needle before him. He didn’t directly address what the Thunderbird just said, but it did bring a question to the fore of his mind.

“Ancestor, could I ask you a personal question?”

“Ask whatever you wish, though I’ll not answer if I don’t wish to.”

“Fair enough. Could you… do you remember what the Iron Needle… how the Iron Needle tested you? It seems a little strange that such an artifact, lacking in sapience as you claim, could bring such… could test someone as it did.”

“What was your test, Leon?” the Thunderbird asked, a soft concern coloring her tone.

Leon’s frown deepened, and he told the Thunderbird of how the Iron Needle tested him, of the visions it showed him of Tusk and the power he had over the beast, and of the Great Black Dragon and his staunch refusal to acknowledge him.

“Oh, my boy,” the Thunderbird said as she crossed over to Leon’s side of the table and took him into a motherly embrace. Leon was taller and larger than she was in human form, but that hardly mattered, as he melted into her arms as if she truly were his mother, and he a small child who’d just told her of a nightmare. “I think I’ll take this as an encouraging sign,” she said as Xaphan snickered lightly from where he stood.

“I’d take it… as grave insult!” Xaphan sputtered between bouts of laughter.

The Thunderbird glared in his direction, and with a single expression of power, the demon went flying back hundreds of feet, sailing clear over the palisade demarcating the end of Leon’s Mind Palace and the beginning of the rest of his soul realm.

“Now, let’s get a few things straight,” the Thunderbird said as she loosened her hold on Leon just enough to turn his face towards her and make eye contact, “the Iron Needle isn’t sapient, though it has a will of its own. It can be a bit hard to understand given just how important our personalities and self-awareness are to beings like us. That means a great many things, but the most relevant right now is that the Iron Needle doesn’t ‘test’ us in a direct way. It isn’t a mythical god, throwing us into some ironic torture to see how we react, it’s a Universe Fragment that only submits to those it chooses to.”

“I’m not sure I’m entirely following…” Leon said.

“Then let me make it clear: those visions both were and weren’t the Iron Needle’s test. It was in the sense that the Iron Needle caused these visions, but it wasn’t in the sense that the visions themselves were pulled from your own head. They weren’t put there by the Iron Needle, they were already there in your mind, just waiting for something like the Iron Needle to pull them out. The Iron Needle didn’t read your mind and throw you against some vision of its own making; instead, it sought to test you by forcing you to conjure your own nightmare and contending against it. The Iron Needle wasn’t trying to test you or teach you or anything else by giving you those visions, it was throwing you against the fears conjured by your mind and seeing if you would still rise to claim its power.”

“So… huh… I think I see what you’re saying…”

“I’m a little put out that I wasn’t there,” the Thunderbird said in a mock-admonishing tone, “but I’ll take it as a compliment that you trust me and are secure in our relationship. If I had to guess—and even as old as I am, the mysteries of the human mind can still prove themselves beyond me—I’d say that you were struggling with your approach to this expedition and that you were wracked with some sense of inadequacy brought on by the Great Black Dragon’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge you, even though you’ve claimed his power. Even though it’s been long enough that he can’t have missed that fact.”

Leon scowled and pulled back from the Thunderbird a bit, but he didn’t argue her points. He was still kicking himself for his lack of civility when it came to Tusk, assuming he could just break into its home and loot the Iron Needle like some barbarian after a shiny trinket, and the Great Black Dragon’s attitude still irked him to no end, though he wouldn’t go so far as to say he was feeling any sense of inadequacy…

‘Why should I care about that bastard, obsessing as he is over some ill-defined measure of worth? What I have from him I’ve had to take for myself, thanks to his attempts to keep me from the power in my own damn blood!’

Leon felt himself getting heated, so he forced himself to relax and breathe. When he focused on the Thunderbird again, he found her watching him with a knowing look on her face.

With a groan of frustration that wouldn’t have been out of place coming from a teenager, Leon pulled away from her and scowled. When he turned back to her, instead of speaking further on what she’d said, he asked, “How were you tested, then?”

“In much the same way you were,” she answered, not a shred of concern to be found. “The Iron Needle induced an empty nightmare, and it was my mind that filled it. Such terrors as dying young, before I could have a chance to have children, and a deep feeling of weakness and intense dysmorphia from turning into and out of human form—I still wasn’t fully in control of it, and I could go to sleep in my proper form, and awake in human form, or vice-versa in those days. I have long since gotten over these things, but at the time, they were responsible for a large amount of stress, weighing quite heavily upon my mind.”

Leon nodded, relating to at least her concerns over her family and legacy, even if her body dysmorphia was something he could only understand on an intellectual level, having only ever transformed involuntarily once before and having little memory of it.

But he wanted children, that much he knew. Elise wanted them, too, and Maia’s ravenous desires went without saying. Valeria, he was a little less sure about, but he thought she did as well. Finding the right time, when he wouldn’t have to worry about them overmuch, and when he wouldn’t have to leave them behind when he left Aeterna, was his primary concern.

‘Or maybe I’m just delaying it,’ Leon thought with some amount of fear. While having kids was something he wanted to eventually get around to, the prospect of actually raising young ones that would call him father was rather terrifying.

“I’m happy to hear, Leon, that your visions were at least a little higher in caliber than mine,” the Thunderbird said. When Leon gave her a questioning look, she smiled and continued with a didactic tone, “My visions pertained almost entirely to me. How my fears related to me. My own legacy. They were the primal fears of an animal, before I’d learned how to comport myself in civilization. I’ve since learned that there are higher things to strive for, greater ideals than simple reproduction and my own perception of self. That you’re occupied with these things enough for them to be brought out by the Iron Needle’s power, at least in part, is encouraging. You may not consider yourself ready to take on the mantle of the Clan’s legacy, but that you reflect upon your mistakes is a credit to you.”

Leon grimaced and averted his gaze. “I think you’re overthinking it, honestly. A little guilt shouldn’t be taken so seriously. And your concerns were hardly only selfish. It is the first and most important thing that any sovereign can do, isn’t it? To ensure that power is transferred peacefully and smoothly upon their death or retirement or whatever. Your thoughts of children who would inherit your powers were your biggest responsibility as a godlike figure, and as one of the most powerful beings in the history of our universe. And I think it would be confusing as any hell for anyone’s body to revolt against them like yours was. I know Red mentioned feeling something similar, how confused and frightened she was in her transformations, and how she’d rejected it at first. And that’s not even getting into those that may accept their new power to transform into a human, but fail to properly integrate into human society.

“Better that your concerns were of children and your own body, rather than something direr or more malevolent.”

“Flatterer,” the Thunderbird said, though she preened before him as he spoke.

“I but return honeyed words,” Leon replied with an ironic smile, puffing out his chest dramatically and holding up his arm in a parody of the military salutes he’d seen used by those in the Ilian army.

“Bah, how about we stop stroking each other’s ego, then, and get down to business?” the Thunderbird growled, though the smile she wore didn’t dim even a little. “It’s going to take some time for you to learn to properly wield the Iron Needle, so we ought to get started right now.”

“I certainly think I’ll need the help,” Leon said. “After taking it, it flooded me with so much power that I almost felt I would explode.”

“It is a Universe Fragment—an artifact with such power that it was considered on par with a sizable fraction of the universe itself. Of course, it’s going to be far more power than a single ninth-tier mage can possibly hope to wield. It takes a god to wield such a thing properly, which is why we must hurry to get you to that level.”

“I noticed earlier that it seemed to return to your old sword. Does it remember where it used to sit?”

“I’m sure it does, and as it bows to my bloodline, it doesn’t surprise me at all that my old friend wants to go home.” The Thunderbird’s attention had now fully returned to the Iron Needle, and Leon noticed the family sword flying over, almost on its own accord. However, when the Thunderbird held out a hand on its appearance, he knew that that wasn’t the case.

The sword, made from the Thunderbird’s blood, rocketed into her hand and seemed to almost quiver in joy, a reaction that Leon didn’t think he could ever remember it giving upon being grasped by him. For just a moment, he felt jealousy flaring up within him, but it was easily tamped down. The sword was, after all, the Thunderbird’s more than his, even if he was quite attached to it.

“You want to go back in, don’t you?” the Thunderbird practically cooed as she held out the weapon’s handle, and the Iron Needle sparked with red, purple, and blue lightning, and shook like it could barely stop itself from flying at the sword. “It pleases me to know that you remember me so fondly, but now isn’t the time.” The Thunderbird sounded quite disappointed, and Leon was a little shocked to see the Iron Needle settle down in response.

“For something that supposedly isn’t sapient, it’s not doing a good job of convincing me it isn’t,” Leon whispered.

“Such is the way of Universe Fragments,” the Thunderbird replied. “They’re intelligent, but not sapient—not in the way you and I are.”

Leon shrugged and turned his attention back to the matter at hand. “So, how do I wield this thing without killing myself from magic overload?”

“That’s the thing: you don’t,” the Thunderbird cheekily replied. “At least, not yet. Not soon. It’s better if you don’t even touch the Iron Needle any more than you have to before you’ve achieved Apotheosis.”

“That’s… discouraging,” Leon responded dejectedly.

“Indeed, but remember that I’m only talking about touching it. About wielding it. This is a Universe Fragment, not a sharp piece of metal you stick into something to make it explode in lightning. There’s a reason I embedded it into my sword rather than wielding it raw and unfettered. Its power needs to be contained and channeled, tamed and brought to heel.”

“Then why not put it back into the sword? If that’s already its container…”

“Because you’re ninth-tier, boy. You’re too smart to keep rephrasing this question: don’t even think about trying to use it in battle unless you’re post-Apotheosis, or your situation has deteriorated past the point of salvation. Improperly wielded, this thing could destroy this entire plane. If you wanted to, you could probably even amplify it enough to destroy the entire Divine Graveyard. But restricting its power to something that you can use without destroying everything that you know and love is another matter.

“So, Leon, what do you think you need to do?”

Leon went quiet for a moment as he surveyed the Iron Needle and then glanced at the sword of his Clan, the sword forged from Adamant created with the Thunderbird’s own blood, the sword wielded by Jason Keraunos and, as far as he knew, every Thunder King and Raime Archduke that reigned in the Bull Kingdom.

The sword that had responded to the Thunderbird so much more joyously than it ever had for him. It had come when he’d lost it, sure, but if he were to try that now when the Thunderbird had it in her hand, he already knew which one the weapon would side with. Hells, he remembered when the Thunderbird first told him of Adamant and filled him in on the history of the blade, and had ordered him to attack her with it: the blade had simply refused to even come close to touching her flesh. The Adamant blade made of her blood couldn’t be used to harm her, as it was, in effect, an extension of her own body, and responded to her will.

Since he bore the Thunderbird’s power, that made it almost like an extension of his body, too, but not quite to the same degree. At this realization, his heart plummeted into his feet. He was quite attached to the sword, having used it for more than half his life at this point, and having seen his father wield it for all his remaining years. It was his family’s ancestral weapon, even if it was but a simple steel blade and unadorned handle—at first glance, little more than a well-made, but unremarkable longsword that any blacksmith with skill could churn out half-asleep.

“I… need a sword of my own,” Leon whispered, hating every syllable that he uttered. To give up the weapon of his Clan, even for something all his own was… disquieting.

“Yes, you do,” the Thunderbird said. “There are many other ways you can use the Iron Needle, but if you ever want to use it in battle, then you have to make your own weapon. And before that can happen, you need to learn how to make Adamant. Proper Adamant, not that imitation stuff that you made your armor out of.

“Now, your skills in blacksmithing are undoubtedly greater than mine already, but I can still teach you this. Leon, it’s time for you to learn how to sky forge Adamant, and finally your own weapon. And with it in hand, you’ll be able to use the Iron Needle in battle, if you have need for such power.”