As the three Lyrheans fought to keep one of their number from dying of exhaustion, the three bastard pedos were fighting their own silent battles against the omnitoxin that Lyrhea herself had injected into each of them. And, as it so happened, one of them was just about to win that battle, though he would quickly wish that he hadn’t.

Ralph slowly regained the use of his limbs and began to try and use them. It was slow going at first, but after a few rough minutes, he finally managed to get himself not merely into a sitting position but to his feet, though he was still wobbling around like a newborn horse.

As such, he was not looking up and around, instead focused on the ground so that he could make sure his feet didn’t come out from underneath him. This was not a good idea, as when he finally did look up he stared eye to eye with a very annoyed-looking Lyrhea, who jabbed his skin again with one of her fingernails and then grabbed his face with one of her hands.

Lyrhea was fed up with these damn pedo bastards, and pushed Ralph down to the ground violently and with a single motion while shouting her command as loud as she could, not bothering to properly speak and fusing two of her three words together in the process.

“Siddown, bitch!”

Ralph, as you might imagine, did not sit down, as there was no way that he could have given the new dose of omnitoxin that had paralyzed him again and the force by which Lyrhea had shoved him to the ground. The armored man clattered against the shattered tile floor and nearly bounced a bit before his body locked up again and he was left staring up at the ruined ceiling yet again.

He would have cursed or even expressed some very vocal sentiments, but the dosage delivered this time had been increased compared to last time, and he was not even able to open his mouth, his body just barely able to force air through his nose. He barely could hear anything other than a ringing in his ears and a few muffled noises as he could have sworn he heard the first of the Lyrheans inject his fellows with another dose as well.

It would seem as though he would be here for a while longer. Or at least until his executioner got better. Whichever came first.

…

“Dumb bastards…” Lyrhea grumbled. She had expected the venom to wear out eventually, but while it had lasted longer than she had expected it also wore off in ways that she had not. Then again, she had, for the most part, used it on monsters, ones that she had killed shortly after applying it, no less.

Her most liberal use of it on humans had been when she used it to poison the well not so long ago, and even then that had only provided a mixed result and the symptoms displayed by those affected ranged from mild to severe. As such, she really had no concrete and usefull metric to know how and when, and why the venom would wear off, so it was, like usual, a roll of the dice to find out with each usage.

But now her foes were suitably affected, and it was time to get the youngest Lyrhean her name. After all, it would be tiresome to just call her ‘you’, or ‘new one’ or anything similar. Likewise, calling her ‘Olga’ would be improper. Olga was dead and gone, after all, and the one that was currently here was someone and something entirely different.

“So, little one.” Lyrhea said softly as her newest ‘daughter’ finally got to her feet. “What shall we call you?”

The Lyrhean formerly known as Olga tilted her head around a bit to try and ward off the wooziness that she was feeling and seemingly didn’t notice the question.

“Hey, what should we call you?” came the question again. This time ‘Olga’ processed it and replied, though it wasn’t a true answer and more of a question.

“What do you mean? Don’t I already have a name?”

Lyrhea shook her head.

“’Olga’ no longer exists. You are someone and something new now, so it stands to reason you should have a different name, too. I’m… not the best when it comes to naming things. Just ask Luxnilae for an example. So, I’ll let you name yourself.”

The newest Lyrhean thought for a bit.

“How about ‘Frosrahsa’?”

Now it was Lyrhea’s turn to be confused.

“Oookay,” she replied. “Any particular reason for choosing that name?”

Frosrahsa shrugged.

“None at all?”

“Well..” Frosrahsa said with a bit of apprehension. “It contains part of the word ‘frost’, and the latter bit just kinda sounds exotic… So…”

“Fair enough,” Lyrhea said, accepting the decision. “Not like I can complain much, seeing as I am named something stupid and I ended up using a word for ‘light’ in the name of our healer.”

“Are you saying my name sucks, Mother?” Luxnilae asked jokingly. “I think it sounds fine.”

“Then maybe it is part of being a snake that we all have shit naming sense,” Lyrhea said with a smile. “Well, God? Is that a quirk of our existence, too?”

[“Shut it.”] The Primordial Serpent retorted, obviously both amused and not amused by the heretical insinuation. [“Be glad you got a name to begin with. Not like any of my other Chosen ever got to name anyone. They all died mere days or even hours after being remade, so you can at least get the luxury of having the ability to dislike your names.”]

“All glory to the giant snake god!” Lyrhea said in a monotone voice, lifting her hands high with a deadpan look on her face. “All glory to the one who grants us a terrible naming sense! Praise be!”

[“Don’t the rest of you fucking dare to do that too.”] the Snake God interjected. [“I already have to deal with her being like that. I don’t need more to.”]

“Should we be worshiping you with some ceremony?” asked Frosrahsa.

[“Later.”] The big multi-headed snake in the void replied. [“For now, just grow in numbers. There needs to be more of you before we start down that road.”]