Strigoi Soul(Original Urban Fantasy)

[Strigoi Grey]

Lore: Werewolf packs

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AN: Hoping to post something more substantial soon.

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Therianthropes are blessed or cursed, depending on the were asked, with the instincts of their natural counterparts. But while animals lack a foreign mind in their heads, urging them to act in ways that go against their beings, weres are always close to their beasts. The level of self-control possible varies, with some weres being in beast or hybrid form most of the time, needing immense effort to become human, while others are the opposite, having to cajole their beasts in order to adopt their form, or only being capable of doing so when in danger.

It is for this reason that people who purchase therianthropy, either by letting themselves be marked by a were or, more commonly, buying were fluids or tissue to inject or graft into themselves, prefer animals with placid natures, like sheep or turtles. Not all weres, however, are lucky enough to get to choose their beasts. Indeed, being bitten, scratched or stung by a were who has gone so feral they are stuck as a beast is one of the most common causes of therianthropy.

In the case of werewolves, they are driven to form packs. Both humans and wolves are social creatures, and while humans are able to bear solitude, lone wolves, and werewolves, usually have a need to belong. In nature, wolf packs consist of a mated couple, the leaders, and their offspring, the older wolves who have not left the pack yet and the younger cubs. Mirroring this, werewolves are driven to mark their spouses and children in order to "form a pack".

Research to ensure the birth of were infants has proven unsuccessful since the Shattering, with the closest thing being the performing of surgery to allow a were to mark the fetus. This is not desirable, however, as a baby born with were instincts is going to have a harder time developing normally, not to mention full moons during the pregnancy could result in the fetus attempting to change in the womb, which, aside from being harmful to them, regeneration notwithstanding, could also result in the death of the mother, if she is human.

There exists another type of pack, made up of werewolves who are not related. When placed in captivity, unrelated wolves struggle among themselves to form a hierarchy, which is what led to the birth of the alpha wolf myth. Like imprisoned humans, those wolves feel trapped and act in ways they might not, in their natural environment. Such werewolf packs are similar, as they are bound by circumstance or choice, not blood. These packs tend to be more aggressive than werewolf families, with the members clashing more often.

Due to its persistence, enough noospheric power has gathered around the alpha wolf myth for it to become reality. Alpha wolves, as the leaders of these packs are referred to, sometimes to their chagrin, possess powers beyond those of standard werewolves. They are lion-sized in wolf form and stand head and shoulders above other werewolves in hybrid form, just as werewolves tower over humans. Alphas tap into the power of their packs, which allows them to become several or dozen of times stronger, faster and more durable than a normal werewolf - every pack member's prowess is for the alpha to tap into. This drives some alphas to recruit aggressively, in order to bolster their personal power, and las led to the rise of many werewolf warlords.

Alpha werewolves possess enhanced powers of regeneration, being able to heal gunshot wounds from silver bullets, provided the bullet does not remain in a vital area for long. If it passes through, it will leave scars. Impalement from silver blades or spears can also be regenerated from, as can blunt force trauma from silver bludgeons, unless the alpha's head is crushed in one hit, for example.

An ability shared by all werewolf packs is that of coordination. Not just in the mundane sense - werewolves are able to share senses, with every packmate seeing and hearing what every other packmate does and instinctively knowing how best to assist their fellow weres, which their bodies automatically move to follow. This makes werewolves desirable recruits for militaries and law enforcement agencies.

[Strigoi Grey]

Apocrypha: Omake: Own a spear for home defence

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AN: I'll try to write the next substantial chapter soon. In the meantime, I've added an einheri twist to a meme I like. There are many SS versions of this I could write, and maybe I will.

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>I own a spear for home defence, since that's what the Aesir intend!

>Four brigands break into my home.

>"What in Hel?" As I grab my helmet and runed polearm.

>Stab a fist-sized hole through the first man, he's dead where he stood.

>Fling my axe at the second man, miss him entirely because it's not for throwing and hit the neighbour's war hound.

>I have to resort to the ballista mounted at the back of the longhouse.

>"Valhalla awaits!" The bolts shred two of the men, their dying screams startling the cattle.

>Heft my halberd and charge the last raving marauder. He bleeds out, waiting for the Valkyries to arrive, since enchanted blade wounds are impossible to bind closed.

>Just as the Aesir intend.

[Strigoi Grey]

Apocrypha: Family Matters: Peretz

* * *
Caleb knows the explanation - the excuse, as he calls it. He's heard the story so many times, like it's something from Tanakh. It might as well be, he reflects. It could be: one of those ridiculous episodes, immortalised so they might be held up as examples of how ridiculous man could be, at times.

He knows the story, word by word; at this point, remembrance of the telling and retelling might as well be a substitute for actual memories. It is about as accurate, anyway.

He pictures a room, small and dingy, though well-lit (at this point, his father always points out that said room is not often lit like that, the miser, because they lack the means. Caleb shakes his head every time. His father might not be aiming to live up to the stereotype of the stingy Jew, but he manages)...

A couple, not too young, nor too old, though weathered. His hair and eyes are brown, hers dark and blue. The mother is tired and flushed, the father on edge.

Akiva is now expectant in an altogether different way, and there is any number of things he is waiting for. His boy, eyes screwed shut and skin hot to the touch, is mewling quietly. He is not sure that is a good sign. In his experience, newborns are loud or quiet, and those in-between sometimes sickly or otherwise weak. He does not want to lose his son so fast, not after his hope has been rekindled. The leg wound that saw him sent back home from the Great War has him using a cane, even leaning on it when not walking, sometimes, but he is alive. He expected to die, blasted apart by a shell or rotting from the inside because of poisonous gas.

Those are the real killers, not the bullets. Even when they don't touch you, they leave you dead inside. Even now, the sound of a slammed door has him crouching. But such is the soldier's lot. Maybe, one day, they'll stop looking upon his kind with such venom...but he is not holding his breath. This would not be the first war Jews have died in for those who shy away from them at best. Just the biggest.

Akiva looks up from his cane's head, a carved steel eagle, to glare at the doctor. He's been fussing for a good while, a while - though Akiva is no expert in such matters, he feels it is his duty as a father to ask - than might be safe for his son. The boy is hardly moving, and that scares him as much as any moment in the trenches ever has.

He watches the doctor pick up and put down some tool or other, producing a dull sound as it hits the metallic tray, before his hands move to the others. Akiva is fairly sure he's already checked them all. Clearing his throat, the former soldier says, 'Herr doktor, if you don't mind, can't you come here?'

The doctor turns with a guilty look, and, after making his way over and checking the boy's heartbeat, admits he does not believe the lad is long for this world. He repeats the sentiment eight days later, when Akiva and Dalit expect their son to be circumcised. But the doctor hems and haws once more, finally saying that he believes this would put the boy's life at too much risk.

They don't call upon the doctor's services after this, but they quietly agree that no, their boy does not seem too healthy. He only cries when he wants to be fed and changed, after all, and barely reacts otherwise, but for some wheezing gasps.

Caleb did not die, as expected, though he was always more susceptible to cold than the other children, and his scrapes and bruises took longer to heal. He is still, however, the only uncut boy of his faith he knows, and every reminder - usually coming in the form of uninspired taunts about how he must be a Christian in disguise or denial - makes his face turn red. In anger more than shame, admittedly; anger at his parents, who didn't go through when they should have, and at that indecisive idiot, damn his pessimism.

Despite his weakness, despite his bones taking longer to heal than those of his friends, he has broken his fists on the faces of most of his rivals. But at least their faces broke as well, and they quieted down some.

'Bastards,' Caleb mutters heatedly to himself as he makes his way back home, hands in his coat pockets. The cold is biting, and his temper makes things worse, heating up his skin and leaving him puffing like a bellows. His hat only comes to the middle of his ears (a hand down from his father, who must've had the ears of a mouse, he swears) and he no longer has his scarf. He didn't manage to throttle that goddamn bigot, though not for lack of effort. Ratty thing just fell apart halfway through, but at least he put the dog on the run.

Still, he can't help but marvel at the sheer audacity of the hooligan. Not the trick itself - slipping something of yours into the pocket of someone you passed was an old way to pick a fight -, but the fact it was done to him, because of what he is, and in broad daylight at that.

Caleb hunches his shoulders, pulling his hat as far down as it will go. He doesn't like this Hitler fellow everyone's been talking about for years, not least of all because people like the boy he thrashed love him.

Despite his mood, Caleb smiles as he sees the front of the shop their home is built above come into view. For all he can be a pain in the neck sometimes, his dad is interesting. He has all these books about faiths and cults and sects from all over the globe, and Caleb has heard him and his mom talking about branching into philosophy too. His favourites are these "comparative religion" books, which put different beliefs side by side, and...

Caleb watches, frozen, as shards fall from where a blur smashed through the glass front. For an absurd moment, he thinks it must be so cold the glass is cracking, then realises two things.

The first is that, even if it was so cold, the glass wouldn't explode like that.

The second is that, even here, even now, he is refusing to accept the wickedness of the people he knows despise him and all those like him.

And they do not deserve that.

As Caleb turns, a stunned look on his face, he also realises he is in danger, as are his parents.

Then the second brick hits him.

He manages to lift his arms in front of his face, but his wrists break as he deflects the brick, and he stumbles, crying out at the pain. Falling onto his rear, he has no time to see the brick come down on his head, almost lazily. Though his hat spares him the worst, he is still dazed, and can feel blood spread across his scalp, warm and sticky, making his hat cling to his hair.

Lifting bleary eyes, Caleb manages to make out a gaggle of youths make their way towards him (the shop?) with purposeful strides. At first, he thinks they're some of the bigger bad kids, but as his vision steadies and they become less blurry, he makes out their uniforms.

Staggering to his feet right when his father arrives to drag him to safety - but where in the world is that? -, he decides that he bloody hates this Hitler man and his Youth. The oaf he got into a scrap earlier is leading the pack, bringing a sneer to Caleb's face that turns his youthful features ugly.

'There! He has my watch!' the idiot exclaims, pointing at him even as his father drags him away. Caleb's hands reflexively fly to his pockets, and he groans. Son of a...he does have his watch, true enough. Kept it after teaching him a lesson, deciding he was entitled to some compensation.

When he and his parents are huddling in some quiet street corner, praying the shadows will hide them, Caleb, teeth chattering, digs out the damned thing out of his coat. 'D-Dad, I...' he stutters, tears leaving streaks through the grime on hiss face. Swallowing, he continues, 'He...he didn't lie.'

Akiva manages a ragged laugh, even as Dalit reaches for her son's shoulder with a calming smile, and Caleb decides his dad is a million times the man Hitler will ever be, for who else could laugh at times like this? 'Don't be fooled, son,' he whispers, eyes peeled for anyone passing close by their hideout. 'People like them, they don't need reasons to do what they do.'

* * *

The next uniformed group that comes to the Peretz house is made up of men, not thuggish brats. These are thuggish sorts too, though they seem more refined at first.

When they talk about how people like him and his parents have been pushed to the edge enough, many scraping by, ill and starving, he foolishly, foolishly wants to believe they are taking them somewhere, if not better, then safer. Some time has passed since that awful November night, but, though Caleb feels older than he is, he is still a child. And children, he thinks, should not hope to be imprisoned forever, which is what he believes these men have come to do.

Maybe, if they're all locked up somewhere deep in the country, people will no longer come by to ravage their homes.

This hope does not last long, for all it is said that such things die last. After they take him away for all he has known and tear his father from his books and his mother from her clothes, they bring them to a train, sleek and fit to burst. Caleb fancies he can hear it creaking on the tracks, so full of Jews he makes a joke that it must be driven by Moses.

His parents don't laugh.

Caleb falls quiet after that, unsettled by his own joke. How long did his people wander, last time they left a place in such numbers? Too long, too long...and though there are no deserts in Germany, it feels no less a wasteland.

* * *

There is a part of his youth Tamar Thousandhands, as he will style himself over the decades to come, chooses not to think of much. Not because he does not wish to remember what he went through - the work, the hungry, thirsty labour that felt even lowlier than slavery, that saw his parents reduced to thin walking corpses before they were taken away from the last time -, but because, whenever he thinks of it, he cannot help but reminisce of everyone who did not survive where he, ill weakling that he was, managed to.

When he does remember, it is because he craves anger. Seeks the certainty, the power, wrath and spite and hatred bring. Tamar knows better than most how such feelings can be whipped into a frenzy, for it made him suffer, but he is no bigot. Not like his old tormentors. He has no tolerance for intolerance. When you treat others as though they are less than people, you stop being a person yourself, as far as he is concerned.

But those days are far away yet, and Caleb cannot yet dream of the man he will become.

It is here that he meets Sarah, a scowling, rawboned girl who can mould dirt like clay and stack uneven rocks like playing cubes. They smile when they can get together, and she teaches him to skip stones across the narrow, thin puddles the rain leaves behind sometimes. Tamar, thick-skulled as he is, teaches her how to headbutt properly, then - so she doesn't embarrass herself laughing with a nosebleed- how to set her nose.

'How come a stork likes you knows how to headbutt?' she teases him one day.

'How come a goat like you doesn't?' he retorts, almost glad that he's gotten to sallow for his blushes to show. But he's still proud, and doesn't like to let anyone see they've got him flustered. Even the girl he likes.

One day, Amos, a boy Caleb has locked horns with more often than he'd like to (he's too tired, dammit. Isn't Amos? But the horse-faced son of a bitch is like a spinning top, almost), sits down with them during one of their rare breaks. It's shortly after a pitiful meal, just enough to keep them alive, so they can keep making weapons.

'Did you hear?' Sarah mutters, sitting cross-legged like the Indians from one of Akiva's books. At least, Caleb thinks glumly, his dad didn't burn with them. 'Heard said we're getting new guards. These ones like to beat 'em Itzigs don't call each other by their numbers.' She flexes her arm, displaying hers, alongside a small amount of muscle.

Caleb is too dog-tired to remark upon her throwing that bloody word around. It's not like she thinks less of her fellows, or like the jerries are going to stop.

Amos preens, puffing his chest out as he does when trying to appear brave. It has earned him more than one kick to the ribs. 'My name's too good to be forgotten,' he sputters, hair still curly despite the grime they live in, though no longer glossy. 'I'll show 'em what's what.'

Sarah waves him off. 'What'll you show, hmm? Your behind?'

'They can kiss it!' he replies, nodding as he decides that sound good. 'I'll show 'em, just you watch.'

Caleb isn't sure where the hell Amos gets his hands on the scissors, just as he doesn't know whether he should hate him or love him for putting a couple of the few kids younger than them out of their misery. Least he's quick enough to put them through his own throat before the guards get their hands on him.

According to Sarah, the girls Amos ended (not that they were brimming with life, Caleb reflects grimly) were taken away because, more than being Christ-killers, "Like the rest of you goddamned Yids", they liked each other. 'You know, like your folks did,' she added, seeing his bemused face.

He doesn't "know", not really, but he figures they weren't hurting anyone, any more than the rest of them were.

'Maybe some boys got jealous,' Sarah jokes weakly, her humour gone as bleak as anything in their living nightmare, 'that they weren't getting any kisses, and went and told their daddies. Then poof, they were put on a train, eh?'

Caleb gulps, looking around and feeling like an idiot as a result. There's little light to see by after curfew, and even with everyone packed together like sardines (like corpses in a mass grave, Amos used to say), he can't make out anyone's features. He doubts they can see him, either. So, he thinks when he turns back to Sarah, he's just scared of her, and that's dumb.

Running a hand through his short hair, he moves closer to her. 'How about we make someone jealous ourselves?' he asks, voice husky more out of thirst than anything. Sarah's hands move to her mouth, and for a moment, he fears he's crossed some line. Then he realises she's trying to contain her giggles.

They don't make anyone jealous, that night.

But he makes his Sarah laugh, and, Caleb thinks, this matters, in its own way.

* * *

The end of the War feels like something out of a dream, even if it only really ends because new monsters, many not man-shaped, have started crawling out of humanity's nightmares. Caleb is almost a man by now, old if not fit enough to fight, and he has faith. Not in the false messiah so many of the Allies exalt - he loves Jesus as he can only love a teacher of such wise thinking, but the Nazarene was a man, and God is God -, but faith in the Lord.

He does not become a soldier, though he figures he could, given some time. He has faith, and all the lore he can get his hands on, he devours. The teachings of the Kabbalists and their ilk are as mystifying as they are enlightening, but Caleb seeks knowledge of another kind.

Sarah is present when he turns himself into what he must become - how could she be otherwise? She does not hold his hand or lay her hand upon his brow when he shrieks his lungs bloody, for such would be dangerous, and he would never forgive himself if he so much as scratched her, but she is at his side, never out of sight, and that helps.

Two of her hulking golems flank her, like the world's biggest watchdogs, and their solidity is something Caleb craves as the world melts before his eyes, and he falls, for eternity and a heartbeat, into the Hell that many dread.

He is approached, for that is the wont of the fiends, and tempted, for that is their pleasure. But the pleasure of demons are as hollow as they are endless, and Caleb is no longer inclined to indulge those stronger, crueller than him, merely for respite. He turns them all aside. They offer him wealth and joy beyond anything he has dreamed of, the corpses of everyone he has hated, everything and everyone he has ever held dear.

He is even confronted by the one God has designated to test the souls of mortals, and draw out the darkness inside. He is wearing armour of tarnished ivory, thorned vines encircling his limbs and chest, and the young man knows they were grown from the crown laid upon the head of he who walked the world almost like the Lord; who, in doing so, was misunderstood by man.

In his hand, he clutches a sword, bejewelled and polished to a mirror sheen. He raises his bow as Caleb walks toward him, an arrow aimed at the youth's eye, and urges him to halt. Has he no pride? How can he plan to content himself with casting down his broken foes and their works, instead of reigning over a kingdom wrought from their agony forever? Has he no anger left?

But he walks on, and the First of the Fallen shoulders his rifle with an amused huff, his weapon as changing as his mood. This one will prove interesting, he thinks.

'Say, my boy,' he calls out, as Caleb begins scrabbling at the bedrock of his prison-demesne, nails already cracked and bloody. 'I see your conviction, tempered by false modesty as it is. Seek my son, the son who bears my sceptre; you might learn much about being kings in waiting from each other.'

Caleb does not pay the tempter much thought, busy as he is pulling up the creatures that dwelled below Hell before it was given shape and purpose. Later...he and the cambion who goes by Louis Cypher with much humour do succeed in meeting, sometimes, but, alas, it is mostly for work. The Hellfire Club's president is as skilled in binding and unbinding his uncles and aunts as he is at helping those they held to recover so they might reenter society, or at preparing those seeking to bear them within themselves. Tamar often seeks his counsel.

When they can meet to just talk, Louis, always busy chasing his beaus and belles, comically bemoans the air of responsibility Tamar, family man that he is, brings into his establishments. Whenever Louis hears of the newest member of the Peretz family (which, Tamar thinks with some amusement, is during almost all of their infrequent meetings), he throws his hands up, sighing.

'You keep making all these little ones, my friend,' Louis says one day, alternately pulling at his beard and ponytail, both silver. 'Do you lot not stop?'

Tamar, who finds it quite funny that one of the most dangerous beings in existence is put off by the mere chance of knocking someone up, says, 'Well, Louie, if you want a family of your own, you only need to stop frequenting backdoors.'

'Cal, you know how I work,' Louis says patiently, eyes not even once betraying the hundred millennia they've seen. 'I can't help but end up inside arseholes.' He takes a sip of his hot chocolate, silently daring Tamar to say anything about his choice of drink. 'And don't call me Louie! Damned cartoon ducks...'

There are years between Caleb's transformation and his first meeting with the Hellflamer, however. Right now, it is all he can do to keep his eyes on Sarah, for as long as they last. They are soon replaced by flames that burn without fuel, flames that scorch most of his skin off, leaving only patches, soon to be covered in the words and shapes of binding.

* * *

Hell Decade is nowadays used to refer to the years between the Shattering and ARC's first anniversary. The first handful were defined by fear and chaos, until the world pulled itself together, though it took the coming of the Martians to make Earth present an united front. And, in fifty-five, the world's foremost paranormal law enforcement agency proved itself, again and again, and grew.

Caleb has more experience than most agents when the recruiters come to him. He has spent most of the last ten years alternating between keeping his monsters leashed and, at Sarah's urging and direction, venturing out to stop what menaces he can in their corner of Germany. The fighting helps him think, for he and his creatures align in purpose.

Caleb listens as they list his duties and rights (interesting order...though men more interested in the latter than the former often end up monstrous), nodding quietly, then lifts his burning eyes. 'Will I get to kill Nazis?'

The woman, with skin as dark as onyx and eyes like liquid light, smiles. She has a calming effect on him, he notices. His monsters have stopped screaming for destruction, though they're still walking up and down in his head. 'Perhaps. Many of them have access to supernatural resources or minions...'

'I'll slaughter them,' Caleb says quietly. 'I'll string them up by their guts and stack their corpses like cordwood. I can hurt them, hurt them until they forget death can take them, because I won't let it.'

She looks saddened, though the man, a flamboyant smoker (her Chinese gigolo? He could be, despite the uniform...), chuckles, taking out his pipe. 'I say, he knows what he wants, Aya.'

She looks up at Caleb, schooling her expression. 'That he does, Ying.'

* * *

Rose Palmer - she went by Rosa, back in the old country, though her last name there bore no resemblance to her current one- is terrified as he hunts her. Caleb only regrets that he can't prolong the end and the dread before it for eternity, for his other duties pull him away.

Her blue, blue eyes are wide and bloodshot as she sees her husband's remains shamble across their bedroom, ripping the bed apart as they go. Caleb is only here in spirit, his body clashing with a self-made god of a warlock half a hemisphere away, but it is enough. The little witch has no cantrips left, no hexes, and nothing to kill herself with. Caleb has made sure there are no blades or ropes around, and he won't let her bite her tongue off or ram her head into a wall.

Her brown, wavy hair is in disarray, her white and blue dress tattered. She looks like the housewife she pretended to be, despite the blood staining her - most of her Connor's. What is left of him has bled for so, so long, but it is not enough. There is a hole in Caleb's heart he fears no amount of bigot blood will ever fill, should he spill an ocean of it.

It was almost a clever plan, in its humility. Scurry off to the States like the she-rat she is, find a weak-willed, strong-bodied fool who shares her ideas, and breed a clutch of little monsters. But he stopped her before she could bring her spawn into the world, fouling it further.

Sadly.

Their marriage was something out of a fairytale: everything got done on time or earlier, there were no inconveniences, no fights, and so much luck, so many promotions...to think, all it took was some children's souls, torn from their flesh well before they could decide what they wanted to be when they grew up.

Caleb admits: he is puppeting the husband's remains because it hurts and scares this little whore of Hitler's. He could possess a wall and crush her, but where's the joy in that? Let her fear. Let her tremble, as she feels a fraction of what she and her horde inflicted upon the world.

'You cut so many destinies short, Rosa,' Caleb breathes through shattered teeth, forcing ruined lungs to work. 'And not just the coloured and the queers and the crippled - even those as pure as you dreamed of, just because they did not think the same...but they were useful, weren't they? Rosa...' he makes the abomination smile. 'I'm so sorry!'

He grabs her by the arms, pulling her shoulders out of her sockets as he lifts her. 'I'm so sorry you don't have children to see you squirm!'

Rosa does not die quickly, or well. But every family she stole from receives a piece of her body, mouthless but mewling the apologies carved into their flesh. It is only after everyone has come to terms with the events that Caleb lets her die.

* * *

Paradoxically, his colleagues have stocked up on complaints right when he's almost done killing the Nazis' old guard. He'd laugh if their yapping wasn't getting on his nerves. And to think it hasn't been too long since he's beaten Strauss bloody, to the delighted cackling of his monster. How could they stoke his temper so quickly?

The Heads' meeting has ended, as far as official matters are concerned, and Tamar is left with his peers stares, concerned but judgemental. Growling low in his throat, he slams his palms on top of his chair's armrests, looking up at Aya, who happens (does she, really?) to sit across him. 'What?'

The mummy exchanges an uncomfortable look with the gryphon, but, despite Gilles' boisterousness, she's the one to speak. 'Cal,' she begins gently, 'I understand it still hurts-'

'Do you?' he asks blandly. 'I didn't see you with the other blacks in chains, Reem. Maybe I'm going senile, or stupid, but I don't see how you understand.'

He sees Leon's chest rise, and points at him. 'Don't you start on with how you witnessed their evil because you fought against them.' He stands up, slamming the table with one fist. 'Your goddamned country looked at you like mine looked at me! You just happened to get to hold a rifle!'

Gilles reels back, blinking, and Tamar glares at everyone else in turn. 'Efrat's kid is leaving for Romania, and I don't intend to sit here and be badgered by you lot instead of saying my goodbyes. I barely know Menachem, much less his wife - because, I must add, I'm busy doing what you're about to condemn me for. You're welcome,' he adds bitingly.

Amara's voice betrays nothing as she responds. 'Tamar, you cannot get into fights with every hateful idiot you meet on the street. Threatening to come into their homes and break them if they do not broaden their horizons will only make them hate everyone different.'

'Oh, look who's found her voice!' He flicks a hand at her. 'What's wrong, Ami? Learned your crush is related to you and dried up? Wagging your tongue won't get it back into her, by the way.'

'That's enough, Caleb,' Ying says, voice gravelly, as he also stands up, eyes glowing through his shades. Next to him, Amara is giving Tamar a betrayed look, eyes glistening. 'You are not the kind of man to lash out at his friends for trying to help, and you...' Ying slumps slightly. 'You cannot force people to think like you. Believe me.'

'Oh, yes.' Tamar laughs darkly. 'I guess you have time to think about everything, after you get exiled for being a murderous pervert.' His eyes move to Gerald and Elga, seated close together. The ghost looks deeply uncomfortable. And, for all his anger, Tamar deflates, sitting back down. 'Please don't be scared of me,' he mutters awkwardly, not looking at the Head of External Affairs despite addressing her. 'I know what you went through, and there are women I hate far more - who never gave up on the poisoned lies you did - who I'd wince to see go through a fraction of that.'

Elga does not say anything, but her smile, though shaky, is genuine. Tamar still chuckles whenever he remembers the latest attempt to assassinate her. To think, they'd actually believed a Head would stand aside and let his colleague be killed because, why, he hates the woman she used to be? Not that Elga needed the help.

It's John who sets him off, and after he's just calmed down, too. Propping a translucent elbow up on the table, the chained man says, 'Have you thought that your family's leaving because they're scared of how damn angry you get, mate?'

Not that the table is expensive - but Tamar still elects to jump over, rather than through it, to get at his peer.

* * *

Despite the endless hunger, despite the tireless voice urging her to rend and slaughter, Rivka Peretz is grateful for her ghoulish body, sometimes. No need to sleep, for one. She already sees her siblings whenever she closes her dead eyes - the nightmares used to be unbearable.

She remembers holding little Omri with one arm, as if he were his namesake, Channah - big enough to walk, though younger than her big sister by several years - clutching her other hand. She remembers running behind the dumpster, dragging her wailing sister along on scraped knees, too tired to carry her, too.

She no longer feels the breath of their pursuers that day on the back of her neck, but only because she no longer feels anything. And even the Iron Guard's remains, as short-lived as they are pitiful wherever they form, can scar a young girl, in body and soul.

She is hungry, so hungry. She puked and cried when they started chasing them, fumbling with their pistols. Where'd they get that, in Romania...? It doesn't matter, now. They fired and missed, and fired and missed, but hit her enough times, hit all three of them. Why's she the only one screaming?

Her stomach feels full and burning, and looking down, Rivka can see smoking, ragged tears in her flesh. So why is she so hungry...?

Her eyes linger on the stylised menorah on her hoodie, and she wishes for the breath to curse herself. Would they have known, otherwise? The munchkins did not look like the people those bastards had made themselves hate.

Rivka's twitching eye catch a glimpse of her murderers - for she's dying, she's sure - running away, their handguns tucked back into waistbands or down shirts.

Surely it can't end like this?

She remembers the stories, passed down to her dad from his grandpa, and thinks she might have one chance to set things right. Her grin is skeletal and bloodied, more grimace than smile. She can barely feel her face enough to tell.

'Just...a lil'...' she mumbles, reaching towards the crumpled form of her baby brother, pulling him closer until she can put her mouth to his tummy, like she does when she's blowing raspberries. At the same time she bites down, she scratches a strip of skin off her little sister's arm.

She needs more flesh, she's sure, and she can't bear to hurt just one of them that that much. Better...this way.

During her first meal after undeath - raw and screaming -, Rivka Peretz wonders why God didn't claim her before she died, instead of letting her rise again as a corpse-woman. Later, when she can think straight, think enough to weep over two small, unmoving bodies, she also wonders if her feeding killed them, rather than the gunshot wounds.

The thought would have made her retch, as a human, but ghouls do not give up on what they have consumed. And, for all her family reassurances that she's not to blame, that she's just a scared kid who sought a way to strike back against injustice...for all the years she's spent with ARC, joining them more because their resources should have helped her discover the truth than because she wanted to help people - though that is why she has remained - she does not yet know the truth.

Rivka rubs her eyes, exhaling. She has been unable to get tired in a long, long time, but she swears the letters on the report are starting to blend into each other.

Scowling at the paper, Rivka looks up and, seeing the cross on the hallway wall, wonders why the Lamb, said to love all no matter their beliefs or realm of origin, did nothing that day. Maybe her great gramps is right, and he really was only a man. She usually tends to agree with Tamar anyway, but hearing about his kindness from so many of her agents and acquaintances has her curious, she supposed.

Pushing the report away, she fishes out her phone, dialling one of her best friends. God knows he has enough things on his plate nowadays...but he knows people who just might be able to answer this question, if not tell her if she is a murderess. Half of the postcogs she's asked disagree with the other half. She knows such matters of degree are prone to being interpreted subconsciously, but still... 'Hey, David,' she says when he picks up, crossing her legs. 'Where did you say your dad's hanging out nowadays?'

[Strigoi Grey]

Sidestory: The Zhayvin Files: Trolls

* * *
AN: Hoping to resume posting more substantial chapters soon.

* * *

Classification: mega-humanoid aberrants.

Colloquial names: trolls.

Origin: Earth's trolls appeared several billion years ago, though those who mostly inhabit the Clusters predate the planet and/or universe, depending on the case, by eons.

Description: most trolls, several metres tall and appropriately broad, with muscular physiques (though some can end up corpulent due to their eating habits, this does not actually diminish their physical prowess, and sometimes increases it). They are humanoid, with skin that is several centimetres thick and usually covered in something meant to increase its resilience: scales, knobby protrusions, layers of slime and so on; troll skinn varies in colour and texture in accordance with their environment. It is not unknown for trolls to lose their scales and blue complexion and instead become green and warty when moving from rivers to swamps, for example.

Though most trolls have large fangs, noses (which has drawn several unflattering comparisons between them and the proboscis monkey) and pointed or triangular ears, there are some that simply resemble larger humans without features stereotypised as monstrous (in regards to facial features, mostly; river trolls still possess scales and fins at their joints, mountain trolls still have skin whose texture resembles stone, and so forth).

Behaviour: trolls do not generally behave too differently from humans, an aversion towards the sun aside, although groups of them in certain regions ave displayed a ravenous, greedy attitude and a lack of patience towards anything that does not bring them immediate gratification. Almost all of them, however, display a fascination with places of crossing, usually bridges, though any kind of threshold, including metaphorical ones, might gain a troll's interest. Trolls are driven to oversee passage through such places and make sure no one passes without acting "properly", the definition of which depends on the troll, but usually involves praise or payment being given to them.

In recent decades, the "internet troll" subspecies (for lack of a better term) has appeared, a troll variant that takes great pleasure in tricking and frustrating people.

Threat level: regional. Trolls are capable of pulverising any continent in one strike, shattering tectonic plates and moving and reacting at lightspeed. Trolls are immune to esoteric effects and regenerate from any damage not dealt by attacks containing sunlight or otherwise related to or empowered by the sun.

Tollkeeper trolls, as they are called, are dangerous if localised beings, capable of spontaneously acquiring the appropriate abilities and levels of physical prowess to prevent people from passing without paying their toll, including an immunity to their usual weakness towards sunlight.

Internet trolls, aside from being immune to many physical attacks when manifested in the analog world, are also capable of jumping between non-warded devices, possessing them and reshaping them to suit their whims. This is not limited to computers: any device that enables communication, such as a megaphone, can be hijacked.

Neutralisation: a Warscaled reptilian, aside from possessing more than the necessary physical prowess to incapacitate a troll, can also project sunlight and shape it into weapons. In the case of the digital variants, virus containment and erasure protocols are to be initiated; our firewalls, while appearing literal from an analog perspective, are capable of containing digital entities as well as their manifestations, as they cannot be bypassed by going under or above them.

Tollkeeper trolls, like all beings capable or arbitrarily redefining and increasing their abilities, must often be stalemated until reconciliation is possible. If it does not appear so, quantum entanglement with one of the Collective's datafiles concerning endlessly escalating entities is to be initiated; a tollkeeper troll would be both practical and ironic.

[Strigoi Grey]

Sidestory; Family Matters: Silva (Two)

* * *
AN: Last week, I didn't have the energy to write when I had the time, but I have both now. Similar hiatuses are unlikely to happen again soon.



This is the cobtinuation to the first part of the Family Matters series' Silva storyline. There are going to be at least three parts, but there might be more.



* * *



Mia



I was pleasantly tired when I returned home, thinking that, for once, I might just get to enjoy the drowsiness that was the closest zmei could come to exhaustion.



Should've known better.



I was silently thanking Abyss for helping me get to this point as I walked in and stretched, arms overhead. David's house, which I was starting to think of as ours more and more, had almost replaced my apartment as my usual haunt.



Zmeu country was always nice to return to, but recently, being there just reminded me of what slow progress I was making on my demesne, and the country wasn't the sort of place where you went to skulk.



I was sitting on one of the couches, rubbing my eyes, when I saw the dark shape in the doorway. For an instant, I almost thought it was David, their auras were so similar, but reason quickly caught up with my senses and I noticed the differences.



It was thin, resembling a scarecrow with its sparse form swathed in voluminous black robes. Not gigantic, but its gauntness made it look taller than it was, as if someone had stretched it out and there was only so much left.



I knew some people saw my boyfriend as a Grim Reaper figure, especially when he came to take them to the afterlife or end them - power like that makes your perception buckle - but I still felt silly for confusing them with each other.



DEATH didn't have its scythe in the open when it entered the luving room, but, once I stood up and it came close enough that I could glimpse it on its back, it suddenly seemed much more visible, as if it had grown, or like someone had polished its ivory-coloured blade to a mirror sheen.



LADY IN FLAMES.



I nodded in greeting. Names were names, and being acknowledged only deserved so much in return.



I was probably being bitchy, but it had entered my house without asking, and we weren't friends at the best of times.



'Are you looking for David?' I asked instead of saying hello. A ridiculous question, sure; if it was and hadn't found him, my much duller senes wouldn't help. But we had little to talk about otherwise.



It shook its head, a skull covered in pale flesh as thin as paper, one skeletal hand resting on the handle of the scythe slung across its back. I wondered if it was a reassuring gesture, like me drawing upon my inner fire or sharpening my claws.



I KNOW WHERE MY KEEPER IS, it replied. IF I HAD SOMETHING TO SAY TO HIM, I WOULD GO TO HIM.



Nice to know the arm candy wasn't even important enough to pass messages along. Not like we were practically engaged or anything. Better to go tiptoe around someone who half hated you than ask his girlfriend to help, not like she mattered...



I caught myself at the ridiculous thought, blinking. Where the hell had that come from? I had no excuse to be in such a mood, unexpected visit or not. Abyss was a great lover and a better teacher, and David was always one metaphorical phone call away if I wanted to talk or hang out, whether we were together or not.



DEATH must've caught my surface thoughts, or at least the accompanying emotions, because it winced apologetically, the way David sometimes did (had they really started rubbing off on each other already?), and reached out to grab my shoulder, before hesitating.



I nodded, perfunctorily because I was balkibg at my absurd outburst, and its posture relaxed. Its hand was cool as it rested on my scales, light and smooth.



IT IS NOT THAT, it said, shaking its head. I AM HERE TO SPEAK TO YOU, BUT IF YOU FEEL NEGLECTED, PERHAPS I CAN HELP ASSUAGE YOUR DOUBTS ON THAT FRONT.



I smiled awkwardly, sitting back down and gesturing next to me. 'Sorry. Just being stupid. It'll pass.' I glanced at its empty eye sockets as it sat down, then, voice mildly reproachful, said, 'You coulda knocked, ya know.'



AFTER YOU DID NOT RESPOND, it replied, I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE BETTER TO ANNOUNCE MY PRESENCE IN A MORE OBVIOUS WAY.



'Oh.' I blushed in embarrassment, cheeks glowing, and cleared my throat. It wasn't just not paying attention to my surroundings. Had I just ignored a vistor? Geez... 'Have you, ah, been waiting outside for long.'



DO NOT FRET. It held up a hand. IT IS OF NO CONSEQUENCE. I SENT A THOUGHT YOUR WAY, BUT YOU SEEMED LOST IN YOUR OWN MIND. It looked around. I TRUST I AM NOT INTRUDING.



I held up my hands. 'Let's just admit this was awkward and move on, ok?' I asked with a self-deprecating but hopeful smile, and was relieved when DEATH nodded. 'Thank you. You were saying you'd come to talk.'



INDEED. It stood up, looking thoughtfully at its chosen shape. BUT I KNOW THIS FORM UNSETTLES YOU, FOR IT BRINGS TO MIND CERTAIN RECENT EVENTS. PERHAPS THIS WOULD BE BETTER?



As soon as it said the last word, its avatar changed, becoming a creature I hadn't seen in a while.



"Hogge" was spotless as far as people went, much less pigs, though I still almost started shooing it out, instinctively. Its hooves barely made a sound as it made its way to sit in front of me, looking up like a dog, tongue lolling out and framed by its tusks. Its yellow eyes gleamed with an intelligence I was still baffled I'd missed.



My smile tightened, and I wondered what the heck I was supposed to say. Sure, Hogge looked cuter than most of its other forms (at least if you didn't know what it was), less dangerous, but this just reminded me of the way it had spent decades around David, watching and waiting, hiding the truth.



Like Andrei. My smile almost faded at that thought.



Yeah, DEATH's transformation probably wasn't gonna be as reassuring as it had hoped.



Sighing, I took its snout in both hands, scratching it under its chin. 'What are you trying to do, you goofball?'



It snorted, seemingly satisfied, showing its teeth in a grin far too human to have a place on its piggish face. MAKE YOU LAUGH? it tried. WHO DOESN'T LAUGH AT TALKING PIGS? OINK.



I chuckled, despite myself. Wouldn't have been surprised to learn some poor saps had underestimated Hogge only to find out what it really was.



And...yes. This was probably the result of David's influence. I couldn't imagine the DEATH my boyfriend had described early on joking like this.



I let go, and Hogge settled on the floor, resting its head on its forelegs. Its ears flopped to mostly cover its eyes, giving it a dopey look that natched the smile.



'Go on, then,' I said. 'What do you wanna talk about?'



Hogge's head twitched and its ears were suddenly pinbed back, reminding me of a human tossing back their hair. Its corny grin had disappeared too. SEVERAL THINGS, it replied, holding up a hoof and stabbing at the air. I took it as the equivalent to holding up fingers. FIRST OF ALL, I MUST THANK YOU, YOUNG ZMEU.



I arched an eyebrow. 'For?' I asked, bemused. Had I ever done something to help it? I couldn't recall.



FOR BEING THE FLAME IN THE BLIZZARD THAT IS MY KEEPER'S LIFE. Its eyes dimmed, until they were only points of shadow, so much darker than its face that they stood out. HE WOULD DISLIKE ADMITTING IT, BUT WITHOUT YOU, HE WOULD SPEND MUCH LESS TIME HELPING THE VIRTUOUS HE GATHERS, AND MUCH MORE TORMENTING THE WICKED.



The Hierophant had told me this, too. But where the Unbeing had been arguing that I should be worshipped like they venerated David, DEATH didn't really have a reason to convince me I was awesome. Not to mention it must've known everything I'd ever talked with the Creed Ascendant's members.



'That's nice to know,' I said neutrally, neglecting to mention I'd heard it before. 'And I'm glad that being with me helps David stay positive, but I'm not sure why that matters to you.'



I was playing dumb. I had heard that DEATH preferred to give people the afterlife they deserved, but I wasn't sure I believed it. Given its stunt with Andrei, it didn't seem to shy away from doing whatever it took to advance its agenda.



IT MATTERS, DEATH said, BECAUSE GOOD COMES TO THE GOID, AND SUFFERING COMES TO THE EVIL. WHEN THEY DO NOT, SOMEONE OUGHT TO MAKE IT SO.



I couldn't tell if it was lying (small wonder. With how powerful it was, it would've been weird if it couldn't evade my senses), but it didn't matter. Whether it really cared or was just putting on a show, David did care, and he was more than able to give everyone their due.



'You're welcome, I guess.'



Hogge smiled at my response, then went on. THANK YOU. FOR THE REST, I WOULD PREFER IF MY KEEPER WAS HERE, TOO. IN THE MEANTIME, WHY DON'T YOU TELL ME ABOUT YOUR NEWEST LOVER?



* * *



Even with David next to me, soothing my temper, I couldn't help but think how patronising that request had felt. Like asking a kid to talk about school until their parents arrived. And, sure, my flings felt pretty damn childish compared to my relationship with David, but still.



Both of them rushed to reassure me when I voiced these thoughts, but DEATH urged David to let it talk, and he let it, giving me a concerned look all the while.



I squeezed his hand, smiling at him to let him know I wasn't seriously mad at anything, and turned to the Idea of Destruction. It had shed its pig form in the meantime, opting for a black silhouette with ragged edges, resembling an ink-black, partly-flayed man, strips of skin hanging from his limbs.



THAT RELATES TO WHAT I WANTED TO TALK ABOUT NEXT, ACTUALLY, DEATH said, being tactful enough not to talk about blessings in disguise. It took the room in. IF I MAY EXPLAIN?



'Go ahead,' David saud, leaning back into the couch with his arms crossed. He was wearing a loose grey shirt and sweatpants of the same colour, with a couple black stripes running up each leg.



I liked seeing him in casual stuff. He looked great in anything, or nothing, don't get me wrong, but he dressed like this when he could relax. When I saw him in suits or that grey armour he'd taken to wearing a while back, it was usually on the way to or from a mission as Keeper or as the Mover's troubleshooter.



That was my boyfriend. Prince of existence, regent of creation, grand adjudicator of all things wrought.



It always made him laugh when I called him any of then in bed, and I laughed along, because he was cute when he was being modest.



Constantin, who had watched the exchange in silence, took his hands off his chair's armrests to clasp them in his lap. Eyes like slashes of white fire regarded DEATH from a face of crimson flame.



It felt great to know he was protective of me, but I didn't want them to start fighting if Costi disagreed with something, and hoped it wouldn't come to that. He'd always been passionate, and having Uriel in his head had only enhanced that. I doubted the Archangel would stop him from taking a swing at death. Hell, he'd probably encourage him.



'I came here,' God's Mouth began, 'to discuss a family visit with my son and his beloved. I hope it would not be much to ask that you keep this brief, so we might begin talking.'



Constantin was also hoping DEATH wouldn't do something to ruin the mood, or, especially, upset me. He wanted David and my meeting with his parents to go as well as possible.



IT WILL ONLY TAKE A MOMENT, DEATH promised, dipping its chin at God's Mouth. Then, to me, it said, LADY IN FLAMES, I MUST CONGRATULATE YOU FOR NOT REPEATING THE MISTAKES OF MY MIRROR-SIBLING.



I stared at it, waiting for it to elaborate. I had a vague idea of LIFE's mistakes, but I wasn't sure how anything I'd done could be compared with them, or why it was thanking me.



ALOW ME TO EXPLAIN. It spread its arms, and above one hand, a small, glowing white figure, the edges of its glow dancing with all colours of the rainbow, appeared. It resembled two ouroborous snakes, intertwined in the rough shape of a DNA helix. A pretty blunt representation of life and its nature, but I supposed it worked.



IN THE BEGINNING, WHEN THE MY SIBLINGS WERE FINDING THEIR ROLES, I STOOD BACK AND WAITED. I REPRESENTED THE END OF, AT THAT POINT, ONLY THE NOTHINGNESS THAT HAD COME BEFORE. AND I HAD NOTHING TO DO.



I knew I was being unfair to those so hurt only fading into oblivion held any appeal for them, but the thought of death not ending anything was oddly inspiring.



EVENTUALLY, OTHER THINKING BEINGS CAME ALONG, AND I TOOK THEM WHEN I HAD TO, FOR THEY HELD NO FAITH. THAT WAS MY PURPOSE, THOUGH ONE THRUST UPON ME, AND I WAS AS CONTENT AS IT COULD BE. It hung its head. MY TWIN WASN'T SO CAREFUL.



The representation of life began to writhe, the snakes twisting and tearing at each other, ripping out chunks of flesh that were healed as soon as they were bitten off. Some of the wounds, however, were covered by strange growths rather than healthy flesh.



LIFE WAS GREATLY ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT CREATION'S DENIZENS. HOW COULD IT NOT? THEY WERE IT, IN SO MANY WAYS. DEATH clenched a fist, and the snakes' struggle stopped, leaving them glaring and hissing at each other. BUT THAT PASSION GREW SICKLY, DESPITE EVERYONE'S ATTEMPTS TO STOP IT.



The dark silhouette held its hands out in fron of itself, stance regretful. IT PUSHED THE FLAWED - AND WHO WAS OTHERWISE? - TO GROW. WHEN ONE WENT AGAINST WHAT IT HAD DEEMED GOOD AND PROPER, IT BROKE THEM, AND FORCED THE SHELLS TO GROW, TOO.



DEATH began pacing angrily. I TOLD IT TO STOP, AGAIN AND AGAIN, SAID THIS WASN'T OUR FATHER'S DESIGN, BUT IT BRUSHED ME OFF EVEN AS I REAPT THOSE SHATTERED BY ITS MADNESS. IN THE END, IT FELL TO ME TO STOP IT. I LED THE CHARGE, AS IT WERE, AND OF LIFE'S CARCASS, I MADE AN ARMOURY FOR THE TOOLS OF DESTRUCTION THAT FELL INTO MY HANDS, FOR THEY ARE KINDRED TO ME.



DEATH was silent for a while, and its voice was tired when it spoke again. THAT WAS NOT THE LAST SIBLING I HAD TO OUT DOWN. FEAR, IN ITS QUEST TO BRING THOSE WHO TERRORISED TO JUSTICE REGARDLESS OF WHO THEY FOLLOWED, DREW THE IRE OF TOO MANY PANTHEONS, AND I HAD TO CHAIN IT, FOR THE GOOD OF EXISTENCE. ITS CHILDREN BEAR ME NO GRUDGE, BUT HOW CAN I BE FORGIVEN UNTIL IT IS FREED BY THE ONE MEANT FOR IT?



It stopped for a while, stewing over the past. I was about to prompt it when it said, KING SUN'S DESCENT WAS NOT BROUGHT ABOUT BY THESE EVENTS, BUT WITNESSING THEM DID LITTLE FOR HIS FAITH IN OUR CREATOR.



'Solarex made his own bed,' David said, a mixture of sadness and disappointment on his features. 'I cannot say I wouldn't have been angered after losing Mia to cosmic chance, but I like to think I wouldn't have become as pettily cruel as him.'



AS YOU SAY, MY KEEPER, DEATH agreed. MIA, WHAT I MEANT WAS THIS: LIFE COULD NOT BEAR TO SEE THOSE WHO HAD SPRUNG FROM ITS LOINS STRUGGLE. IT KNEW IT WOULD BE BETTER FOR THEM TO GROW ON THEIR OWN, IT HURT TO SEE THEM CRUMBLE EVEN AS IT ENJOYED THE PAIN OF THOSE IT PUNISHED, BUT IT NEVER STOPPED.



It moved closer to me, and the air in the room grew colder, while the moonlight streaming through the windows dimmed and the sounds of birds and crickets outside became inaudible even to my hearing. DEATH laid a hand on my arm as it began to talk. IT IS GOOD THAT YOU DO NOT LISTEN TO THE FOOLS WHO DERIDE THE LOVE BETWEEN YOU AND MY KEEPER. LET THEM CRY CHEATING AND CUCKOLDRY; YOU KNOW THE TRUTH, YOU AGREE TO BE TOGETHER, DESPITE EVERYTHING. SUCH DETAILS DO NOT MATTER.



DEATH smiled as it look me in the eyes, its own pinpricks of white light like dwarf stars. I KNOW YOU HAVE FELT THE TEMPTATION TO CUT AWAY YOUR URGES, TO MAKE YOURSELF LESS THAN YOU ARE, FOR THE SAKE OF MY KEEPER'S OEACE OF MIND. IT IS GOOD THAT YOU HAVE NOT - YOU HEARD WHAT CHANGES UNWANTED BY ANYONE CAN LEAD TO.



'I'd never forgive myself if you mutilated yourself like that for me,' David said, meeting my eyes while placing a hand where my knee would've been in human form. 'Don't worry, Mia. It doesn't really matter that much.'



Constantin smiled warmly but guardedly at us . Likely, he wanted to congratulate us, but didn't feel like opening up around DEATH.



I knew the feeling.



INDEED, DOING SO WOULD, MORE THAN LIKELY, LEAVE MY KEEPER DISTRAUGHT ENOUGH TO LOSE HOPE, AND BECOME THE UNCARING WARDEN OF THE AETHER YOUR LOSS WOULD BRING ABOUT.



'Oh, I get it,' I said in mock anger. 'It's not my happiness that matters. It's all about keeping David happy so he does his job properly.' I blew out some fire. 'Well, I'm orange enough to be a carrot anyway.' DEATH would just have to stay thin enoigh to be the stick.



'Baby!' David said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders.



I rolled my eyes with a grin, nudging him. 'I'm joking, you dork.' Then, more seriously, 'Protecting existence comes before what some scaly nympho wants.'



David gave me a look I wasn't sure I understood, then said, 'My worse half has something to say on that note.'



'Later?'



'Whenever you want,' he said, his strigoi side's voice melding with his own as they looked at me.



I kissed him briefly, just a chaste brush of the lips, then turned my attention back to DEATH, who looked satisfied at the display of affection.



Peeping tom? Nah, folks. Just making sure one of the three scariest people in all macrocosms keeps his head in the game.



And if I could help with that...well. I'd never thought I'd do much with my life. Now, if only I became powerful enough to be more than dead weight should David need help...



I'd keep working on my domain. I was getting there. I could already separate it from both zmeu country's wilds and the demesnes of other zmeu, even if I couldn't shape it in any meaningful sense. It would take a while until I could tap into it while outside zmeu country, but Abyss had assured me we would get there.



'Was that all?' I asked DEATH, wrapping a hand around David's.



The Idea of Endings scratched its narrow chin. FOR NOW. THAT IS, I HAVEN'T SPOKEN ABOUT THE FUTURE. YOUR CHILDREN...



I looked at David as it trailed off, obviously prompting us to talk, and in his eyes, I saw nothing had changed since our last talk about kids. 'What about 'em?' I asked DEATH.



YOU CANNOT SIMPLY HAVE THEM. SOME FAITHCRAFT, A LITTLE IMBUED DIVINE POWER, SHOULD SUFFICE TO MAKE AN UNDEAD FERTILE AGAIN, BUT IT HAS NEVER BEEN DONE. MORAL OBJECTIONS, DISTRACTIONS, UNLIVES ENDED PREMATURELY...SOMETHING ALEAYS INTERVENES. THIS IS NO COINCIDENCE.



David groaned the way he sometimes did when, while telling me about the Mover, he realised something it had teased him about, which was obvious in hindsight.



Not to say that was the reason for the reaction: simply, the exasperation was similar.



'Nothing's changed, then,' my strigoi grumbled. 'I must still give of myself if I want to become a father.'



GIVE OF YOURSELF, AND ALL THE UNLIVING WILL BECOME ABLE TO SIRE HEIRS ONCE MORE, DEATH confirmed. FOR SUCH ACTIONS ECHO ACROSS CREATION, AND THE RIPPLES THEY CAUSE MIGHT BECOME TIDES. It looked almost mortifird when it looked at me. BUT THAT IS NOT ALL. LADY IN FLAMES, KNOW THAT, IN BEING TAKEN BY MY KEEPER, ONE OF YOUR SCIONS WILL BEAR A TRACE OF MY NATURE, THOUGH THEY MIGHT WELL SURPASS ME IN POWER.



That was...not unexpected. I hadn't given much thought to what our kids might be like, but I knew unions between powerful beings often resulted in children who resembled their parents, and their parents' patrons, in terms of powers.



In fact, I'd been so focused on living in the moment, when I wasn't looking for ways around David's infertility (you'd think someone like him could just shapeshift or warp reality to somve that, but it wasn't that simple. Something to do with unlife being unable to beget life being a fact of creation) that I'd almost forgotten about DEATH's influence. I gave it a steady look. 'Won't love 'em less,' I said, 'marked by you or not.'



And it better keep its grubby mitts off my kids. I didn't give a rat's ass if it took me forever to love them the way human mothers were supposed to from the start. No one was going to hurt them or take them away, cosmological constant or not.



THAT IS GOOD, DEATH said, FOR GREAT DESTRUCTION WILL FOLLOW THEM, AND THEY WILL BREAK WITHOUT MEANING TO, AS CHILDREN DO.



* * *



After a few more congratulations, and promises that it had our backs, DEATH left, or at least altered its avatar until I could no longer perceive it.



I pressed two fingers between my nostrils, having no nose to pinch, then tried to smile as I looked up at God's Mouth. 'You were gonna tell us about your folks, Costi.'



'Right.' Constantin laced his fingers. 'I can only speak about the people I remember, for I have not seen them since they died in my boyhood, but...they were good, Mia. They did not judge. They were openminded, for those days, even if more...' He coughed lightly. 'Ah, rustic, than you are used to.'



'Oh?' I said innocently, enjoying the way he shifted in his seat. I was being a twat, but Constantin was smart enough to know there wasn't anything to be nervous about, teasing be damned.



'Well,' he said, eyes flitting between me and David, who had that thoughtful look he wore when trolling people. 'Well, that is, they were traditional.' He stood up, smoothing down his habit. 'Perhaps it would be better if you explained why you do not curb your instincts. This should prevent any dismissal or misunderstanding that you enjoy sleeping around.' He gave me a sympathetic look. 'I know you hate when people talk like you're an animal, unable to help itself.'



'Thanks,' I said. 'What about everything else.'



'The same should go for revealing you enjoy all kinds of lovers,' Constantin said, deliberately calm, as if he were talking about my preferences in food. 'By which I mean, it would help if you explained it is a conscious choice. Not an urge.' He scratched the back of his head. 'They did not have much contact with zmei, and I know you would dislike being pitied for no reason.'



I gave him a thumb's up, looked at David, and said, in a pompous voice, 'Truly, you have the patience of saints to indulge your whorish woman to this extent, our grandson.' Leaning forward, I asked, in a hushed tone, 'What does she give you, in exchange?'



'I'm sure you will like each other,' Constantin said. 'They were no bigots, my dear. You just have to be understanding.'



More like everyone would have to be. Speaking of understanding... 'When are you going to tell us how you and Rivka got it on?'



Costi, who had briefly turned his head to look out the window, met my gaze. 'Hmm? You haven't talked at work?' He stroked his beard. 'Surprising. That woman never stops talking, even when you think she shouldn't be able to.'



I wiggled my eyebrows, and he smirked, before saying, 'I would rather tell it once. She promised to notify me as soon as her schedule is cleared.'



God's Mouth, due to what his duty entailed, had close ties to both ARC and the various Abrahamic organisations, since he often had to work with them. Classified information wasn't going to be an issue, thankfully.



That dubious honour went to something else. 'Andrei and Simona...Costi, from what you told me about your parents, they'd think Andrei is a gutless coward for leaving David like he did, then hiding himself.'



'They're still coming,' Constantin said. 'I've talked with them, when they are able to break apart long enough.' He gave me a somewhat mortified look, and I tried not to laugh. Andrei and David's mom were making up for lost time, among other things.



Initially, I'd been unsure about taking them along, but I'd understood Constantin's reasoning, and David had chimed in, agreeing.



Looked like all was left was to collect them, Constantin's ghoul friend, and pack our bags.

[Strigoi Grey]

Sidestory; Keepers Past: First

* * *
AN: The first part of the sidestory series focused on David and Arvhek discussing DEATH's former Keepers.



This chapter references my originial fantasy story, the Scholar's Tale, which you can see in my signature, among other series.



* * *



I knew most supernaturals with this power would've scoffed at how thankful I was for being able to be in multiple places at once, but screw 'em; they've been doing it since mankind's ancestors were bashing each other's brains in over who'd stolen the last fruit.



It was wonderful. No longer having to worry about spending too much time in one place and being absent for something else, no more being late (something that, despite my best efforts, occasionally plagued me from grade school to the day I became DEATH's Keeper). All I had to keep in mind, now that I'd gotten the hang of it, was to remember not to speak through all my selves, or do or say something that had nothing to do with what one self was doing because I was focusing on another.



Thankfully, the more I used this power, the more my mind expanded, adapting. I understood the temptation to grow, the lure of power that had kept Sofia's lucid mind under the sway of her magic, back in Siberia.



This ability let what you could've called my main self (without being too innacurate) talk to Arvhek, while another body arranged the trip to Heaven with Mia, pops, mom and Andrei, a third, wearing my ARC uniform, confronted illegal necromancers, and many, many more pursued their own missions a ross the breadth of creation.



I allowed myself a smile. I was finally, finally helping as many people as I could, and they were talking about me, too. Yes, fame felt downright petty next to what the regency of creation entailed (and boy, did I feel like a fraud being appointed by the Mover instead of, at least, elected...); yes, infamy came right along with it.



There were people saying I'd engineered all the bullshit I've been through to gain pity (ha!), others that it hadn't actually been that bad, or that I wasn't that scarred by the events. This second group counted among its ranks a number of bigots who didn't think strigoi were really people.



But it didn't matter. As long as I could help people live and die and reach the afterlife with dignity, as long as I could defend existence from the threats beyond and be there for my girlfriend and my dad and the family I'd found, I'd be happy.



And, one day, that family would grow. To be honest, I was orders of magnitude more confident about fighting the Mover forever than being a father, but that just said something about me, not about being a parent.



If I could be half the father Constantin had been, was, for me, I'd be proud.



Something long and silken passed over my knee, and I turned to see the hem of Arvhek's cloak retract to its usual length, a wisp of a smirk briefly forming on my predecessor's face, before it became featureless once more.



'Enjoying the perks?' Arvhek asked.



I shrugged, then stretched my arms overhead with a grin. 'Just appreciating what I have, Arv. The power to make things better.'



'For the plebs.'



My smile faded. 'You really shouldn't think of them that way.'



His head barely moved side to side inside his hood as we resumed walking through the blackness. 'It is my experience that, the more numerous the masses, the more childlike they are.'



'Yeah, mobs are stupid,' I agreed. 'That's why it helps to make people think for themselves.'



'Is it?' he asked, sounding curious. 'Last time you thought for yourself, your macrocosm almost ended.'



I couldn't be arsed to glare at him. Nothing I'd ever do would make up for that. 'Because I was selfish, I replied, moving closer to meet his gaze, eyeless though he was. 'Blinded by grief.'



So incensed by people close to me sufgering, I'd been easy to convince nothing really mattered in the Dream that had been.



Solarex's logic. Disgusting.



Not a day passed without me thinking about how I'd imprisoned King Sun. Was what I'd planned (too strong a word, really; creation would've ended without me having to do anything) that much better than what he'd done out of lust and anger and pride?



You could say his grief still burned, that he'd have snapped again, change of heart or not. That I should've imprisoned myself, too, or become a hermit. But, as much as it may grate, creation did need me, as did its counterparts.



The Mover's arcane moral compass meant that, while it had stopped another Maker from destroying its macrocosm, it might one day decide to let another Creator, or one of the vermin in the Ur-City, obliterate it and point at the result as proof people hadn't focused on bettering themselves enough.



Or it might take matters into its own hands, try to enact a far worse version of what LIFE had done before being sealed. And then I'd have to stop it.



Looking at the man next to me, and I used that term loosely, I wasn't sure I wanted Arvhek manning creation's battlements. He'd almost done far worse than I'd had, and he'd been saner then.



Arvhek snorted as our surroundings became what a human would've seen as a circular tunnel of stone the colour of ash. 'Oh? It was dark as coal when I did this. You certainly leave an impression, grey god.'



An image of a deity from another creation, eyes feverish and the straight razor that was his namesake in hand, flashed through my mind. 'It seems I do. So...' I paused. 'Last time you did this?'



Arvhek inclined his chin. 'It is by no means a rule, but, at this point, it is practically a tradition. Five coincidences make a rite, I say.'



Take that statement back to Earth and watch everyone disagree? Tempting, tempting...



'What is? Former Keepers walking with their heirs?'



'Aye. An initiation to mirror that done by DEATH.' For an instant, he seemed nostalgic, then disgusted. 'I walked around mine, not with him, and the conversation doesn't deserve the name, but these things happen.'



He raised a hand before I could open my mouth. 'We will get there. We cannot start with the third in line, can we? Besides, there is more to say about him than the first two Keepers - that's what happens when you work out of sight and in silence - and I prefer to start with the easy things.'



One thing we had in commong, alongside dislikkng to start in the middle. Arvhek had, earlier, confessed to once following a series of war dramas that always started in medias res and explained how things had ended up like that through randomly-spaced flashbacks.



It had been a guilty pleasure of his.



'Same here.'



Taking that as prompting, he went on. 'Army thing, you know. When I fought for the Empire under the Bloody, we slaughtered the children first. The elderly. The cripples, the ill.'



Nothing I hadn't heard of, but my eyes still hardened. 'Did you, now?'



'Psychological warfare was deemed less costly than the conventional alternative. The Marshal of Defence,' he held a hand over where his heart had once been, 'had to keep such things in mind, when quashing dissent.'



'I bet you did,' I said, unable to keep myself from sounding cold.



Arvhek did not respond until we reached the first niche, which extended into a wall as far as the main tunnel itself seemed to. When we stopped in front of it, he said, 'Do not judge too harshly, David. You have only read dry words, written by dry, dead men. I am not here to tell you stories, but the truth. You will learn much about me, too, when the time comes.'



I flashed him a fanged grin, flexing my claws. 'I can barely wait.'



'I wager you do. But, as a friend of many who understand the time and place of necessity, know I did the best I could.'



I affected a sad moue. 'Is the poor war criminal asking for forgiveness?'



'Architects of genocide do not ask for things they do not care about. One must know their desires well to go for something so irreversible.' He folded his arms. 'Sadly, my displeasure at my duty never swayed the First Emperor. I was good at keeping the borders secure, the heartworlds stable and the metropole prosperous, and that was what mattered.'



Arvhek gestured at the figure in the niche, a monument to the First Keeper that could be directed to shed light on its inspiration's nature.



The being's shape leaned towards the reptilian and the amphibian, with a long tail and limbs, scales over the vital areas and smooth grey skin covering the rest of the body.



There was something of the fish too, with small, vestigial fins extending from the joints, and the tail's end split for better swimming. Their head resembled that of a hammerhead shark, though their three eyes, glowing a soft blue, wre placed in a diagonal line.



'An Yvharn,' Arvhek said, 'from the Scholar's Midworld. No more of them to be found there.'



Sadly. The Yvharnii's exuberance, their love of life and knowledge, had only been equalled by their dislike of violence - for even that, they could not hate. It had only been a matter of time until smaller, jealous powers had allied against them to tear down their works and plunder their corpses and ruins.



The time that had passed since their exitinction was proof of how an universe's timestream did not align with that of others, even if time flowed at the same rate within them. It also led one to ponder metaphysics: it was appropriate that, in a reality as hostile as Midworld, where almost everyone struggled to survive to the point they forgot about everything else, history advanced so slowly.



'Her name was One Who Observes the Flourishing and Wilting of Existence Under Her Broadened Gaze; not her hatching name, but the one she took as Keeper,' Arvhek said. 'You will have read her mostly being referred to as Flourish in the records, for she was flamboyant.'



He sounded grudgingly approving.



'A kindred spirit, Marshal?'



'Please, no rank. I'm retired.' Arvhek indicated our surroundings with a gloved hand, the metaphorical cabbages he was tending to, like all old killers who had hung up their swords.



There were some things to be compared between the Roman Empire and the Eternal one Arvhek had helped carve out, but some big names' tendency to fade into obscurity had not been one of them for a long time.



'But yes,' Arvhek allowed. 'I did appreciate shock and awe for much of my career - occupational hazard - and so did Flourish.'



I rested my back against the wall, looking up at the facsimile. Each of its six hands was opened in welcome, while its face was split by a hesitant smile. It held little of the warmth Flourish must've had in life.



And there was something haunted in its eyes, something I doubted the Yvharn had ever showed for long.



After all, in her last moments, she'd only had time to lament what had been lost for an instant.



* * *



'I did accept,' Flourish said at the reminder of her oath, frowning slightly. 'And I did "keep" you, as long as my might and wit enabled me. But I fear I cannot, any longer.'



SENTIMENTALISM, the sepulchral figure towering above her hissed, TO COMPOUND YOUR FAILURE.



Flourish's spine straightened, despite the looming Archetype's glare. 'I have never shirked my duty.'



HAVE YOU NOT? 'TIS THE FIRST TIME I HEAR, DEATH replied acidly. CERTAINLY, YOUR SPECRACLES HAVE FRIGHTENED SOME COWARDS INTO PRESERVING THE SANCTITY OF LIFE, AT THE COST OF SCARRING THE SUBSTANCE OF CREATION...it slammed a skeletal hand against a corner, shaking DEATH Keep to the bottom of the Spiral Atrocious. BUT THOSE WOULD'VE LOST HEART SOON ENOUGH, ANYWAY.



It spreads its arms, its stance and slim form reminiscent of a raptor opening its wings. AND WHILE YOU SIMPER ABOUT PEACE AND UNDERSTANDING, THE TRUE MONSTERS RAMPAGE ACROSS EXISTENCE! BUT YOU WILL NOT RAISE A CLAW AGAINST THEM, FOR "CONFLICT IS THE DEATH OF VIRTUE"!



'And it shall always remain so,' Flourish said. 'If you will not let me use the powers of my office to preserve my people. I do not need them.' Her hands tightened at her sides. 'I cannot let so much be lost! Release me, and may you find the attack dog you seek.'



SO MUCH, DEATH repeated disdainfully. ONE SPECIES FROM ONE UNIVERSE. HOW MANY TRILLIONS OF TRILLIONS HAVE DISAPPEARED BECAUSE OF YOUR GUTLESSNESS?



DEATH's hand encompassed the aether, the echoing crypt it had become. LOOK AT THEM! SENT TO A GODLESS ETERNITY BECAUSE THEY DID NOT EVEN GET THE CHANCE TO DEVELOP FAITHS! CRYING OUT IN MINDLESS TERROR, LOOKING FOR AN EXPLANATION, AND WHAT AM I TO EXPLAIN?



Flourish closed her eyes tightly. Already, she could feel the coalition encircling the last remaining fleet of her people, in Midworld, but she would not weep.



'I return your boon,' she said, 'and I will no more trouble you with my failures. In exchange, I would ask for one last thing.'



AND WHAT IS THAT?



'Preserve a part of me, the smallest part that can think and speak, so whatever poor fool you choose to serve you next knows what came before, and what duties await them.



NOW YOU CARE ABOUT PRESERVING THE SOUL? DEATH laughed darkly. VERY WELL. VERY WELL, KEEPER MINE. RETURN HOME, EMPTY OF POWER AND FULL OF HOPE. TALK YOUR DESTROYERS INTO SURRENDERING. THIS WILL NOT BE THE END FOR YOU.



The last Yvharn to die did not begrudge her people their choices, for she had made the same ones. She did not even begrudge them the moment some contemplated turning on her for not managing to return with power, pondered hurting a thinking being for the first time, before their better natures won.



Flourish had no hatred for her killers, either, even as she faced them standing in a pool of molten flesh and slagged bone that had once been her wife and the daughters they'd taken in as if they'd been theirs.



She pitied their greed, however. But that, like the Yvharnii's other sentiments and words, was no defence.



* * *



'Know, then,' Arvhek said, voice bitter, 'the cost of not knowing when to strike back. Flourish was given to whimsy and crafting: she wrought beautiful things, she changed her body into many others - you will see her spoken about as if male, in some stories - to learn how others lived, but she was too gentle.



The previous Keeper brought his hands together. 'I have killed many such folk. Was the moral victory worth it? When the scrap of spirit left of Flourish told the Second Keeper about how she'd lived in peace, was there joy in her voice?'



His shoulders drooped. 'That, I think, only she could say.' His gaze was murderous as he looked at me. 'But I would have butchered those petty bastards to the last, virtue be damned. I wouldn't have died a lamb.'



I mulled over his words, head lowered, as he looked away. The Scholar, when he'd learned of my plan and helped make it reality, had been almost ecstatic at the value of what helping the Mover remember itself and its past creations could accomplish.



Like the Yvharnii, he sought knowledhe as well, thiugh he had never been one to shy away from doing harm. His life hadn't let him be gentle.



But, despite that...he'd stuck by his friends, his crew. His lover. He'd kept his mind together, when memory and sanity threatened to leave him. Despite so much seemingly encouraging him to give up hope and become an empty shell, or a monster.



And he'd never, ever thought about letting everything be destroyed because the world was cruel to those he loved.



It was funny. I'd never met anyone with greener eyes, nor him anyone more jealous...

[Strigoi Grey]

Sidestory; Keepers Past: Second

* * *

My brief consideration of the Scholar's past and future paths came to a halt when Arvhek, not bothering to see if I was following, walked away from the niche housing the monument to Flourish, cloak swishing.

I followed, shaking my head in equal parts amusement and irritation. You'd have thought the crotchety bastard was still all brass and duty, expecting people to go along. But then, you didn't contemplate omnicide if other people's opinions bothered you. I knew, even if, at my worst, I hadn't dreamed of destruction a sliver as thorough as what he had brought upon the Ur-City.

Granted, I hadn't been aware of the things beyond my macrocosm, then...and I didn't want to think if I'd have finished what Arvhek had started, if I had.

Quickly catching up with the Lovelorn - a nickname I advise anyone weaker than me against using -, I said, 'You know you could undo it, Arv. Unmaking nothingness is a parlour trick for destroyers weaker than you've ever been after you saw nothing.'

He didn't reply, or react save for a subtle tightening of his broad shoulders. I waited until we reached the next niche before I grasped his shoulder; I had this feeling he wouldn't have appreciated being stopped in the middle of the walk.

'Your Empress could live again,' I said, softening my voice, just in case I'd sounded too accusing or confrontational. 'You could bring her back.'

A sardonic laugh escaped him in reply. 'And lessen her lesson? I think not. I think not, my heir.' Under his mask, I could see the outline of a smile like those sported by madmen when they managed to restrain themselves a hair short of biting your throat out, baring their teeth at the effort required. 'You think trying to make your peers happy will make the Mover lay off and not stop you from lifting the little people up? It won't even if it worked. It cares little for me, that creature. You don't love your a knife, however cleanly it cuts.'

Maybe it was how morose he sounded, or the fact I wanted to get this - whatever "this" was going to entail - over with, but I found myself not even wanting to crack a joke about Arv basically calling himself a tool. Before I could respond to his monologue, he said, 'You fret over your own beloved, Keeper. Leave Xialla's memory to me.'

'I'm just trying to help, man. You sound bittersweet whenever you talk about her-'

'It took her going to her end to make me listen, give existence another chance. I'm sure she'd be relieved to learn history vindicated her...'

I chanced a smile. 'Exactly! Imagine how worried she must've been as she disappeared? This would be a chance to make things right.'

Arvhek clicked his tongue, leaning forward to rest one hand on the outermost tendril of the Second Keeper's statue. 'I've learned a thing or two about disappointing the women I love. How to deal with the consequences was one of the first.' He looked at me sidelong. 'How about this: I might decide to think about bringing Xia back, to tell her she was right. I doubt she'd be surprised, with how she won all our arguments, but maybe her heart would be lighter than when my mantle of power ushered her into oblivion.' He closed his eyes, lowering his head slightly. 'It is not a worthless idea, I admit. Now, will you stop pestering me?'

'I accept you apology,' I said smugly, smirk only growing when he started grumbling about how I'd inherited Ned's passion for being a matchmaking busybody.

It's not my fault, everyone. I see people as...as crates. I can't help but ship them.

And Arvhek had been the death of both his wives and his paramour, in one way or another. If what I'd read was even halfway to the truth, the old warhorse had the tendency to have happiness snatched away from him right when he thought there no longer was anyone or anything capable of such.

I'd like to say I couldn't relate, but I prefer to be honest when bragging.

The statue was beautiful in the way certain abstract pieces sometimes were, when you could stop focusing on details enough to see the whole and notice patterns. Its tridimensional fraction would've appeared as an almost perfect tentacled sphere, two handfuls of tendrils pressed against the ground on either side, as if they were legs, while several more were raised.

The creature was a pale, greyish blue - not uncommon colours, when it came to DEATH and its Keepers -, speckled with lighter circles across its core and the tips of its limbs, which almost glowed white when light passed over them.

Even though this was only a faint echo of the Keeper who had been, I could still feel its love for those it had defended, and the dutifulness that had come with that. In fact, its whole aura reminded me of...

'Your Gardeners,' Arvhek whispered, reaching up to grasp a tentacle gingerly between his hands. The statue shone, illuminated from within, in response. I caught a ghost of a smile dancing across my predecessor's face, but it was gone as fast as the glow. 'They are always fascinated when they get to meet their uncommon ancestor.'

I quirked a brow at his phrasing, and he nodded, indulging my curiosity. 'Most of the beings who would become the Gardeners were not like this one. And yet, several of their thought-lines could trace their ancestry back to if, if they cared to.'

'It was flesh. Deathless flesh, but still an organism. It was not wholly of the mind.'

'Not even when DEATH lifted it up,' Arvhek agreed. 'For its desires, though altered, still echoed those of its former life, and so many other lives.'

'Heard it turned itself into a colony,' I grunted, crossing my arms. 'Had people burrowing into its skin and organs, sheltering them in exchange for favours.'

'It brought benefits, though I doubt most would agree with such an existence. Think of all the bacteriophobes scared of the little things inside them, which they can't even feel. Now, imagine being able to sense both them and their thoughts.'

I laughed. 'You're making it sound almost selfless.'

'Not at all,' Arvhek replied. 'It was no effort at all to house those smaller than itself. When you dwarf most intergalactic empires, it is easy to contain multitudes. And their gratefulness certainly sweetened the deal.'

The proto-Gardener had not been greedy, exactly. If one wanted to ascribe humanlike emotions to it, you could've said it'd craved appreciation. The Bountiful One (as Bounty went by formally, after its tenants named it so) had been able to feel every grateful thought of those it had shielded from the dangers of its long-gone universe: the terms of its deal, and the payment it had asked for in exchange for protection.

Many had accepted its offer, literally carving out new homes into the cosmic being's innards, feeding upon its inner flora and fauna. Thankfulness had been its coin and its meal, and the arrangement had lasted until DEATH had come to the living ark with an offer of its own.

Bounty had all but pounced upon the deal: now, it could feel everything across creation! It wasted no time in taking up the mantle of Keeper, a process during which it turned itself inside out to cast its inhabitants into the void. When DEATH had voiced its disapproval at the demise of decillions, Bounty had talked it down, saying it had put off the ends that would've been theirs if not for its generosity forages. The Idea of Endings had not fully agreed, but, with some grumbling, it had begun training Bounty.

The Second Keeper's records were rather sparse; I had the feeling DEATH was somewhat embarrassed about the glory hound it had hired, even if it had been competent at its job, which was more than you could say for most divas.

Bounty had come up with a few ideas, too, I thought as I metaphorically jotted down the type exchange it had favoured. It was more palatable than some of the currencies I'd glimpsed in Earth's futures, and I knew I could refine it.

'You don't sound like you disagree,' I pointed out.

'With Bounty's methods? Or its results?' He shrugged. 'My boy, I could not care less what the common folk worship. I'm no longer in the business of purging people for thinking wrong.' For a moment, it was like a cloud hung over him. Then, he set his shoulders and stood up straight again. 'And it did decent work. I'd say better than Flourish, but almost anything is better than nothing, when it comes to Keeping life and death.'

From his bitter tone, the Lovelorn still hadn't got over his irritation at the peaceful First Keeper. I wasn't sure how I felt about it, myself. Ture, it was a damn shame that the Ylvharnii had let themselves be slaughter, but I'd almost let everyone die because I and a handful of those I loved had suffered. Could I put my selfishness over their fixation on cherishing life?

Of course you can, fool, my strigoi side hissed, sounding something between affronted and exasperated. And you should. They all draw breath only thanks to us. We envisioned salvation. We rallied them. Everything there is, everything we could want, is ours, by right of conquest!

I inwardly gave it that patient look I reserved for insistent idiots. My mirror was one of its favourite hangout spots. And? You're saying like there's something we want but aren't taking. Before it could proclaim its privation, I went on. Mia loves us, and lets us love her. She has even agreed to build a family with us. I choked a little, briefly closing my eyes. Being the guardian of the magna-macrocosm was one thing, fatherhood quite another. I knew Mia was still scared of whether she'd make a good mom, but my love was just being silly. I knew how warm her heart was.

I, meanwhile, was an impulsive bastard who tended to fly off the handle the instant someone I knew was in danger. Brooding fucks with a tendency to snap didn't usually make for model dads, but I'd change. I'd do my best.

To be honest...back in my human life, I hadn't put much thought in romance, besides a few flings in college. I'd seen the drama too many couples got into and sneered, telling myself I'd have time for love after I made it big, if I still cared about it.

I swear I used to be dumber than I remember every time I look back. I should've taken Mihai and Adriana as examples, or Lucian and Bianca, not the worst relationships. Just because Alex, who'd been so altruistic it hurt for as long as I'd known him, hadn't wanted to "burden" a woman by growing close to her, I shouldn't have, subconsciously, gone along.

Not that I'd had much in my head, back then.

My worse half wilted at my response, walking to stand beside me in our mindscape and laying a hand on my shoulder. I am, of course, beyond happy that our beloved lets us adore her. And we will care for our little ones, just as we have dedicated our existence to serving her. Its eyes gleamed wildly. But meekness will bring you nothing, David! You have heard my words. Still, you do not heed them.

I'd heard them, all right. My instincts wanted to, essentially, get everyone in one spot and make them bend the knee, one way or another, before making them worship me like the Unbeings did - in addition to giving them the order to slaughter everyone who did not believe fervently enough.

Which was, in my opinion, more proof that a strigoi's instincts were the evil within their hearts, not their "more honest face". Whoever had come up with the nonsense that our angry, hateful moments represented who we "really" were needed to pay me a visit in DEATH Keep, so we could discuss psychology.

As for my worse half...I was never going to let it have free reign.

'True enough,' I agreed. 'But DEATH didn't take long to grow displeased with it, too.' Bounty had one day come up with the idea to, among other things, piece the minds of godless ghosts back together, not out of kindness, but so they could worship it, and it could feed on their joy. I could practically hear the pulsing of its throbbing body, grown fat and strong on psychic feed.

DEATH might've let that slide, since it hadn't really hurt anyone, even if the motive had been scummy. But then...

'You know,' I said, unfolding my arms and resting my back against a wall, 'the balls on this guy were almost funny. Avoiding torturing those DEATH deemed wicked so they could thank it for its mercy? It had to have known it wouldn't work.'

'That would've been embarrassing enough,' Arvhek chuckled in agreement, 'but the fact its Keeper brushed off several warnings and a mountain of advice did not help the old husk's mood. But I'm unsurprised it wouldn't write that down.'

I nodded. Bounty's ego trip had only ended out of necessity: with DEATH stripping it of its powers, the proto-Gardener had been reduced to its a shadow of what it had grown accustomed to.

Worse, actually. Even if people had been willing to live within it again (and no one was that gullible or that much of a thrill-seeker: they feared the Bountiful One would send them on a surprise spacewalk the instant it got something shiny dangled in its face), it had made plenty enemies in its tenure as Keeper, who were eagerly waiting for it to act up.

Nowadays, the Bountiful One hung around the edges of the Multitude of Minds, begging for admission. But, while the alien alliance had several neighbours they protected in exchange for being allowed to sample their thoughts, not even Bounty's descendants, the children of its fellows who had seen the births and deaths countless universes during their evolution, were charitable enough to welcome the telepathic leech into the fold.

'Say what you will about the Gardeners,' Arvhek said, as if picking up on my line of thought, 'but they can at least put some steel into their spines when necessary. That it took so long for them to find unity of purpose was deplorable, but not as much as what was done by this...attention whore, I believe you call such people?'

'Yeah,' I agreed absently. Then, narrowing my eyes, I said, 'Hey. I was just thinking about the Gardeners, the Multitude. Did you guess...?'

'I must've read your mind...' Arvhek breathed, the fingers of one hand twisted into an arcane gesture.

'Telepathy jokes. Ha,' I replied flatly, but my mind was already elsewhere. I've stepped in trash I had more sympathy for than Bounty, but...it had even been barred from going to the Deep Thinker, despite its insistence that it no longer wanted to live, and that it wasn't strong enough to kill itself. Literally or in terms of willpower, it hadn't said.

The Multitude's god in all but name was the result of their members' minds forming a gestalt when they grew weary of existence. A few of their allies had been extended the privilege, after earning the telepaths' respect. Over time, the psychic creation had grown more powerful than most Archetypes, being completely in sync with the Idea of itself as well.

I wondered...had Bounty grown enough to accept fading into the Thinker, losing its sense of self save for when someone called for one of the wrought god's departed components? If it was allowed to be part of the Thinker, for a moment, would it want to go back?

Would it find peace?

Arvhek took a step back from Bounty's monument, letting his hand linger for an instant before retracting it with a sigh. 'Now, then,' my predecessor said. 'I could not speak of the Third without speaking of the Empire we built.'