Talisa, in the same inner sanctum, completely naked, bloated beyond all belief, in unbelievable agonizing pain. She had chained up some vassalized Amallarkeans that had tried to assassinate her in the nearby caves – she didn’t want to look at them or deal with them or hear them in this very sacred moment – and directed as much pain as she could at them, but she knew in the end this was the most painful physical experience that an elvan being could ever possibly experience in their lifetime unless they were really unlucky. This, however, was… normal. Part of the cycle. Feature, not a bug.

  She was laying in her tub of bacta, herself pregnant with Eidren, Ezreal, Ereme, Epichal, Erinyes, Ekselsor, Einstein, and Enon. She couldn’t trust a brood mother with this duty. No other elvan must know that she had stolen the Template, the very first reconstructed androus elvan, and engineered by a mutant no less! The treason would lead to her summary execution, unanimous agreement from all the other Queens, and that would make Maetra oh so happy, wouldn’t it? But how lonely she was here in her laboratory, so far away from her stronghold, and her family, as she explained to them- she had to ‘meditate’. Laugh out loud. Well, she did wish she had more time to meditate, but finding gratitude when being chased out here into this hell, after her move against Sidarael- it was really hard.

  The theory was all sound. The First Soldier could easily wield psionics. The supposed ‘fact’ that only workers and Queens could use psionics was completely arbitrary. She would know, she heard all about it from her mother- all the bois had died out, there were only gurls now, so they were free to remake the world as they saw fit. So, they just put dampeners on the elvan bois. Right away. Didn’t even bother to test what the psionic potential of the template was before cloning it and tossing it away. It was in a sad state upon its retrieval. Talisa was shocked by how they treated such a relic.

  It had been thousands of revolutions of oppression under the patriarchy, and they were the Queens for one hundred thousand revolutions as the gatherers. They were the hunters. They were just the protectors. They put themselves in harm's way, between the mammoths, and the saber-toothed tigers, and the beasts, and the brutes, and the animals, and us. They died for us. It was a bit heroic, wasn’t it? Altruism sometimes didn’t need fancy philosophical words or concepts.

  We picked mushrooms to feed them, nursed their wounds, and had their children and… well okay basically everything else. For one hundred thousand revolutions, we did everything else.

  Like this, the hard part.

  “OH-ohh-uhng-ah-uf-ooh-aah…oof-haah… oof-haah…”

  Why eight? Why octomom, why eight?! This is insane. Being an elvan is insane. This- did this only hurt one eighth as much back then? Or past a certain point, was this just… it didn’t matter anymore? Infinite pain?

  What infinity truly could be she couldn’t conceive, even though as a psionic master and Elvan Queen, she could conceive a damn lot.

  More can never be enough.

  It all must stop sometime.

  Talisa thought about her own death, something she thought about frequently. Maybe too frequently, but she felt being existential somehow made her feel more alive. More grateful. As grateful as she could be at least.

  She would know gratitude very soon.

  The cocoons would rotate to her vagina like a revolver, because for some reason, some stubborn reason, she just wanted to know what it was like to do it the old-fashioned way instead of just hatching the cocoon with a cesarean. The spirits were confoundedly confused but took care and haste – and they were fast, damn fast – to carefully produce the perfect bio-magickal contraption for her body.

  “AAAAAA-AAAAHHHHH!!!”

  Everything had to come to a stop sometime, even pain. Even this. This was not infinite.

  The spirits thought-spoke to her- PUSH! PUSH! PUSH! PUSH! PUSH!

  Once this is over, the bacta tanks will take care of it. The babysitters.

  “AAAAA-AAAAAHHHHH!!!”

  PUSH! QUEEN TALISA! PUSH!

  She just had to cross this one last threshold. This one last threshold of pain. Well, no she had a lot more thresholds to cross after that, but this would be the first time she would cross to see one of the eight adorable end results. She just didn’t know how adorable they could be yet. She just had to hang on. The infiniteness of possibility lay ahead. A new birth. A new life. More. Eight. Eight new lives.

  PUSH! QUEEN TALISA! PUSH!

  “AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”

  Agony.

  PUSH! PUSH! PUSH!

  Ecstasy.

  And just like that, Eidren emerged.

  It was just one of eight, but he was so precious.

  She wept uncontrollably.

  She held the babe broodling, her babe broodling, her first babe broodling, her first born son. Her firstborn son, the first born of her own body! Her dear, dear firstborn son!

  She held him close. She held him close to her fast-beating heart. She held him close to her cheek. She kissed him. The wetness of the bacta was soothing to them both, all a perfect temperature, swathed in comfortable inky darkness. From oblivion to consciousness. And out from the abyss, from nothing, now there was light.

  “WAA-AAH!”

  He began crying.

  The spirits gently dissolved his umbilical cord and placenta, reinfusing the nutrients and energy into the Queen, and she felt herself lifted with a burst of energy and euphoria. But no, the euphoria wasn’t from simple caloric energy. This was something different.

  Divine.

  Spiritual.

  Queen Talisa did not believe in God but now she did, on the very first time she gave birth herself. She didn’t know what to make of that thought yet.

  She clutched him close to one of her original breasts and not the temporary six new ones she had installed. His crying ceased immediately as he began suckling. His wrinkly eyes were still too afraid to confront the painful light of the world, preferring to stay curled in warm, comfortable, protecting darkness.

  Vilithe’s psionic projection stood by, watching the whole thing – the Queen had graciously separated her from her own body, so Vilithe would not have to feel the pain, but Vilithe could feel every emotion, even from the fae babe memory of the love of her life – and she was weeping uncontrollably too.

  She was weeping uncontrollably with joy that she got to witness the very birth of the love of her life.

  She had gone back to the start.

  And then the memory ended.

  The uncontrollable weeping was so psionically pure it broke through the time stop, and Vilithe used her real voice, and how could it be possible because it broke the spacetime continuum, but sometimes there was magick, and then there was magic.

  “Eidren! He needs to be here! Oh, how terrible of a mistake we have made, he needs to know-”, blubbered Vilithe.

  Talisa smiled and nodded, closing her eyes with acceptance,

  “No, like you thought, empathy in the heat of battle can be lethal. And besides.” She opened them with nothing but joy.

  Joy she got to live such an adventure of a life.

  And that she could share her story with this one.

  “He has good reason to be mad at his mum right now, I understand. I’m being nice to you now because you’re his gurlfriend- fiance? I don’t know how you want to define it at this point. I’d suggest soulmate. It’s true whether you like it or not at this point after the Gestalt. But in the end, I admit, I was a toxic mom.”

  “While he aged in the tank, I imprinted his training. Memories of him fighting his brothers. When they were ready, I brought them out of the tanks to continue their training for real, in this hidden fortress of mine. I regret that now. I wish I could have spent the time crafting something more beautiful. A videogame where he got to be the hero and learn more than just combat skills but things perennial to the elvan condition.”

  “I justified it to myself. They’re not actually getting hurt. Even when they supposedly ‘died’ I would just psionically resurrect them. In fact, it was exactly through this whole experiment that I learned the simulacrum technique and became a lich in the first place.”

  “But then they did get hurt.”

  “And that’s entirely on me.”

  “I am accountable for that.”

  “I do apologize for trying to take over your body entirely, deleting your entire self, and hijacking it with an imprinted simulacrum forever, by the way.”

  Vilithe just blubbered and blubbered, she couldn’t say anything anymore, she couldn’t even really think anymore, the conflux of happiness and sadness was just too much. And a little bit of fear when she realized what was going on with that slug- and she thanked Mal, and she asked Mal, are you here? Are you hearing and seeing this?

  And when she was met with a blubbering echo of her blubbering, she knew that Mal had been silent and quiet all this time in reverence, for so lucky a spirit was he that he got to be nearly fully conscious and able to witness this holy moment- the Ascendance of Worker to Princess. Thank you, Mal, you saved my life. Thank you, Mal. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  “You have the memory now. You can share it with him. When you do, tell him his mum loves him very much, and that she wishes him goodbye, and that she’s sorry she couldn’t do it in a better way. She’s sorry.”

  She said this now, almost through Vilithe, through space and time, and she was crying too, so full of regret at how she had treated her son.

  “She’s sorry for all of it.”

  Vilithe tried to take a deep breath and exhale, but she was crying too much, and it came out in staggered, overwhelmed oofs-, it was all so ineffable, she wasn’t sure if she was comforted by it or scared, but it also felt important, hallowed, like she needed for it to happen. Just too intense of a moment, it needed processing, digesting.

  But she felt in the end, although she would have to suffer, it would be a sacred memory still, that would support her for the rest of her life. That she had grown. That she had become a better person.

  Talisa now took on the look of a scolding mother. Gentle, but still to remind her new daughter-in-law not to mess with her son anymore.

  “Speaking of accountability.”

  “Would you like to know what your lover boi was like before you irrevocably changed him with total domination? That dream in detail? After all, didn't he say he would trade the whole elvan race for his mum, right?”

  Talisa had been really chuffed when he said that if it weren’t surrounded with so many other things said that were hurtful instead.

  Vilithe was able to quickly stop crying, she snapped to attention realizing Queen Talisa was about to show her a second memory, perhaps an even more important one this time.

  The Fall of Clan Talauth. Unredacted. 228 AE.

  What Vilithe could scry coalesced in a quick contract back in time.

  The details of the silhouette cast in the red light began to fill in now. Talisa’s lustrous pompadour, swept back to voluminous snow-white hair as if she was royalty of the ancien regime. Talisa’s royal spirit suit, practically composed of the spirits themselves, a living protective suit atop her skin, liquid carapace. Her thin nose, sharp cheekbones, sharp chin, big eyes, all the usual derivative configurations of elvan beauty. The sliding doors closed shut and then the momentary recall completed as Eidren swung around to see mass shady forms of opponents marching toward him.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  And standing with the mass shady forms that were currently still blurred – it was Vilithe and Talisa – the daughter and her mother-in-law.

  They were standing there looking at Eidren now, he had not yet even entered battle stance yet, he had simply just turned to meet his attackers, standing stoically, greatsword at side. At this range, the Kalashnikov was useless, and he had no sidearm. The dream.

  He looked fresh. He was exactly that which Vilithe thought him- heroic.

  Let’s contract a bit, shall we?

  Just a black flash, a blink, and now they were back in time and Eidren was kneeling before his Queen Mother.

  He thought perfect telepathy. That’s to be expected though. What was not expected was what he thought.

  I will not fail you, mum. I will not fail in my sacred duty. I’ve been chosen with special honor having been the only one who passed your trial, your gauntlet of tests, and been blessed with divine psionic ability. I will use this ability with conscience, never straying from what is right.

  Hold up.

  Hold up. The scene froze in place.

  Their mouths didn’t move. They were psions.

  The fae Talisa thought, this isn’t true. Clearly the gauntlet of tests didn’t work. As you see, it was indoctrination as much as training. Or else I wouldn’t be hoisted by my own petard now, would I?

  Ah, the bard, nice.

  Let’s not diffle-daffle with pleasantries dear.

  Yes, Mom.

  Oh, you’re already calling me mom now, that’s a bit aggressive don’t you think Vi-

  I’m sorry, Auntie Talisa.

  No, I was just joshing. Kidding. Ugh, I sound terribly old sometimes.

  Anyways. The real question- what did give Eidren his psionic ability? It couldn’t have been the Template alone. Because only Eidren exhibited that talent, among his seven brothers.

  I could tailor each of my eight knights’ personalities any way I chose. Now, there’s a lot of models, there’s Myers-Briggs which, must admit, excellent, love it gurl, those two cracked the core of extraversion-introversion, explored that axis fully, and I absolutely am delighted by the dichotomies of intuition versus sensing, feeling versus thinking, and those may be dichotomies you yourself have yet to explore, perhaps with some sort of intellectual foil.

  But you and I know that there are only really five core personality aspects, with infinite multitudes of gradients in between and across and interconnected. We have all the time we need together, daughter-in-law, let’s recite them now, shall we?

  Openness.

  Conscientiousness.

  Extraversion. Or introversion. A lack thereof, yes.

  Agreeableness.

  And Neuroticism.

  Their choice of thought-word to think was telling for both.

  You have tampered with a personality very recently, yourself. Malevolent please come.

  Mal, in Animus form and now Astarion hair instead of Sephiroth hair, appeared standing next to the psions.

  How terribly ugly of a name, I’m sorry child.

  Mal thought back, I kind of like it.

  I would like to name you Volent. Latin, the dead and ancient language, the root of the morphemes, volent- volens. Present participle of velle. To will. To wish. Suits you better don’t you think?

  Voli blushed his fae body and thought, I love it. But doesn’t it sound too close to Vilithe? Volent - Vilithe?

  Nonsense, and besides, you would make an excellent simulacrum.

  Voli bowed. An honor, your majesty.

  Well, it's just so I had nine, my eight children and me included. And because we share some Jhiryese heritage, of course I was a little superstitious about the fortuitous number eight. And so, I let that superstition carry me away. I based our personalities on the Enneagram. Perhaps there’s some mystic ancient wisdom in that tradition still, for that magic has carried my son this far back to me, in triumph, even if it should be at my own defeat. It seems to have worked. Ah well, that’s how it goes, it’s in the nature of the points of the Enneagram to shift to the next position.

  The start was simple. Me. I just had to find where I fit in the whole picture. I am the enthusiast. The epicure. Number seven. I believe that if you work hard enough, plan far enough into the future, you will always find what you ultimately seek. I suppose all my hard work on all these revolutions of my very long life compared to yours has brought me to you, and you are exactly what I need. And that fills me with hope. It makes me content now that I have found you.

  Eidren was number one. The reformer. The perfectionist.

  He has a basic fear of being evil. He has a basic desire to do good. He will never, ever try to do the wrong thing. No surprise to me that the one most likely to rebel against me was the one who became most powerful. Such is the way of psionics, it always goes the opposite direction of where you expected, or maybe not if you expected in the right direction in the first place. The traders know what I think, and I’m sure you do too.

  Vilithe had to laugh. How her own fortunes have surged and fallen just in these few fortrotes. She found the love of her life, she almost lost him, again, and again.

  I could dote on the helper, I could pump the ego of the achiever, I could marvel at the unique beauty and flaws of the individualist, I could teach and mentor an investigator, an observer like you, Vilithe.

  I could encourage the loyalist in any endeavor, I could help the enthusiast fulfill every goal, like your mother.

  I could let the challenger, as Clan Amallark is, find themselves on their own. I only need to let them be and they will come back and try to take what’s theirs. And they can try. And if they challenge me, I will be proud.

  And I could help the peacemaker, as Clan Boucher is, find love among us all.

  But the perfectionist, the reformer, follows his own moral compass, and he will be the judge of whether I do good or evil. The only way I could grow myself.

  And lo and behold, he was the only one who could deliver psionic results.

  Eidren was programmed to be a hero- not to me and me alone.

  Eidren was programmed to be a hero for the person who did the right thing.

  That is why he is so fascinated by the definition of a hero.

  That is why he is so fascinated by ethics, morality, and how to define what is right.

  It is almost cliche.

  But he is the archetypal Knight in Shining Armor. If you are a worthy Princess, who will one revolution become the fair and just Queen, who will bring peace, order, and harmony across the void and to all the three realms, across the universe, then he will serve you.

  That was the only iteration that worked with the goal, psionics, in mind.

  Ezreal, greatshield, dagger, ranged arms, and magickian. Trickster. Jack of all trades, master of none. He was a loyalist. Number six.

  Ez was Eidren’s best friend. Ez saw that Eidren would do anything for his friends, and so that his friends would do anything for Eidren in return. And so that inspired Ez. Ezreal followed Eidren wherever he went.

  And Eidren stood up for Ezreal from bullying so many times – because Ez was one of the weirder ones you see – that Ez would then just always help Eidren, even when they weren’t supposed to be on each other’s team. This made Ezreal even more of a target from the others, and therefore Eidren had to step in even more. I tried splitting them up consistently. But soon, I just gave up, because it was creating so much rancor to have a ‘snitch’ and a ‘saboteur’ and a ‘no good n+ crossing janus faced spy’ causing total breakdown in any type of order every time. So, I just put Eidren and Ezreal on the same team, every single time. They became blood brothers. Soul brothers.

  Contract backward.

  Vilithe now saw little kid Ez and little kid Eid, playing roshambo. Rock, paper, scissors. They called it Baau, Zin, Dap. [包剪??]. It was just something innocent and harmless, none of the actual fighting involved. They were choosing who got to dual wield the double wakizashi bokken for their next training battle royale. Actual fighting involved. They both favored the two-weapon style. Blade dancing was built into elvans.

  Eidren would always lose on purpose so that Ezreal could feel confident. He knew Ez always threw scissors because no one threw scissors, so Eidren threw paper all the time. This meant that Eidren kept getting his second choice, instead of two wakizashi bo he got a single daito bokken. You see why his preference for the greatsword. But he’s proficient in both.

  Vilithe was struck by just how little she thought of Ezreal – Second – this entire time. Now she felt she had to mourn his death and yet- it was at the hands of the Amallarkeans she implored aid in breaking the tanks holding Talisa’s simulacra. Oh, it was all so terribly confusing now, all the different sides, politics, intrigue, factions, alliances both temporary and permanent, and sometimes broken, or repaired. It was just too much trivial information to keep track of. Who cares who started what fight, where and when, and whose fault it really was, and why they can’t be forgiven? If there was a problem- just solve it.

  Ah, Vilithe, I wish we met earlier.

  Contract forward.

  It was the rest of the brothers bullying Eidren and Ezreal. Except for one. Enon. He stood very far from the others, like he didn’t want to be noticed. Vilithe thought his bowl cut was so cute. Did he cut it himself? Couldn’t the spirits- he chose it for himself. I’m telling you Enon is a weird one. Weirder than Ez, weirdest of the eight. Maybe I shouldn’t have named him that in the end. But, he’s still a marvel, a gift for this universe.

  Enon was the achiever. He cut his own hair because he wanted to. It was perhaps a little troll that I made the son that I named None backwards, the one that would want to be the best. It was to test if he could overcome his self-image.

  Vilithe thought to her Queen Mother-in-law that she most assuredly was not more creative than her.

  Ezreal could do a little bit of everything, explore and scout and recon, learn magick quickly, rise to the mystic occasion and decode essence – it’s a pity DNA was never an element in your adventures – his bravado, sometimes cockier than Eidren himself, meant trouble was behind, ahead, everywhere for bullied Ezreal.

  Enon on the other hand was quiet. Enon the sniper. Enon liked to skulk in the shadows, wait for everyone to knock each other out, scope out the last remaining, size them up, find their weaknesses, strengths, and advantages, and then learn as much as he can before swooping in to try and steal the win. Every time.

  Once the others wisened up to Enon’s supposedly ‘cheap’ ways, dishonorable and undeserving of merit – actually it was Eidren who brought this up first – they started bullying Enon instead of Ezreal. Ezreal was so thankful, Eidren felt a little guilty, but Enon rose to the occasion. He figured, what’s a little more practice going to hurt? It will just protect him in the long run.

  So Enon managed by himself using cunning and wits and this impressed Eidren but especially Ezreal, the hype man.

  Things eventually settled back into their natural way and that is when Enon finally noticed that Eidren and Ezreal together always made for a much more powerful group than either alone, and were the highest performing duo statistically bar none. On every measure. Enon had studied it very carefully and double checked everything to make sure. He moneyballed it.

  So, when the time came, he presented his case to Eid and Ez, and they welcomed him with open arms, for they had the same idea.

  Fate was sealed after that.

  Eidren, Ezreal and Enon were unstoppable.

  Contract forward.

  By Lolth, Talisa was taking a page from Matron Malice’s playbook!

  Vilithe forgot how cute she thought it was that Talisa had named one of her children Einstein, but she had only discovered the fact, well, after he died. So she hadn’t thought about it again until now. She had not even thought to care what his name was when it happened. Now, she mourned.

  Kind of like in Seveneves, eh? She felt the two halves of the book were so different, it was bizarre. But it was fascinating. She wondered if it was possible to have a book with two totally different kinds of halves. Perhaps a mostly passive protagonist versus a very active protagonist, a completely different timeframe with one story occurring in a single rotation versus one story occurring across lunas, and two entirely different worldviews. One completely emotional and raw versus the other logical and knowledge based. It all came down to worldbuilding, that is, the ontology.

  We were the Olympians, and this was our Titanomachy. We slew our creators, the Godlike Beings. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. In the end, the children are always stronger than the parents.

  Well… she was well conceived now, one way or another. Eightfold so.

  As the memory replayed, Talisa could not help but regret not spending more time just playing with them, just being with them, instead of slapping them into the bacta tank and then calling it a day.

  And Malevolent the Animus thought to himself - he was kind of like a Threshold Guardian, wasn’t he? The first Vi had to face. And now she’s facing another one, her mother-in-law. How many more will she have to face?

  Only the first born from her body, for she also had many daughters and sons before him. But she wasn’t really accounting for them, at this moment, because she had not put in the labor of birthing them herself. She assigned them all to broodmothers, as Queens do. Perhaps it was only through the pain of labor that forged a stronger connection to this brood, over all others.

  When she was just a girl, she expected the world. But it flew away from her reach. She’d dream of paradise. This could be paradise.

  Come up to meet you, tell you I’m sorry. You don’t know how lovely you are. I had to find you, tell you I need you. Tell you I set you apart. Tell me your secrets and ask me your questions… Pulling the puzzles apart. Questions of science, science and progress do not speak as loud as my heart.

  And even have his friend, the little bacta, by his side! We didn’t forget about you, Heyshush!

  And in turn, Mal thought to Vilithe that he should thank her, for he could not be what he was now without her, so much more than just a spying spirit, as Zitra had made him. Thank you, Vilithe. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  Had she? Now that she had taken on Talisa’s quest for vengeance, now that she knew… to fulfill her goals, someone must get hurt. Even if it was someone as wretched as Maetra. Or someone else.

  Her fae projection, the astral projection of the Ninth Simulacrum, looked just the same now, no longer marred by fraying as was the Prime.

  Seems like there was a disguise mode.

  Did she scry the footnotes?!

  Voli… bear? No, Heyshush, that would make her way too like Lyra Belacqua, and me Pantalaimon. The interpretation of Eve as the true hero of Paradise Lost. Even I think that’s just a little too on the nose. I think we’re more interested in what happens if Eve is God, not what happens when Eve defies God. That story’s been told before. Volent’s cognition was getting dangerously meta.

  Vyerna had not expected the correct direction of her trade.

  ?? ??????? ?

  Not to be confused with Sixth, who got shish-kabobed with Sixth and Seventh on a depleted uranium rod by my dear Avecia. Heh. I was fond of Avecia. She had spunk. Vilithe suddenly felt awful. How she had hated Avecia so- but she was just trying to free Eidren and reunite him with his wonderful mother. Oh, don’t be a flatterer. I had just admitted to being a toxic mom. Please don’t water down my redemption moment. You were just jealous. Why should you feel so bad to be so jealous of my hunk of a son? It’s only natural, par for the course.

  Also, I had kind of run out of ideas for names, and since my ideas were none, I just turned it backwards. Silly, for a Queen, I know, but even I have limits to my creativity, yours perhaps surpasses mine.

  This was a heavy euphemism for the suicidal death march they had been going through, Vilithe thought.