An Arsonist and a Necromancer Walk into a Bar

Two Hands are Better Than One

Palmira arrived in the small piazza she'd first met Tintinnia in, wary. She wasn't sure what of, but after this morning she felt she'd need to be ready for anything when meeting the other girl.

Luckily, it seemed she'd arrived on time, as Tintinnia was already waiting for her when she arrived.

The girl sat on the fountain in the center, swinging her legs off the side cheerfully. Behind her, the statue of Sinbad had been vandalized, with the nose having been broken off and reattached to his crotch. These two facts were likely related.

"Uh, hi," Palmira stepped into the piazza. "You said you wanted to meet up—woah!"

Tintinnia had jumped up from her seat the second she'd seen her, launching herself at Palmira and latching onto her with a hug.

"Oh, you came!" she chirped happily, her goggles digging uncomfortably into Palmira's shoulder. "I was so worried you wouldn't!"

Of course she was going to come. There was no way she was going to see what the other girl would do to her if she didn't.

"Yeah? You said you wanted to meet up, and it's not like I've got anything better—I mean, I was free, so I was able to make some time."

Tintinnia continued to giggle, enough that Palmira was starting to get really worried, before the other girl finally pulled back, her smile so wide it practically split her face in half.

"I made—hehe—I made you something! As a gift to commemorate our friendship!" she reached behind her back and pulled out something that in no way could have existed there before. "You had a rusty old mace in your bedroom, so I decided to repurpose it into something so much cuter!"

She practically shoved it into Palmira's free hand, and so with a strange sense of trepidation Palmira looked to see what the other girl had done to her mace.

The mace—which had once just been little more than a normal hunk of steel and leather—was now something altogether more horrifying. The head of the mace was now a slanted cube with a large spike on the top. Normal at first glance, until one noticed the eyes burrowed sideways into each face, darting this way and that as its slitted pupils took in the surroundings. Below it the shaft was bound in what she hoped was normal leather painted black, from the end of which a spiked tail emerged, whipping around absently.

One of the eyes locked onto her and blinked slowly. The tail rose up and gave her a little wave.

"Well," Tintinnia grinned, leaning in. "Do you like it?"

And with a grace born of constantly lying to authority figures, Palmira plastered on the fakest smile she'd ever made. "Y-Yeah! It's very… ah… unique?"

Tintinnia squealed, lunging at her in another hug. The mace joined in, wrapping its tail around her leg. Palmira repressed a shudder.

"Oh I knew you'd love it!" the pink girl squeezed her harder, and Palmira mentally begged Morte to do something. Anything. "I spent all day working on it! And then I had to sneak out from under Sinbad's stupidly perceptive eyes just to get here!"

"Now hang on a minute," Morte cut in, indignant. "There's only room for one crime against nature in this party, and that slot's already been taken!"

'Disagreement,' a new, slimy, yet somehow also posh voice echoed in her mind. 'Our Lady has two hands. Therefore, there is enough space for two crimes against nature.'

Palmira, already realizing what was going on, closed her eyes in tired acceptance.

"It can talk!?" Morte exclaimed, sounding at once both shocked and excited. "You gave it a voice!? But the container is so small! How in the world did you manage to fit enough neural pathways in there to allow for any form of complex speech, let alone the ability to create full sentences? And you said you made this within a day!?"

Tintinnia, who'd looked for a moment murderous at Morte's earlier comment, snapped back to looking giddy and smug. "It wasn't easy, you know!" she grinned, crossing her arms proudly. "But I'll only make the best for my first friend! Admittedly, I cannibalized some older works I had sitting around to make it, but I think the result speaks for itself, no?"

"It's damn near miraculous, is what it is! I must be more out of the loop than I thought, if developments like this have been made. Though I do question the need for four eyes. It feels like a bit of a waste, doesn't it?"

"It's not a waste!" she huffed, stomping her foot. "It needs four eyes to make it symmetrical!"

Palmira felt herself begin to disassociate from the conversation. If she weren't holding up one of the participants, she might have gone to sit on a bench and let them get this out of their systems.

"But you could have used two and accomplished the same effect! Then you would have had two spare sides you could have used for other things, like runic circles or more spikes. I understand the want for decoration, but when it comes to things as small as this one you need to conserve all the space you can get."

"Didn't you just say my work was miraculous? Why are you being so rude about it now!?"

"I apologize if I came off as rude," Morte actually, somehow, sounded contrite. "But you should also know to accept criticism when it's offered! Because, while the mace is an incredible feat of magitech engineering, it is not perfect. There are always ways to improve, and you shouldn't ignore advice freely given."

Tintinnia pouted, crossing her arms with a huff. Palmira, for reasons she didn't fully understand, felt the need to comfort the other girl.

"Don't take it too hard," she shook herself, checking back into the conversation. "He does that to me, too. He never focuses on your achievements, it's always critiquing mistakes with him."

"Mistakes are important! And understanding what they are and why you committed them is how you grow! If you never acknowledge your mistakes, you'll just keep making them over and over again."

"That doesn't mean you need to keep bringing them up!" Palmira snapped at her staff, shaking him violently. "You could stand to be a little less critical, you know!"

'Query,' the mace's voice knocked against her brain again, and she had to bite her tongue to stop from throwing up. 'The Maker created Us with the concept of 'a perfect gift for my friend' embedded into Our very form. Therefore, are We not already perfect?'

"Look at you," Palmira shook him some more. "You made it sad!"

Then what the mace said actually registered in her brain, and she felt herself grow a bit touched. 'A perfect gift for a friend?' Damn, the only other person who'd tried to do something like that for her had been…

'Correction. We are not sad, We are merely confused. If one is made to be perfect, then is one not born perfect? Or is perfection a feat one must achieve, something that can only be gained after birth? Is the concept of being perfect even possible, or can We only ever exist in a state of 'good enough?'

Palmira had no idea how to respond to that.

"Ugh, this is why I normally don't let them speak," Tintinnia frowned at the mace. "They always start monologuing about morality and the purpose of their existence. They're all so depressing."

"Hey, introspection is good for you. Keeps you grounded. Not like there's much else to do when you don't have a body."

Palmira sighed, going to rub her forehead before realizing her hands were full. "Thank you for the gift, Tintinnia," she said at last, somehow actually meaning it. "I'll be sure to treat it… him… them? Actually, do they have a name?"

'Reply. We were not granted a designation,' the mace told her. 'Does Our Lady require We have one?'

"…You know what? Yes. I need something to call you."

'Understood. What does Our Lady wish to call us?'

"I don't actually have any ideas," she shrugged. "Morte?"

"I don't know. I guess name it… ah… Mazza."

"Absolutely not," she vetoed the name instantly. "I'm not naming the mace 'Mace.' There's no way I can look Chiara in the eye again after I spent so long making fun of her for calling her horse 'Horse.' Give me a better idea."

"If you want a better idea than that you need to give me more time! I can't just come up with cool names on the spot like that!"

Palmira huffed, not willing to accept that he had a point. Still, she didn't want to give up just yet.

Unfortunately, she didn't get a choice. Before they could continue brainstorming ideas, someone else stormed into the piazza.

"TINTINNIA!" Sinbad the Paladin roared, marching into the piazza fully armed and armored. "What part of 'stay at home' do you not understand!"

Palmira froze. Every part of her body froze, and she kicked into fight or flight mode as the monster which had torn through an army just yesterday stormed up to them. An army that she had been a part of.

"What are you doing here!?" Tintinnia, for the first time since they'd met, looked something other than giddy and happy. Right now, she looked downright murderous. "I thought you had important political stuff you were supposed to be doing!"

"I had to leave early, when I realized you had decided to go out unsupervised again!"

"I'm just meeting with a friend!" she snapped back. "Why do you always assume I'm committing crimes or whatever else you think of me whenever I'm alone!?"

"You know why—wait, a friend?"

Sinbad's head snapped over to her, as though he hadn't noticed her until this point. His good eye roved over her, widening in surprise before narrowing in consideration. "Ah, you."

She should have run she should have run she should have fucking run.

"I remember you," he scowled at her. "You joined the Ambrosi, then? I hope you understand the magnitude of the sin your Famiglia committed."

"I'm not part of them," she yelped, raising Morte defensively between them. She'd tried grabbing his staff with both hands but forgot she was still holding the mace, and so the two of them loudly clanged together when she tried.

The Paladin's eye glanced down at her new crime against nature, before glancing back up at her with an unimpressed look.

"It was a job!" she blurted out. "Just guard duty, I swear on my soul! I never even entered the estate, I just sat in front of the walls making sure tourist and drunks didn't get to close! If I'd known what was going on I swear I would never have taken the job!"

She still did not, in fact, fully know what was going on. But she also was the type of person who preferred living, and placing herself at odds with Sinbad would very quickly make her stop living.

"Ignorance is no excuse," the Paladin ground out, "The devil has worn the faces of man since the first Sin. When the first men were cast out of Elysium they pleaded ignorance, and yet the Goddess judged them regardless. Sin is sin, regardless of if you realized you are committing one."

"I didn't know!" her arms trembled, and she felt tears forming in the corners of her eyes. She didn't know what else to say. "I didn't know!"

"Just say the word," Morte whispered in her mind. "Just say the word, and I'll help you destroy him."

Sinbad looked like he didn't believe her. But as he opened his mouth to deliver his final judgement, someone else stepped in.

"Hey!" Tintinnia jumped between the two of them with a frown so deep it practically split her face in half. "Stop making my friend cry, you meany-butt!"

"Tintinnia, what—"

"Palmira is my friend," the pink girl glared at him. "And that should tell you everything you need to know about her true nature!"

Wow, if that was her trying to defend her, then she was doing an awful job. Sinbad looked like he agreed.

"She's been nothing but kind to me ever since we met! And you know what? That makes her my friend, and you don't get to touch. My. Stuff!"

Palmira had no idea where this was coming from, but if it could save her from the wrath of the Paladin in front of her, she'd take it.

Sinbad closed his eye, looking both frustrated and angry. "…Fine. I will partially let her off for now. But that does not free her of the sin she's committed! If she does not make up for it now, she must do so in the afterlife, and I think we'd both know what she'd prefer."

"Well I think she's a perfectly nice person who's never done anything wrong!"

Sinbad sighed. "Enough, Tintinnia. The Goddess does not compromise, so you should instead be grateful I'm willing to give your… friend… this much leeway. No, if she wants to make up for her crime, there's only one thing for it."

With that he turned back to her, looking over Tintinnia's admittedly very short head. "Girl, as you may have guessed, the reason I'm in this city is to look into the crimes the Ambrosi have committed. If you want to work towards clearing your own sins, you will help me with this, am I understood?"

"What? Me? Why!?"

"You are an inside source, and one they will not expect," he told her. Then, apparently deciding their conversation was done, he grabbed Tintinnia's shoulder and started dragging her away. "Now I need to get you home. And you, girl, meet me here tomorrow, we'll go over what you know then. Do not try to flee—I will know if you do."

"Hey!" Tintinnia growled, slamming her fist into his shoulder (which made an odd clanking sound). "Let go of me! I wanted to talk with my friend today!"

"And I wanted to get some real work done today. But it looks like we both aren't getting what we want, huh?"

The pink girl huffed angrily, before succumbing to her fate. "Urgh! Bye, Palmira, I'll see you tomorrow!"

"No you will not!"

Palmira watched them go with a dry mouth and feeling she'd avoided damnation by the narrowest of margins. Once the sounds of their arguing faded into the distance, she slowly slumped down to the ground, taking deep, calming breaths.

"You know, I always thought there was something off about that girl," Morte mused. "Now that I've seen how she and Sinbad interact, I think I've come to a better understanding of what that is."

'Disagreement. The Maker is a perfectly normal flesh creature.'

"Buddy you can't be older than a day. You've met like three people. Just trust me on this, your maker's not right in the head."

Palmira couldn't help but laugh. There was nothing particularly funny, but she just needed to release. And if there was as much sobbing as there was laughing, well, it wasn't like her two companions would judge her for it.

"Goddess, I thought I was going to die there," she rasped. "…I'll need to get Tintinnia something nice."

"Yeah, probably. Hey new guy, what do you think she'd like in a gift basket?"

'Query. What is a gift basket?'

"Oh my new, naïve friend," Morte replied, sounding absolutely ecstatic. "I have so much to teach you."

Palmira closed her eyes, letting Morte and the new mace's conversation wash over her. It was somehow calming, just letting their voices take over.

"Hey, kid!"

She jolted, jumping back to her feet. Looking around, she saw the owner of the restaurant she'd eaten at last time hanging out the door, giving her a worried look. "Ya doing alright? Ya've been crying out there fer a while now."

She flushed, the tips of her hair lighting up. "…Yes," she croaked, mortified.

"…Ah, well, you hungry? We ain't busy now, so I'll give ya half off a bowl if ya want."

Palmira worked her jaw slowly, before finally nodding. Even mortification at him witnessing her breakdown didn't beat cheap food.

So quickly working up the courage, she forced her legs to move, and ate dinner there again. And it was delicious.

--

Following that whole ordeal, Palmira trudged her way back to the guild, hiding her new mace under her shirt to sneak it back into her room. That whole experience had been uncomfortable, but if it was that or getting arrested for another cursed object she'd take the former any day.

Dropping her mace on the table, she groaned, flopping onto her bed. "Goddess, why does everything just keep getting more and more complicated?"

'Query. Where are We?'

Palmira jumped. For a second there she'd forgotten it could talk.

"We're in, uh, my room," she shuffled into a sitting position, suddenly feeling a bit self-conscious. She shook herself—it was just a mace, what did it matter what it thought!? "It's not much, I know, but it's a roof over my head and that's the most important thing about it."

That wasn't something that could be understated. These days it felt almost a lifetime ago that she'd have to hide from storms beneath bridges and within abandoned buildings. That life wasn't something she'd ever forget, and not something she'd ever want to return to, but some days those memories felt more like a dream than her own life.

'Comprehension. This is Our Lady's Villa.'

"Um… I don't own it, if that's what you mean? This is just my room."

'Confusion. Is Our Lady merely a servant?'

That question shouldn't have hurt as much as it did. "I'm an adventurer, not a servant! I just get room and board as part of my perks!"

'Further Confusion. Is there a different between a servant and an adventurer?'

"Well, of course!" Morte chimed in and she immediately leaped over her bed to clamp a hand over his mouth. Unfortunately, he did not need a mouth to speak. "A servant is owned by their boss, while an adventurer is owned by a boss! They're very different people, you see."

Palmira groaned, knocking him over. Morte just laughed as he clattered to the floor.

"Ignore him," she told her mace. "He thinks he's funny, but he's not."

"I am too funny!" Morte shouted from the floor.

"ANYWAYS," Palmira forcefully changed the topic. "We were in the middle of something before we left, right? I was thinking up a name for you, do you have any preferences?"

'Negative. Our Lady may grant Us a designation at Her leisure.'

"Right…" she shook her head. The thing was pretty weird, but what else had she expected? "Mace, mace… what's a good name for a mace?"

"I still think Mazza's a good name!"

"It is not! It's like if I named you Cranio or something similar! How would you like it if you're name was just the first word some random person came up with when they saw you!?"

"…"

"…Wait, 'Morte' just means death, and you're a necromancer's staff. Did you really…?"

"You know what? Mazza is a silly name now that I think about it. Oh, I know, what about 'Peccaminoso?' It's got a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

Palmira huffed, but let him change the subject. "I think that's a name that would actually get a paladin after me."

"Hm…" she stopped and took a moment to think. After all the shit she talked to Morte, she couldn't just come up with something simple and call it a day. She focused on the eyes, blinking guilelessly at her. Then she trailed down to the barbed tail, which almost reminded her of the pictures she'd seen of demons. As she connected those things together, a name formed in her mind, one she felt would be perfect for her new mace. "I've got it! I'll call you… Malocchio."

The mace blinked three times rapidly, memorizing the name. Then the eye facing her pinched, in something she could only describe as happiness. 'Understood. Designation 'Malocchio' shall now be applied to Us. We thank Our Lady for her gift. We shall be sure to cherish it properly.'

--

​

An hour after the sun had set, Palmira quietly made her way to one of the balconies overlooking the courtyard. She'd left Malocchio in her room, as for now she wanted this to be something between only her and Morte.

She placed a lantern on the ground, sitting on one of the cushioned benches. It was always weird walking around the villa after the sun set—at this time of night the villa was mostly empty, with the many adventurers having either returned home or crowded around the bar, drinking themselves into oblivion.

She could even hear them now, faintly. Glancing down from the balcony she could see the glow of the dining hall, the soundings of drunken laughter and cheering coming following with it. The only other person out on the balconies right now was a dwarf across the courtyard, passed out surrounded by a dozen bottles of booze.

There was a loud smash from the dining hall down below, and suddenly everyone went silent.

Then with an explosion of noise the drunken adventurers started partying even harder than before.

Palmira felt her eyebrow twitch. That had better not further delay her paycheck.

"Are you sure we have to be out here for this?" she asked, giving the dining hall a stink-eye. Someone—wait, that was Anima—stumbled out of the hall, and proceeded to throw up in a bush. The bush then tried to eat her, but with a high-pitched laugh Anima danced around its bites, slipping back into the dining hall. "They're so noisy."

"Ah, they aren't so bad. Just tune them out—they're adventurers, this is just what they do."

She huffed, but nodded.

"Now, before we begin, I have to ask again," Morte whispered in her mind, serious and somber. "Are you certain this is what you want? I will not judge you for choosing differently—nay, I would even praise you for it—because this is not a decision that can be reversed."

"I'm sure," she nodded sharply. Then she hesitated. "…Why are you so adamantly against me learning it?"

"Because once you start down this path, you will become someone important. If I were to describe it… as you are now, you are but a side character in someone else's story. But the magic I would teach you is designed to defy Fate. To carve your own place in the narrative. Once I have taught you this magic, you will change from thread to weaver, and I cannot stress enough that there is no going back from that point."

Palmira frowned. Defying Fate? That sounded heretical, something she absolutely shouldn't be trying to do. And yet…

Something in her wanted to know. Wanted to take that power for herself. It was the same part of her that had strived to discover the secrets of fire, even after it had destroyed everything she'd loved. It was that small, constant voice in the back of her head, that quietly asked, "But what if you did?"

Babylon 2:01; As the Goddess decreed, Ambition was the Sin of Man.

"…I don't fully get it," she admitted. "And maybe I'll regret it later, but I can't help but feel that right now, I am weak. When I saw Sinbad in that battle… I felt like he could kill me in an instant. Like I only survived because he let me. And I don't care about being someone 'important' or whatever, but if this magic can quickly make me powerful enough to never feel that way again, then I'll learn it, regardless of the cost."

"There are no short-cuts to power," he warned her. "But there are powerful shortcuts. Very well, I can't deny your reasons. Wanting to live a quiet, happy life is impossible if you're dead, after all."

She shrugged self-consciously.

"To begin with, I will tell you of the three styles of Magic I have learned," he began slowly. "They are Necromancy, Divinity, and Cosmology. The first Magic I learned was Cosmology, the study of the Cosmos. The other two were more thrust upon me, but you lack the acumen to dive deeply into either, so we will be ignoring them for now."

"What do you mean by that? How do you know both Divine magic and Necromancy? Shouldn't they cancel each other out?"

"The study of Death and the study of Divinity are not quite as contradictory as you'd think. Both work by bending life to their whims, though in different ways. And regardless, knowing how to do something and knowing how to do it are two very different skillsets. The reason you lack acumen is because of your own humility—you are neither zealot nor sinner, and so any study you partake into those fields would be paltry at best."

"But cosmology is different?"

"Very." She winced at the tone of his voice. He almost sounded… reverent. "The Cosmos are the domain of the gods. To study the Cosmos is to attempt to understand Divinity—not as a worshipper nor a maverick, but as a scientist. It is the most heretical of studies, to attempt to usurp the foundation of Divinity itself."

Palmira swallowed uncomfortably, but remained steadfast. She'd asked to learn, even after being given multiple outs. She wouldn't back down just because the talking skull that declared himself her mentor described it as heresy.

If she'd had any sense, she'd have left Morte's staff back in that bargain bin all those weeks ago. But she made her decision, and so here she was.

"Despite that, however, it is a practice that requires humility. To begin to understand the Cosmos, one must first begin to understand their own insignificance. Lest you go mad in the attempt."

"Go mad?"

"Indeed. Greater minds than I have attempted ascension through studying the Cosmos. Yet they have failed, and I have not. Because those who believe themselves great cannot accept the one fundamental truth of the Cosmos: that All Things are Insignificant."

"What?"

"Don't worry about it, for now. We'll get there," he reassured her. "But first we start small, and work our way up from there. The sky is no longer the limit, my apprentice, but that only means the scale we are working with has become incomprehensibly large. So today, we shall simply do some stargazing."

"…Stargazing? After all that buildup?"

"Of course!" he snickered at her put-out expression. "What did you think, we'd be jumping straight into crafting galaxies and manipulating dark matter? This is the most Primal of Primal magics—I wasn't kidding when I said that greater people than you or I have gone mad trying to understand them. So, for now, simply tilt your chin up, and gaze at the stars."

She gave him a sour look, but rolling her eyes, looked up.

The night sky was brilliant, as always. It was harder to see the stars in the city compared to the countryside, but they weren't invisible by any means. The moon hung directly overhead, merely a sliver of a crescent, from which the glowing angel threads flowed across its dark side. If she squinted, she could even see the faint trail of the silver river snaking between the stars.

"What do you see?" his voice whispered in her mind.

"I see… stars?"

He sighed. "Yes, yes, stars. I forget sometimes how practical you are. You remember my first lesson, about the three P's? We're working with Philosophy today, so treat it like you would your fire—don't be quite so literal about it."

She frowned. Her eyes traced the stars, but no revelation came to her. She supposed that made sense—she was starting from scratch here, not working with what she already knew—but it still irked her. That Morte could endlessly wax poetic while she struggled to cobble together a simple metaphor.

She supposed that was what made him the master, and her the apprentice.

She shook her head. She was distracting herself. This was a lesson on powerful magics, she shouldn't be expecting to get it on the first attempt.

Taking a deep breath, she calmed herself down, and stopped trying to force it. Instead she simply gazed up at the stars, appreciating their beauty.

She traced the constellations with her eyes, distant memories of her father teaching her them back when she was young. Exsecrabilis the Watcher hung low over the roof of the guild, his stolen eye marked by the red star Domum. She saw one half of the Gates of Elysium peaking over the roof, its faint blue glow mesmerizing as always. And as her eyes drifted to Exul the Herald, whose raised torch marked the North Star, she realized something.

"The stars tell stories."

"Oh?"

"I was looking at the constellations," she told him, her eyes not leaving the sky. "And I realized that they all have names. Even if I don't know them all off the top of my head, they still exist. People tell stories about the stars, and so in turn the stars tell stories."

"Ah, so that's what you focused on. Interesting. Well, I suppose that's a good a place to start as any. Since you've brought it up, how well do you know them? Which constellations do you see right now?"

"I was taught the important ones, when I was younger." She raised a hand, pointing out the ones currently visible. "There's Exul the Herald, who led ancient Man on the Long March across the Starlight Sea. His torch always points North. Then there's the Heart of Agnus, which was placed in the sky after Agnus the Pure sacrificed herself to appease the Goddess after the Cardinal Sin. Exsecrabilis, who stole the eye of an angel and with it saw first the creation of the world and then its end. Iespes, the mother of Exul, and her ship Occasio, who were the first humans to discover Eora. And Antiqua Proelii, which is just a bird I think."

There were others her father had taught her, but some weren't visible tonight, and others were only visible in the Spring.

"Oh? Antiqua Proelii is just a bird, is it?"

"Is it not? That's what my father taught me. It, uh, fled to the heavens after stealing the Demon King's horn, I think? Or was it his ear…?"

"Hm, no no. That's not wrong, per se, I suppose I just was taught a different story. Do you know any of the others up there?"

"Not really. My father only taught me the important ones. To tell the truth, I don't think he knew many others."

"That's quite the arsenal in and of itself. Did he have an interest in the stars?"

"Uh, maybe? I think it was more of a hobby, but… he…"

She trailed off. Her chest grew tight, and she turned back to the sky.

Morte let the silence linger for a moment longer, before he returned to his lecture. "…While I admit that isn't the first connection I made, I feel I can work well with it. 'The stars tell stories,' huh? Yes, that's as good a core to work off as any other. Very well then! My first question for you, my young apprentice, is thus—who do the stars tell stories to?"

Palmira blinked, shaking herself out of her funk. Then she blinked again, as the question registered.

'Us,' she wanted to say at first, because it was people who told the stories to other people. But she felt he wouldn't accept that as an answer. 'Who do the stars tell stories to?' The people who look at the stars? But everyone does that. The people who look for stories in the stars? Or was that still too broad…?

"Ah, I see you're a bit stumped. Then let me put it another way. Have the stars ever told stories to you?"

That… no, she supposed they hadn't, had they? Her father told her the stories, that he learned from his father, who learned from his father, ad nauseum. But one of her ancestors must have learned the story first. Perhaps…

"Is it the people who saw them form?" she asked, frowning. "The people who first saw them ascend?"

"Is that your answer, or just another question?"

Palmira huffed. "…My answer," she decided on, just to see how he responded.

"I suppose there's merit to that answer. If the stories are true, of course. But what if they aren't—what if every story told about the stars are just fairy tales? Pagan myths that survive in our collective memories?"

She frowned. "But the stars still exist—even if the stories aren't real, the stars are. …The stars are real, right?"

"Hah! Wouldn't that be a bombshell to drop on you! But no, the stars are real, you need not worry about that. But you're on the right track. Even if the stories are fake, the stars are real. So what does that mean for the stories?"

"It means…" she furrowed her brow. "If the stories are fake, but the stars are real… maybe that the stories are a little real as well? The stars are real, and if that one part of the story is real, then perhaps more parts are."

"And…?"

"And that means from there we can use the stories as like, jumping off points. Maybe studying history would help? It might be possible to see which parts of history agree with which parts of the stories… but, wait, would that even be cosmology anymore?"

"And there we come to one of the core cruxes of the cosmos—in the end, we can only study them tangentially. And what you've brought up today are but one manner of doing so. The stars are so much more than what we can comprehend with our pitiful human senses, but that does not make their secrets indecipherable! We shall study the secrets long buried within the stories of the stars, and from there, take another step closer to discovering the truth of the cosmos. One step closer to usurping divinity."

"Huh…" she frowned, considering his words. Then she realized one of them stood out quite a bit. "Wait, 'we?'"

"Of course, 'we.' What, do you think I know everything? Hah! It's only once you've mastered something that you truly learn how little you know about it, and that goes double for the cosmos! I'll be studying the stars till my dying day—though I suppose that day's already come and gone!"

"Oh," she took that in, before lowering her head to the staff. "In that case, I look forward to learning with you, Morte."

"I do as well, my apprentice," his skeletal smile seemed to nearly glow in the night. "I do as well."