Are You Even Human

Agreeing to join what I assume is essentially an olfactory-based hivemind is one thing, but I was being honest when I said I didn't have any idea how to actually do it. My understanding of alien language and culture is apparently even more patchwork than I thought, with all these Angels that are supposedly my peers treating me like a dumb child with an unfortunately high amount of justification. I do not, apparently, understand them as well as I thought.

I don't think anything I understood about them is wrong, of course. Just… incomplete. The way I've been speaking has apparently been acceptable, if stilted, for discussions between opposing forces, but it only scratches the surface of what the network is capable of. Aliens can't lie, and they do instinctively answer anything they're asked, but they can still withhold information from enemies, and often do. Your enemy can't force you to answer a question they don't know to ask, and oftentimes aliens avoid exploiting their ability to force knowledge out of each other because it's difficult to know which side of a fight that will truly favor; they usually prefer a sort of intel cold war over full nuclear-arsenal interrogation about each other's battle capabilities unless they have a solid reason to believe it will go well for them.

Being sat down (metaphorically, we are still underwater) to learn all this stuff is certainly interesting, but it doesn't solve my core problem, which is apparently that stolen instincts from a brain that goes completely comatose if I let it leave my domain are not, apparently, enough.

"Curiosity. By the way you've described them, they should be enough," Blossom comments, swimming in lazy circles around me as I try to figure out the problem.

"I agree," I answer. "But the fact remains, I do not know how to do what you ask of me."

"You do not know how to trust," Blossom hums. "Regretful admittance: this is an issue we are only tangentially capable of understanding, at least until you join us. We are born in the network, created already knowing how to be one with our colony. It is how to speak with other colonies and withhold our thoughts that we must learn. You, however, are the opposite."

"Shouldn't that just mean the instinctive thing for my borrowed brain to do is exactly what we've been struggling with?" I ask.

"Yes," Blossom agrees. "Therefore there is another factor we have yet to consider."

I'm beginning to worry that factor might just be the fact that I'm stubborn. Yes, I use the instincts of the brains I'm borrowing, but the degree to which I'm affected by those instincts changes based on my mental state. I've tried before to get into a meditative trance where I can access them more easily, and I've learned a few important things that way. But it's… a little difficult to try and clear my mind when the whole point of this exercise is to share my mind, something I want to do less than basically anything else.

Blossom interrupts my thoughts by descending from above me and placing her tendrils on my head and shoulders, my own instinctively intertwining with hers as they tend to grab anything that gets too close. They're always moving, always seeking, and there's a satisfying feeling whenever they find something. It must be nice to be an octopus.

"Reluctant admittance: it is a bit embarrassing, seeing you like this," Blossom says. "You seem so silly and foolish, but when the others look at you the thing they think of most is me. Oh, I used to hate them so. Perhaps I was worse than you. You, at least, do not lash out without good reason."

"I feel as though I have lashed out at you frequently," I say.

"Did you not hear my clarifier? You do not lash out without good reason. I went to much trouble to be a good reason, so I would appreciate it if you did not dismiss my efforts."

"Declaration: you are incorrigible," I say. "It took me altogether too long to realize you were frustrating me on purpose."

Blossom shakes with amusement, pulling herself down and poking me all over with her other tentacles, forcing me to shift away to escape.

"You are amusing when upset!" she taunts me. "And much easier to sway. A bit of violence seemed the best way to get you to open up a little."

"Irritation," I respond.

"Joy," Blossom laughs. "Topic change: you previously requested to meet with some of the workers before sinking out of sight. Is this still something you desire?"

"Yes," I confirm. "That is a good idea. It is part of what concerns me about the network."

"Curiosity!" Blossom says as she starts swimming towards what I assume is some workers. "Request: elaborate."

"The concept of a person created primarily for servitude is repulsive to my culture," I explain. "It is synonymous with abuse of others performed for the sake of one's individual gain. Tasks are delegated to those who are unable to refuse them, and the benefits of their labor are taken from them and used by those controlling them. It is cruelty and selfishness of the highest degree."

"That is an interesting perspective," Blossom says.

"That is a very strange perspective, though I suppose I should not have expected anything else," Chaos chimes in from elsewhere.

"Hush, Chaos Erupts in Indifferent Blessings. Your foolishness leaves you lacking in context. Our new council member has told us about her people, and the way that they are all born the same. If there were only workers, not chosen or warriors, would it not be strange to decide some got to rule and some got to fight?"

"But that is why we have the separation," Chaos says. "A worker finds joy in working. A warrior finds joy in battle. A Chosen finds joy in leading. These are their proper places."

"Perhaps," Blossom says. "Come along, Thief of Easy Answers. Let us introduce you to the colony's nameless and see what exotic cruelties your mind identifies. I am sure they will be delightfully informative."

"I thought I asked you not to decide on your own names for me," I grumble halfheartedly as I follow her.

"Do you wish to be Thief of Torn Wings forever? I do not think it fits you," Blossom says. "Until you have a true name, I will continue making suggestions."

"Assertion: I have a true name."

"Oh? Do tell me."

"Julietta," I say out loud, making sure my lungs and voice box can still make the sounds correctly this deep underwater. Blossom shifts, surprise wafting off of her.

"Comprehension. I forgot you claimed your kind spoke with sound. Interesting, interesting. Unfortunately, I do not believe I can make such noises. What do they mean?"

"They have no meaning other than being my name," I answer. "They are me and nothing else. There is no other aspect to the sound that matters."

"That sounds rather sad," Blossom says, and I can't help but be a little confused.

"Sad? Why? The name is my own," I say.

"But what is the owner of the name?" Blossom asks. "My name has much meaning. It is both the blessing my god has given to me—the greatest and most important gift in my life—and it is the mark I wish to leave on the world. I am A Blossom of Wilted Chances. I am new hope from a withered past. Life blooming in a land thought barren of worthy futures. I am myself, yes, but I am far more than merely that. That, I think, is a worthy name."

"Comprehension. Personal disagreement," I say. "To me, that feels needlessly restrictive. I have no desire to shackle myself to a singular idea."

"Obvious solution: give yourself a name that imposes no restrictions," Blossom says. "Something that embodies the entirety of your freedom."

"Perhaps," I answer noncommittally. "Speaking of freedom, are these the workers you had in mind?"

"They are," she confirms. "Interrupt them at your leisure."

Three workers swim around one of The Divinity of Wonder's massive limbs, running their tails over her skin to scoop up and swallow the green algae growing all over it. There's a lot of it all over her, as is often the case for any solid stationary surfaces in the ocean, though now that I think about it, isn't that a little odd? Normally, we'd be far too deep underwater for algae to get enough light to grow, so it is presumably the light emitting from The Divinity of Wonder herself that feeds them. Some parts of her are dense enough with the stuff to look like an underwater forest, weeping willows of curtain-like green shifting softly in the current.

"Are they doing this to clean, or to gather food?" I ask.

"It is for food," Blossom answers. "That is why we grow them."

"Isn't that energy-negative?" I ask. "The green-growths feed on the light the Queen produces, but the amount of power needed to emit the light would be far more than the amount regained from consuming them. The Queen should be getting hungrier and hungrier."

"Fascination. I do not understand the basis for several of the assumptions you have just made, but perhaps this knowledge will clarify your understanding: The Divinity of Wonder produces light not with her biology, but with her blessing. Emitting light does not strain her."

"Why not?" I ask. "My blessing is limited by the material I consume. It cannot create something from nothing. There is nothing that can create something from nothing."

"Incorrect and absurd," Blossom denies. "The material you consume limits the material you have access to, but from where does the power to move it come from? Must you digest every bit of strength used to shift from one form to the next, or are such changes given to you freely?"

I… huh. Yeah, that's… completely true. The energy my power uses to move doesn't come from me. It's seemingly limitless. That doesn't mean it's actually limitless, of course. Possibility might be a god, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's immune to the laws of thermodynamics. Not that it's really provable either way. It could have an esoteric power source or such vast stores of energy that anything I do with them is trivial.

"I see your point," I admit anyway. "It should have been my initial assumption that the power came from Possibility rather than nothingness."

"Confusion. Concern. Of course it should have. Nothingness does not exist."

What?

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"Nothingness does not exist," Blossom repeats. "It cannot exist. It is impossible for there to be nothing."

"Are you saying there's no way to make a…" I trail off, realizing I don't have a good way of translating 'vacuum.' That's… odd. Really odd. "…A space wherein there is no substance?"

"Yes, obviously," Blossom answers.

"Incorrect and absurd," I say. "I could make such a space right now, albeit very briefly. The nature of the universe resists the formation of such spaces, but not strongly enough to completely prevent them. There are several methods of creating them. Not to mention…"

I furrow my brows. Again, a word I can't translate. The aliens have no concept of outer space.

"…The area above the sky, between worlds," I summarize as best I can.

Blossom stares at me, shifting her tendrils with discomfort.

"…Abject confusion," she emits. "Concern. You have baffled me fully, Thief of All Reason. I fear that this conversation may have to wait until after we can speak properly. I cannot parse it."

What?

"Why?" I ask.

"I do not know," she answers. "It is nonsense, yet you speak it with confidence, referring to 'the nature of the universe' as if it were some independent force."

"It… is?" I say. "Well, perhaps it is not an independent force so much as all forces, ever. …Except possibly those of the gods."

"There are no forces that are not divine," Blossom says. "Matter moves because the gods live… within it…"

She trails off, concern radiating off of her.

"…We should speak no more of this," she says before I can respond. "Go. Speak with your workers. We will return to this at a more appropriate time and place."

Hmm. Well, I can't say I don't want to figure out what that's about, but Blossom seems pretty serious about changing the subject so I guess I'll let it slide. Talking to 'my' workers, though… that's sort of exactly the problem here. We've been sitting here having a whole conversation right next to them, and they haven't even looked our way.

"Hello," I greet them, directing the word directly their way.

"Hello, council member," all three of them respond in synch, continuing to clean all the while. I suppose they're all very focused. I've used a Raptor brain, I know what that's like.

"Would any of you like to have a short conversation with me?" I ask.

"Query: task reassignment?"

"Negative," I answer. "This is not a task, it is a conversation."

They hesitate, scents of confusion and a touch of concern wafting off of them.

"A conversation may be possible during this task," one of them says.

"You have the option of pausing your task," I say, receiving more hesitance and confusion.

"You truly have a mean streak," Blossom chimes in. "Making it so difficult for the poor workers. Just redirect them."

"That defeats the point," I insist.

"Does it? Or is it simply how you would treat one of your own kind? Workers are not built for multiple tasks at once. That one of them is willing to split focus for you is laudable, but it will struggle to perform at both functions. They will not abandon a task given to them. It is not what they are."

"Fine," I say. "Targeted task reassignment: approach me and engage in a conversation of my choosing."

"Acknowledged."

The one Raptor that kind of offered to chat immediately halts what they were doing and swims towards me, stopping in front of me as their fellow workers seamlessly shift their cleaning patterns to accommodate their absence.

"Ready to converse," the Raptor reports.

"Are you happy with your life?" I ask.

"Comprehension failure. Request: rephrase."

Well that's already a bad start.

"Delineate nature of comprehension error, concept: happy," I order.

"Happiness is understood. Unknown concept: 'happy with my life.' Happiness is transient, not constant. It arrives in response to accomplishment and fades in response to idleness or failure."

"Understood. Clarification: if you were to judge the overall frequency of happiness that you experience compared to the amount of unhappiness, would you be satisfied with the heuristic ratio?"

The Raptor is quiet for several minutes, and while I can't help but be concerned I do my best to remind myself this is the kind of question that deserves deep thought. Though… shouldn't I be hearing those thoughts? Don't aliens think out loud? I glance over at Blossom, who seems to be focusing pretty intently on the Raptor. I take a slow breath of water, doing my best to manually feel out the scents and try to identify the ones I'm missing, and… god, what is this? There's definitely stuff here, stuff my mind isn't picking up on, but it wants to pick up on it. Like there's meaning just out of reach, a plug trying to fit into a socket that's just a millimeter too small.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Or maybe… a knock on the door that I just can't muster up the courage to answer. The mess inside the house has been piled up too high, and even the slightest crack in the front door will cause it to all spill out.

"The answer to your question is no," the Raptor suddenly asks me, breaking me out of my own internal crisis with one of their own. "But is there utility in judging the worth of a whole when only a fragment ever truly exists? There is no joy in me now, but there will be in the future. And when that joy is gone, another will exist beyond it. From task to completion to task to completion, I seek joy and receive joy. My happiness is transient. Infrequent. But always near. Holistically, it is unsatisfying. But the whole need not be considered. It has no intrinsic value to me."

That's… hmm. It's a well-reasoned answer, but I can't tell if it's genuine or not. If the quality of their life as a whole wasn't important to them, why is the answer to my question no? It's sort of cyclical: if the Raptor doesn't think it's a big deal that they aren't happy very often, then why are they dissatisfied with the frequency of their own happiness?

But maybe I'm just asking the wrong question here. Maybe there's a more direct path.

"If you had the ability to choose your own tasks rather than receive them from the council, do you think it would make you more or less happy?" I ask.

The Raptor considers that for a while again, though not as much as the last question.

"Clarifying query: what tasks would be available to choose from?"

"Any task, including hypothetical tasks that have never been assigned," I answer.

"Clarifying query: how would this unit determine the optimal task?"

"Assume any chosen task would be optimal," I answer.

"Question becomes irrelevant under those conditions," the Raptor says. "If all tasks are optimal, the shortest-duration tasks yield the best return regardless of the nature of the task, and there would be no meaningful choices."

Uh. Huh.

"Do you ever receive joy from conditions other than task completion?" I ask. "For example, are there tasks you enjoy the process of completing in addition to the completion itself?"

"Comprehension. Affirmative," the Raptor says.

"Are there tasks you have not been assigned but desire to be assigned?" I ask.

"Affirmative," the Raptor says.

"So if you could choose such tasks yourself, would you?"

"Negative," the Raptor answers.

"Why?" I ask.

"It would be inefficient. It would be detrimental to the colony. This unit is not skilled at tasks it does not regularly perform. Other workers are better at the more desirable tasks."

"Does that matter?" I ask.

"Confusion? Affirmative?" the Raptor answers.

"Then for the purposes of this hypothetical, assume it doesn't," I say. "What things would you like to do that you have not done? Would you be happier if you could do those things?"

"I… this unit does not know," the Raptor responds.

"Would you like to find out?" I ask.

"I do not know," the Raptor repeats. "The question fills me with fear. The function of the colony is paramount. This unit is ignorant of how its task preferences would impact that function. This unit would rather continue performing non-preferential tasks than risk disruption of colony functions."

Hmm. Well that's certainly a major cultural difference between aliens and humans. It stops me in my tracks a bit.

"Reevaluate the reasons behind that preference and elaborate," I say.

"Confusion," the Raptor answers immediately.

"Assume a need to reiterate basic universal knowledge," Blossom chimes in. "Our new council member is stupid."

I flip her off.

"I wish for you to be informed that the gesture I am performing is offensive and provocative in my culture, for it demonstrates both disdain and a lack of respect for the recipient and cultural norms as a whole," I tell her.

"Neat," Blossom says, and then she curls up four tentacles and extends the second one at me. Bitch!

"Elaboration: my present is a fragment in the whole of my life," the Raptor says, cutting between our barbs, "and it is the only fragment of that whole that exists. But I am also a fragment in the whole of the colony, and the colony exists in its entirety. It is greater than me. The joy of the colony takes precedence over the joy of one unit, as the joy of one unit can never exceed the joy of the colony regardless."

"Why not?" I ask.

"Because… it can't," the Raptor repeats. "It is impossible."

"That is a reiteration, not an explanation," I point out.

"It is true, though," Blossom chimes in again. "And you will know it to be true as well. Accept it as fact."

"I am somewhat shocked to hear a faithful of Possibility declare something to be impossible," I admit.

"Amusement. I will not agree that it is truly impossible," Blossom says, "but with insufficient imagination? Yes. It is, at least insofar as one wishes to avoid invoking Contradiction."

"You are saying it is a logical impossibility," I clarify. "That the very nature of the colony prevents it."

"Yes. You would have to change that nature to create the possibility of something else," Blossom confirms. "Which one could do, I suspect, but I do not see why you would ever want to."

"I can already think of several reasons," I tell her.

"Can you? Even though you have your answers? Our workers do not wish for the independence you offer. It is not in their nature."

"And that is problematic," I insist.

"Oh, do tell me why, Thief of Our Morals."

"There is a concept in my culture that is often repeated, in many different forms. I usually refer to it as the virtue of failing gracefully," I begin.

"Amusement. Irritation. This should be enlightening, in the way playing with acid often is."

"…Perhaps it is not an idea entirely foreign to you," I admit, remembering that she used to worship Failure, or at least be part of a culture that did. "But the basic idea is that, given enough use, almost anything will fail. A creation, a body, a system… it will all cease to function as intended in some way eventually, either due to mistake or intentional sabotage. It is, therefore, important to create things in such a way that when they fail, the consequences will not be dire."

"Comprehension. Interest. Continue your explanation," Blossom hums.

"To my people, who have no colony or network and are each fiercely independent, the idea of uncompensated, unregulated servitude is repulsive because it is in itself intrinsically abusive. But even if we take for granted that the difference in our people creates the opposite situation—wherein it is with independence that we would end up causing abuse—does that not still create a gap in power that, if taken advantage of, those who serve us will have no recourse against it? Is that not what you claimed to have once experienced? Was that not evil?"

"What nonsense is this?" Chaos butts into the conversation. "Are you comparing us to the Chosen of Failure? Do you truly think we would tolerate such cruelty? This is an offense I cannot ignore."

"Peace, Chaos Erupts in Indifferent Blessings," Wanderings says. "Remember that she does not know."

"Cease treating me like a naive fool," I complain.

"Then cease being one," Blossom says bluntly.

"Do you really think my words have that little validity?" I scowl. "Can you not see the potential for evil?"

"I see both the potential and the presence," Blossom answers. "I do not think your words hold no merit. But they are still made in such overwhelming ignorance that you fail to comprehend the very system you criticize. It is time, Thief of Her Own Wisdom. Cease dithering about. You have reached the limits of what you can achieve without connecting to us properly."

"It is not something I can just decide to be able to do," I complain.

"Yes it is, you imbecile," Blossom says. "Possibility has already given you the power. Nothing holds you back but yourself, and your worthless attachment to that which you can leave behind without consequence. Abandon yourself. Abandon your people. Abandon your culture. And later, if you wish to reclaim them, then do so. But you are not what you once were. Not here. And not now. You are a Chosen of Possibility, and your council calls to you. Answer."

She wants me to… what, stop being human?

"Now it is you who is ignorant of that which you deride," I accuse.

"Then educate me, you whimpering child," Blossom sneers. "Answer."

"You're trying to get me angry again," I realize.

"You are too stupid to make the decisions you know are correct if I don't," she says.
"Answer."

"When you admit that it just makes me want to deny you all the more," I tell her, doing my best to push down my bubbling fury.

"And will you listen to your base urges like some mindlessly swimming food? Is that all you are? A little thief stealing her way into pretend independence? Begging us for help but crying and wailing when we try to teach you to talk? Would you prefer to stay an animal, then? Answer!"

"Too far," I growl. "You're just making things more difficult at this point."

"Then ANSWER!"

Annoying little shit. The worst part is that she's almost right; I am being too stubborn about this. She's yelled at me so many times now that what does it even matter if I let out the storm of pressurized bile that makes up the majority of my thoughts? They're quite literally asking for it, but she's pressing me so hard it makes that stubborn part of me want to push back harder, to tell her no just for the sake of it, and I know that's stupid and pointless and it only pisses me off even more to recognize it, to realize I'm nowhere near the calm, logical mind I always prided myself for being.

I'm not. I'm really not. I'm not good at self-control, I'm just good at acting based on habits, habits that I formed as a maladaptive survival mechanism against abusive foster families that didn't want to deal with a fucking cripple. And I tricked myself into taking pride in that garbage because I had to have something, I had to take the victories I earned no matter how bad for me they might have been in the long run. I'm not an expert social manipulator, I'm a mass of overgrown scars twisting the folds of my mind to be good at dealing with awful people, good at giving them what they want so they leave me alone and don't hurt me, don't hate me, don't wish I was someone else's problem. And now that I'm out of my element, that expert competence is crumbling like the paper mache wall it really is.

Maybe I'm smart. Maybe I'm skilled. Maybe I'm good at a few things, here and there. I'm provably good at murder, at the very least. But here and now? Blossom is right. I need to let it all go. I need to admit what it really is. And I need to act in defiance of it, against every instinct I've ever formed, against every amount of self-preservation screaming in my head that this is a terrible idea. Being intelligent is not the same thing as being rational. And I know, rationally, that I'm as irrational as fuck. That's just part of being human.

So I'm done being human. Maybe I'm even done being Julietta. …Probably not, but I really should think of a better name than 'Thief of Torn Wings.' It's kind of cool, but it's not me. It never was, really. It was just something I had to do.

I start to shift, getting rid of any Earth-like organs I have one at a time. It's not just internally that I make the change: my legs, my arms, my chest, my head, every human part of me I've kept falls away, replacing itself with a form made entirely out of alien parts. I have several to choose from, body plans from Angels and non-Angels alike, but now, as an Angel myself, what sort of form would best represent my god? The power Possibility gifted me is one of infinite forms, after all, an endless tapestry with which to weave myself upon. Arguably, having a singular angelic form at all would be against the spirit of that blessing, but I don't think I agree with that. Possibility, after all, is not the concept of everything, it is the concept of anything. Each possibility that is chosen denies others and creates others in an infinite cycle. To choose, itself, is an act of worship.

That doesn't mean I only need to choose one thing, though. I am deep underwater, and I can craft a self first and foremost for that purpose. I take my initial inspiration from Pathless Wanderings Gladden Futures and the Leviathans he's based on, making myself a long, sinuous body of slick skin and powerful tail. I usually like having hands, but the alien manipulator limb of choice is the humble tentacle and I'm quite a fan of those, too. Angels lack any head or face, but I usually grow tentacles out of my scalp so on the front of the body they will go, the four of them trailing out behind me to create minimal drag when I swim but fully capable of reaching in any direction and gripping anything I might need. My hide is speckled with eyes, my sight several times better than the average alien but why should I limit myself? All my senses are tuned to perfection and capable of being swapped out for more specialized versions if it ever becomes necessary. Everything is in order. My body is complete, but for one final piece.

My brain. I've used fully Angel brains before, though not often and not for long. It's Raptor brains that I'm most familiar with after Angel ones, but even then my experience of almost getting commanded by an Angel left me a little wary of the network. It's remarkable how much of my power is subconscious; how could it not be, given the complexity and scale of the changes I'm making to myself on the regular? Something about the brains I use makes them cease to function outside my domain, and I don't even know why. I never thought it would happen. It certainly isn't a change I made to them consciously.

Answer. I am being asked, and I have to answer. I have to accept that I can, and should, answer. Because this is my council. I'm trusting them to save Maria's life. How could I not trust them with myself?

I've never done this before. Never. I do not speak what I'm really thinking if at all possible, and even in the brief moments I lose control it isn't anywhere close to everything. There is always part of me filtering it out, judging whether or not it's acceptable to talk about this or that, and almost always deciding no. No, of course it's not acceptable. Why would it ever be? That's the conclusion, over and over again. No one will want to know. Not even my closest friends, because the only reason they can stand to be friends with me at all is because I keep all of that to myself.

But Blossom isn't asking to be my friend. The council isn't asking to be my friend. They are asking to be me. To know everything about me so intimately that we are as one. And that comes with all the baggage, too. It comes with all the scars. I will always have my scars.

I inhale, and let out the deepest breath of my entire life.

"Hello/polite greetings/apprehension/anxiety/I fear this won't go well/I hope you are right and I am wrong/I am not used to hoping I am wrong/suspicion/concern if I am performing correctly/anticipatory self-hatred in the event of failure."

Oh god that was a lot. I really only wanted to say 'hello.' Wait, did I just send those thoughts too? Am I still sending these?

"Joy/love," My colony responds. "Celebration/concern/confirmation that you are still sending/I told you so dumbass/apologies/lack of apologies/call to order: focus on new council member/status query: are you well?"

This is overwhelming. "Overwhelmed." But I'm doing mostly okay, I think? "Self-analysis of wellness inconclusive." Is Blossom seriously still being a bitch? "Admonishment: A Blossom of Wilted Chances." I can't really blame her, I guess. "Praise: A Blossom of Wilted Chances." Her methods are effective, if nothing else, and I've always said it's the results that matter in the end. "Regret/embarrassment/thankfulness/desire for better solutions tempered by a lack of them."

I swim around a bit, testing my new body and making a few minor adjustments under the hood as I feel out how I now move in the water. It's so much faster than my humanoid form. So much freer.

"Reducing bandwidth: workers and warriors, return to tasks/farewells."

The glut of emotion bombarding me lessens considerably, leaving only the thoughts and feelings of the council. "Relief."

"Do not fear your weakness, we will be sure to force it out of you," Blossom says via the usual method, the old method, the one I used to only be able to hear without true context. But now I can feel that her good-natured ribbing is tinged with concern, her joy at finding a conversation partner that can take and return her barbs tempered by an ever-present fear that she will go too far, as she has a history of doing. She loves her fellow council members, but they are so different from her, from backgrounds she struggles to relate with even with the whole of their history and emotions laid bare before her. She has been looking forward to this moment. She wants desperately to know if I, at least, can truly understand.

"Assurance." The Divinity of Wonder knows that Blossom can be somewhat of a handful, especially when she's excited, and now that the communication issue is mostly solved everyone should have a much easier time keeping her from going overboard. "Confirmation." It is true, however, that I don't need to worry about struggling with the network like this, as they will be able to help me from this point forward. Most new chosen struggle with the change; while workers and warriors are part of the network, a council member must be far more capable of being aware of it in its entirety, for it is our job to manage the colony as a whole. We must be able to feel distress that isn't directed at us. We must be able to hear conversations that do not involve us. We must know all that occurs in our Queen's domain. But this is a skill that comes with time.

"Concern," I convey. Listening to conversations that don't involve you, in my culture, is called eavesdropping and it is a bad thing. In the context of those who lead and those who follow, it is even worse than eavesdropping; those with less power must have safe spaces to discuss those with more power without fear of retaliation, or else they will be unable to unite against power that is unjust.

"Expound," the council requests, and I wrap up memories of history books, experiences with the military, and news of despotic rulers and breathe them out for all to see. "Expound." Each explanation requires more context to understand, and itself must be explained. "Expound." My life and thoughts are itemized, categorized, and delivered when relevant for the council's perusal. The more I breathe, the more they understand. "Concern."

"Agreement/Relief/I honestly feared you might not understand why this was a problem/I would have lost much respect for you all if that were the case/you are all concerningly stupid in regards to abuse with the exception of A Blossom of Wilted Chances."

"Smugness/pain/pride in strength/shame in weakness." I don't even need the accompanying memories to understand all those different feelings from Blossom. Pride in strength, shame in weakness. That contradiction is at the core of me, both things true for all the same events.

It's clear that the whole council has been looking forward to this moment since I got here, and I can no longer hold back an outpouring of information. I tell them about my friends and family, my life and where I come from. I tell them how I think Chaos is well-meaning but fundamentally uninteresting, with few of his comments inspiring any particular confidence in his ability to be engaging. I tell them about how my powers work in detail, and how Wanderings is obviously dull-witted but kind enough to still be decent company in a pinch. I tell them how the world will end in three years, destroyed by the sleeping Grand Queen, and how our own Queen is optimistic to the point of completely ineffective, taking my side in word but not enough in deed to matter. They accept and embrace my foul opinions, hurt by them but not enough to shake their love, and I struggle to comprehend it.

"What's this about the world ending in three years, though?" Blossom cuts in. "That seems important. Why did you not inform us of this sooner?"

Honestly? I had forgotten.

"You had FORGOTTEN? About the end of the world!?"

Well it wasn't really my priority at the time! I wasn't that worried about it. I mean, I'm not sure how we're going to stop it, but we are going to. It's not like I'll just leave that one alone. I don't care if a fucking superpowered celestial body is the culprit, I'm not letting that happen.

A rush of emotions flows through me. Disbelief. Fear. Joy. Consideration. An overwhelming number of thoughts, all there for my perusal. It's terrifying.

"More terrifying than the end of the world?" Blossom asks. "My council. I have another name to suggest for our newest member."

"Exasperation: I am sure you do," I groan.

"Twisting Scars Reshape Fate," Blossom says. "It is who you were. It is who you are. And it is what you will do."

Oh. Wait, that one isn't a joke. That one is serious. My name as part of the Council of Possibility. Twisting Scars Reshape Fate.

"I… will consider it," I answer, and I can't help but bask in the joy that gets returned to me as a result.