§
I kept my dissatisfaction off my face as I ‘woke’ and sat up in bed. It wouldn’t do, to let the woman with whom I was sharing it see how I felt at the moment. I mean, it had nothing to do with her, after all.
But while pulling my yukata on, once I confirmed that she was indeed still asleep, I could let my expression slip. Fortunately, I realized I should fix it again before I opened the door to my bedchamber and asked the maid on duty to fetch Genette to deal with my wardrobe, and Benedetta and her daughter Terese, for consultation. If I showed that displeasure while the maid could Syl behind me, asleep in my bed, it might create the wrong impression, entirely.
Thus began my afternoon of speedrunning the ducal tasks I shirked all morning. Of course, Benedetta heard from all the aides and reviewed all the dispatches for me, so much of my ‘work’ consisted of listening to her report their contents and the decisions she made in my stead. Terese, in the meantime, went off to handle the matters I needed her to arrange.
Speedrun complete, my remaining tasks consisted of hair, makeup and wardrobe sessions, with Genette supervising maids intent upon presenting their duchess perfectly for the unexpected formal dinner which just appeared on my agenda. Yes, it was just dinner, but with Benedetta confirming that my husband would attend, as would the aides and generals I summoned, it became an official event.
With the military headquarters now open, we would take dinner in the dining room, retired from its job as temporary War Room and with its restoration at last complete. This would, in fact, be my first time to dine there, since I usually dined privately in my husband’s suite these days.
So, why the unexpected formal dinner? Simply put, we had special guests on the way. Pasrue, at the helm of Uncle Manlon’s vessel, was flying Diur and a pair of her fellow Servants even as the maids helped me don some of the fanciest maternity clothing imaginable. They were coming for a formal meeting with the Duchess, and bringing information that the military needed to learn.
No amount of busywork and no amount of pampering could decrease my dissatisfaction though. I remained convinced Diur could have found a better way to handle it.
Aren’t you curious at all as to why demons are possessing humans in your enemy’s ranks? They already have the leadership’s cooperation. What’s the purpose for possessing the rank and file?
Of course, he went on to tell me. In short, he discovered an alarming enemy plot, intended to drive a wedge between the Viceroyalty here in the South and the loyalists in the north. And, had he not kidnapped many of its key actors, they would already have launched it by now.
Lower Pendorians are Dorians, and frankly, not that different from my citizens. But, their count and his vassal lords had been on the rebel side in this fight. The people of the county had a faintly different accent but they were largely indistinguishable from the inhabitants of my duchy.
The common Lower Pendorians did not really have a heart in the fight. Like the Reladorians and the East Pendorians, they knew how much better off their neighbors in the duchy were, and how little they would gain from this war. We easily swept through their lands before our progress sharply slowed upon entering the non-Dorian rebel lands.
But led by their own kind, secretly possessed by demons, they could fight. And they could pretend to be my soldiers, while advancing into Gerald’s portion of the kingdom to cause a rift between us.
A disgusting strategy. Worthy of demons, one might say. And Diur interrupted it by kidnapping the very demonically-possessed mortals who should have led it.
So, problem solved? Danger over? They weren’t the only Lower Pendorians. More leaders could be raised. And the demons surely possessed East Pendorians as well.
No, I had to admit it. I wasn’t dissatisfied with Diur’s solution. I still believed he could have found a better way, of course. My dissatisfaction was that I could not think of what that better way would have been.
§
I exercised the body of a nereid, a rather pregnant one, powering through a fanciful, perfectly transparent sea past schools of creatures too unworldly to call fish as I streamed through the invisible fluid that somehow supported me like water. And as I swam, I drew in mana and spirit to cultivate Tiana’s body, slowly strengthening it more against the pressure of Heaven’s Law.
In the time that I’ve spent upon my task as caretaker of the princess’s main body, I’ve learned quite a lot. I’ve changed quite a lot too. Fan Li, Daq and Rugau, each using their own comprehension of Immortal Mother’s arcana, have taught me to handle the body cultivation that has slowly converted Tiana from the roughly half-and-half mix of mana and matter that was her original nature into a substance far less material. The change decreases the weight of the Mortal Realm upon her, giving Heaven’s Law less to act upon.
In my spare time, I cultivate her spirit, and when they can, everyone else does the same. Even Tiana does it, although for her it is an almost unconscious act while she bathes. I still must concentrate.
With all this otherworld knowledge and memory, all this wisdom of the preternatural that seeps into my thoughts, I don’t know if it’s legitimate to call myself Lydia anymore. Although, I think I would feel some sadness if anyone chose a different name for me. For all my boasting that I wish to be a part of Tiana’s persona and memories, I do still have pride in myself. I wish to be part of Tiana, not become someone else entirely.
Originally, Daq R’mion was the oldest member of Senhion’s reincarnation sequence who could manifest as a persona, as the first to develop spiritual abilities. Fan Li deduced that two lives lay between myself and him, and even determined the two lived brief, difficult lives as Human clade people but not humans as I would recognize them, in technologically advanced settings more extreme than the one Daq knew. Tiana called the girl’s country a ‘cyberpunk world’. Before her, the man lived an unfortunate soldier’s short span. He met death in a war more horrific than any fought in Robert’s age.
Like me, neither lived long enough nor in a spiritually advanced enough environment to grow a kernel of strength to manifest here. Even adding their lives and mine together did not sum to the time I could have lived until senility in Athens, as neither lived even as long as I before meeting their ends.
My equally short life equally failed to help me appear as a persona. I must thank my presence solely to the goddess who fostered me, choosing me as the one with the most compatibility to Tiana, the personality most able to assist her.
I think that’s why I strive to merge with her. I find it concerning that I became powerful, frightening characters like Sirth or Kwelabi after I died, but I truly do feel that Tiana is simply myself in another life.
<Commander, Curator wishes to report,> Little Jia’s pre-teen voice piped in my thoughts.
I unwound my coating of spirit and mana and slowed to a more leisurely pace, angling toward the shimmering ‘surface’ that barely defined the boundary between ‘Ocean’ and ‘Sky’.
<I’ll go to the Art Gallery and hear it directly,> I replied as I burst into the air. I shifted Tiana’s form from Nereid to Nike and managed to form Tiana’s raiment. Lately, I’ve used the ancient Elder juvenile dress, a sleeveless short dress, although what I managed is a bit more translucent than Tiana would like. Her body is lovely, though, and I don’t mind if a bit shows through.
A woman in a silk robe with impossibly long white hair, falling behind her down past her knees, was waiting at the door as I landed on the path leading up to the ‘Art Gallery’, or ‘Training Hall’.
<Lady Lydia, I presume,> the dignified ‘woman’ greeted as she bowed.
“I’m curious if you can tell, Curator,” I answered, giving her a playful smile.
<I cannot,> she stated. <Little Jia can, and informed me which persona currently controls your body.>
Curator never uses her voice. Senhion’s memory indicates it is due to her childhood. Light spirits, who have no use for words, raised her from an abandoned Elemental toddler to young adulthood, when she met Senhion. She was mute, and communicated largely by hand signs until she mastered the art of spiritual voice. And as the only being in this place native to Huade for thousands of years, until Tiana began bringing companions here, she never had any reason to get into the habit.
“So,” I ventured as I dismissed the wings and arrived beside her, “Is this about my visitors?”
<In a manner of speaking, My Lady,> Curator replied, <but not the two who joined us today.>
I frowned. The two were in world for quite a while now. Tiana actually expected them to leave before this.
“Those two are still here, right?” I asked as we strolled down the central hall. This extraordinary building conjured up both memories of the temples in my city and of alien places in the memories of my fellow Incarnations. The windows in the ceiling which let in the sunlight and the frames bearing artworks in lines along the walls. Pedestals and daises presenting sculptures and artworks of other mysterious substances, many of them in motion or displaying moving vistas.
But the strangest part in witnessing such a sight is doing so with the knowledge that many of these are the handiwork of a woman ten thousand years past, who died and eventually became myself.
With an impish smile, Curator replied to my question and brought me back to the present.
<They are currently on their third round inside the system.>
I attempted the mental math. I’m nowhere as skillful at it as Tiana or Daq, but I arrived at a rather surprising number.
“If it’s at 1000:1 compression, they’ve been inside for nearly a year!”
<Less than ten months,> she corrected. <They came out for a time between each round, left for a stroll, then decided to take another trip. I have been monitoring, of course. It seems your Servant is quite taken with your son’s knowledge of magic and has convinced him to train her with the goal of reaching level seven as a mage.>
My jaw dropped. That wasn’t how this was supposed to go!
You’re supposed to be wooing her, not training her, Oberon!
I dimpled a bit as I noticed that, for a brief moment, I became Tiana almost perfectly. That was surely her reaction, just now.
“So who are the visitors in question?” I wondered.
<Your sisters from Huade, and… others.>
By sisters, I guessed she meant Dilorè and Amelia. By others… perhaps the maids?
She continued, <They wish to meet with you, within.>
“But wasn’t it decided that Tiana’s real body should not enter?” I retorted. Between supporting the [Blood Effigy] technique on Huade, resisting Ascent and nurturing the babies, this body should not further tempt fate by entering the interface between Mortal Realm and Spirit Realm in order to interface the training system.
As I demanded that, we entered a side chamber with a painting on each of its four walls, and a sleeping mat spread out on the floor.
<Your [Blood Presence] technique can enter, My Lady,> Curator explained. <Your other personas helped me develop the means to make it work. As your body remains in the Mortal Realm, we must not try it for too long, but you can spend a day or two of system time inside without causing it any undue strain. For your body, it is merely a short nap.>
“My other personas helped?”
The other Incarnations had been working with Curator?
“Since when?”
“From your perspective, since this morning,” she stated. “For a year or so, from theirs. Now they wish to catch you up on the results. Thanks to the time differential, they need to meet with you inside, to do so.”
