31. Trying Again

The moon is beautiful tonight. I’ve been thinking stuff like that a lot lately. It’s nice. I hope I never forget to pay attention to how wonderful being on Earth is. I never would have noticed stuff like this when I was a human. Never would have thought to pay attention, despite my name.

It’s true, though. The moon has only recently started waning from full, the silver glow cutting through a ring of clouds that frame but just barely don’t block it. Just the sight of it has me imagining Anath arching her back and letting out a howl. I could stare at it for hours… so I make sure to save the memory somewhere easily accessible to remind myself to do just that. For now, I have a job to take care of.

I step off the sidewalk and down some concrete stairs to enter a bar that’s just as grungy as the last time I was here. Unlike last time, it has a whole entire patron sitting alone in one of the corners, nursing a no-doubt-foul drink. The bartender, once again smudging a glass under the pretense of cleaning, frowns at me as I walk in.

“Awfully late for a girl your age to be walking around alone,” he comments.

“It is, isn’t it?” I agree, my usual mask covering my immobile mouth. “Fortunately, I’m used to the dark.”

I step past him and walk through the ‘Employees Only’ door, which he studiously ignores. Then, I head down the hallway and knock on the door I remember Nanaya and I going through all those months ago.

“Come in.”

I do so, pushing the door open and stepping inside, spotting the same small man as last time. He, of course, doesn’t recognize me and I have no intention (or ability) to connect the dots for him.

“Who the hell are you?” he demands.

“You can call me Courier,” I tell him, smiling a little at my own inside joke. “I’ll be handling Savior’s transactions for the foreseeable future.”

“You don’t have the eyes, girlie,” he says, leaning forward.

“That is part of what makes me a better liaison,” I tell him frankly. “But if you mean to challenge whether or not I share Savior’s power, I can happily show you how much more dangerous I am than I look.”

He considers that, giving me a small nod.

“You got the goods?” he asks.

“Of course. I’m no more fond of wasting time than my predecessor.”

I pull my backpack off and start setting out items, presenting them to the man.

“A ring that pinches your finger in the presence of liars,” I declare. “A lamp that changes color based on the strongest emotions in the room. A toy car that drives in whatever direction you will it.”

“Trinkets and baubles,” the man dismisses.

“Collector’s items,” I correct. “Don’t pretend there isn’t a market. I did not come here unprepared.”

“It’s not where the real market is, though,” the man says, looking up at me meaningfully.

“Weapons?” I ask.

“Personal defensive items,” he corrects.

“We have some,” I admit bluntly. “We are still deciding whether or not we want to sell them.”

“These three are worth maybe a few million, combined,” he says, waving them off. “Weapons, though? Something that could actually punch through a monster? Then we’re talking billions.”

“I assure you, you don’t have to worry about us not knowing how much our assets are worth. Twenty million for the… baubles.”

“Are you nuts?” he asks, feigning anger. “Five million, tops.”

“Oh look, the ring is shrinking. Eighteen.”

God, I am having fun with this. We ultimately settle on twelve million—several million more than the amount Nanaya told me to aim for—and I hand over the list of political lobbies and bribes Nanaya assembled to determine what money goes where. Ultimately, I leave feeling quite satisfied with myself. That was way more entertaining than I expected it to be. Coming up with clever lines to negotiate with is awesome. I love cheating at social interactions!

With a slight spring in my step—

Optimal springiness is depressingly low due to abnormally high weight compared to a human of my size. Jumping too high always contains a slight risk of potentially disguise-damaging situations such as cracked flooring, loud impact noises, and not getting bruised when I smack myself in the chin with my own tits.

—I exit the grungy bar and make my way to the rich part of town to manage the emotional battery collectors. It just makes so much sense for me to be the one to do all of this. I don’t need to sleep, for one thing, but my senses are also so much more powerful than everyone else’s that I don’t really need to worry about being caught. It’s extremely easy for me to notice cameras and other security devices when I’m looking for them, and people can’t really sneak up on me… unless they’re doing whatever the hell Melpomene did to sneak up on me that one time, but she doesn’t normally do that so I probably won’t have to worry about it too much. Case in point, I collect all of the newly filled batteries without a hitch, completing my Earth-bound chores for the day. Unfortunately, this means it’s time to head back to the Dark World.

At least Melpomene has been good to her word so far, and has been almost entirely avoiding me outside of situations where it would be so conspicuous even Anath and Thea would notice. But she doesn’t give me any new orders, she keeps to herself, and it’s actually kind of helpful reinforcing my belief that the orders she gave me to be free really are what she wants from me. Or perhaps more specifically, she wants me to get the hell out of her life, but I’m perfectly happy to do that. I’ll miss the others, though.

Today might be the last time I see them.

It probably won’t be, to be clear, but it very distinctly might be and I can’t get that thought out of my head. Practically speaking, I’ll almost certainly have to come back to the Dark World to pick up artifacts, talk strategy with Nanaya, and get maintenance from Thea (Anath will also be there) but if I wanted to, I could probably walk. I’m moving into my new apartment tomorrow morning, right on school campus, and my new life will officially begin. I will, at least most of the time, stop being the Dark Rebellion’s sapient artifact and start being Luna Clio Babbage, college student and aspiring music composer who may or may not have a terrible dark secret but who even cares because no one has time to dig into that stuff during a college course load, right? Even if someone does start paying too much attention to me they’ll probably just think I have anorexia or something. Nobody’s ever noticed my self-destructive habits before, though, so I doubt they’ll start now!

I pick up some snacks for Anath on the way back and make my way into the liminal zone, enjoying the quiet walk back to the Dark World. I make it to the portal, push through the familiar dark fog, and return to the castle, feeling out to sense where everyone else is. Anath and Nanaya are both up in the kitchen, so I suppose I’ll start there. I head upstairs and step into the room while throwing a bag of cheese snacks at Anath’s head in lieu of a greeting. Completely on instinct, she catches them out of the air with her teeth.

“Lumnah!” Anath greets me happily, her teeth still clenched around her prize.

“Welcome back,” Nanaya says evenly, her focus on collecting ingredients.

“Are you making dinner?” I ask. “You know it’s like three in the morning, right?”

“It is somewhat difficult to maintain a proper circadian rhythm when living in a land of eternal darkness,” Nanaya says. “And I, for one, am used to needing to work at night.”

“Fair enough, I suppose,” I allow, taking my usual place beside her to help prepare the meal. “What’s the recipe for today?”

“Tilapia and pilaf,” she answers.

“Ooh, nice!” I compliment.

“Mmm. It seemed a good way to take advantage of the rather chaotic set of groceries you brought the other day,” Nanaya says, handing me five different vegetables. “Dice these.”

“Hey, it’s been a while since I’ve had to eat anything, okay?” I say. “How was I supposed to know that you didn’t want everything on your grocery list at the same time?”

“Yes, if only you had a supercomputer capable of easily cataloging the expiry dates of various items,” she deadpans.

“You know what, fine, I’m making a spreadsheet in my mind right now,” I inform her. “Done with the veggies, by the way.”

She glances over at my cutting board, which is indeed a perfectly diced set of everything she gave me. She accepts the vegetables, placing them in a bowl for later.

“I believe I will miss having your assistance with meals,” she informs me evenly.

“Oh my god, Nanaya, thank you! That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me!”

“Mmm.”

“If you keep eating at weird times of night I’m sure I can be back to help every once in a while,” I assure her.

She doesn’t answer, so I step past her and grab some of the bowls and utensils she’s finished with to get a headstart on the dishes. Her emotions are… oddly turbulent. Normally, she’s the most static and controlled of the whole group, a thin shell of basic personhood surrounding a smoldering core of anger. It brings to mind a forge, or perhaps something recently reforged, still glowing with the heat of molten metal. Anything that could shake her iron self-control has a good chance of being a pretty big deal.

“We are using a small portion of our considerable income to supply you with what you need on Earth,” Nanaya says slowly. “I am certain you are aware of this. I also doubt it has eluded you that, were we to retract our support, you would find the ground beneath you quickly crumbling.”

“Uh, I’m not planning to betray you or anything,” I tell her. “There’s really no need to go all mob boss on me.”

“Mmm. I agree,” Nanaya says. “That is why I find the situation displeasing.”

“Pardon?” I ask.

“I am not normally opposed to achieving my goals through any means necessary,” she says. “But you are not necessary. There is nothing to gain by extorting you like some corrupted politician. So I wish for you to know that if you cease assisting us, I will cease paying for your expenses. But I will not rescind what has already been given to you. That is a treatment given to enemies and tools, not friends or family.”

Oh. Gosh. I guess that’s the nicest thing Nanaya has ever said to me.

“So… you’re saying I don’t have to do the dishes anymore?” I joke, because I’m not really sure how else to handle this situation.

“No. You have not for a long time,” Nanaya answers.

“Oh. Well, I’m gonna keep doing them anyway.”

“Mmm.”

“Hugs for Luna!” a cheese-stained Anath declares, leaping at me with arms outstretched. I briefly run through several combat routines in my head before deciding to simply accept the embrace, shifting my stance so my metal body can absorb the impact without causing me to fall over.

“Hugs for Anath,” I say, patting her back.

“Wash your hands,” Nanaya grumbles. “If you get cheese powder on anything you will be running nothing but drills for weeks.”

“Ack! Mercy!” Anath squeaks. “Mercy please! I just got so excited! You’re never nice to anyone, it was just so sweet!”

Nanaya does not blush, because her gray skin doesn’t really show it, but I do sense the slightest increase in temperature on both of her cheeks.

“It was never my intention to grow to appreciate you,” Nanaya complains. “But despite your flippantry, your endurance and occasionally your insight are worthy of respect. And it is nice having someone else I can trust with finances.”

“Hey, how would you know whether or not you can trust me with finances?” Anath says. “You never give me any money!”

“Indeed.”

“Hah. Well, thanks,” I say. “The feeling is mutual, I guess. It was never my intention to grow to appreciate you either.”

That, of all things, causes the slightest upward twitch to appear on Nanaya’s lips.

“I imagine not,” she agrees. “That is all I will be needing from you for now. Would you go check if Thea is awake?”

“Sure,” I agree. “I think she has a few final checks she wants to perform on me anyway.”

“No doubt,” Nanaya deadpans.

Ignoring her salacious insinuations, I head back downstairs and wander over to Thea’s workshop, poking my head in to find her soundly asleep in her blanket nest, curled up and hugging her own tail. It is quite possibly the cutest thing I have ever seen in my life. I have no choice but to let her continue sleeping. Anything else is unthinkable. I guess I’ll head to the bathroom to change out of my skinsuit so everything’s ready for her when she wakes up.

It’s still weird, seeing myself in the mirror like this. A good weird, though. A fantastic weird. I take off my mask, turning my lips up into a smile and just marveling at how wonderfully, perfectly pretty the girl looking back at me is. I love it. I love her. I love me.

Oh. It’s time, isn’t it?

Northward emotional intensity at 156% of threshold. Crystal realignment is available. It’s finally time. I’ve been really dreading this, though. I know it’s for the best. I know that, if everything goes well like I’m hoping it will, it’ll finally solve my power issue. Yet I remember how, when I was first transitioning into a sadness-burning configuration, the process of using all of that sadness as fuel at once left me quite giddy. Doing the opposite, I’m sure, is going to be very, very painful.

I understand the process a lot better this time. Once the change is complete, which shouldn’t take too long, I won’t need to burn anywhere near the majority of my happiness in order to stay functional. The joy I feel will be real, created not through the elimination of all other emotion, but through my own life and actions. Just in concept alone it sounds a thousand times healthier than what I’ve been doing up until now, but for the next minute or so after I initiate the change? It’s going to be bad.

“Luna?”

I glance to the door, seeing a groggy-looking Thea staring into the bathroom at me. Hmm. If I’m worried about hurting myself… I should probably have someone with me, huh?

“Hey, Thea. Could I get your help with something?” I ask.

“Sure,” she mumbles. “Can I pee first?”

Oh yeah, that thing bathrooms are for.

“Of course, yeah, sorry,” I nod, stepping past her and heading back to her workshop. I guess I’ll just change here while she does that. Taking my clothes off is still a little weird, since the naked body underneath doesn’t entirely feel like me yet, but once I give the command to open up the suit and allow my metallic frame to once again see the light of the Dark World there’s an odd sense of… I’m not really sure. Melancholy? It’s like I can’t really decide which I prefer to see when I look down at myself. I’ve always wanted to be beautiful, to be well and truly alive. But there’s something comforting and empowering about looking down and seeing knuckles that can smash through concrete and a sleek form shielded from nearly all physical harm.

“Good morning, L—oh, you’ve taken it off already?” Thea says, blinking the last of the sleep out of her eyes as she enters the room.

“You had some last-minute adjustments you wanted to make, right?” I ask. “Plus, there’s something I wanted to do first. Remember when I first got here and my crystals were green?”

“Oh yeah, I remember. Feeling a little scared to go out in public for good?” she asks.

“Close to the opposite, actually,” I admit. “I think I’m going to make myself a yellow mage.”

“Oh! Oh gosh, that’s awesome, Luna,” Thea says, though her smile is a little sad.

“Thank you,” I respond, not digging into it. “The problem is, I need to consume a pretty massive amount of yellow magic in order to change my whole crystal configuration, and that is going to make me ultra-turbo-mondo-depressed for about a minute or so. I want you to help make sure I don’t… I don’t know, try to hurt myself or something.”

“Wow, um, should we maybe get the others for this?” Thea squeaks.

“We can, but I think it’ll be fine with just you,” I assure her. “I doubt anything will actually happen. I’m just going to need some hugs, probably.”

“Uh, well, okay then,” Thea nods, hopping up on her worktable and sitting down. “Ready when you are, I guess.”

“Okay, here goes,” I say, sitting down next to her. “Let’s get this over with.”

Initiating cardinal reoptimization: one hundred and eighty degrees. Condensing available energy…

Holy shit, am I stupid? Is this really going to work?

Yes. Available energy intake exceeds required thresholds.

Well I know that, but I mean in the long term. I’ve been having a pretty good time being happy by burning my sadness away, but that’s not available right now. I have to handle all of the other emotions I’ve been repressing all at once, and those parts of my mind are telling me that I’m fucked. No matter how normal a life I try to pretend to have, the fact remains that Melpomene is just one bad day away from tearing it all down, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Luna?” Thea asks, hesitantly placing a hand on my shoulder.

“I’m okay,” I lie. “It’s a little intense, but it will pass.”

And I’ll go right back to pretending everything is okay. Pretending is what I’m best at, because it’s all I can do. The only control I can ever hope to have over my own life is false, imaginary, ephemeral. I am nothing but masks on masks on masks, some hiding from others, some hiding from myself. Before my life was torn away by Melpomene, it was torn away by my family, by my birth, by my own pathetic inability to overcome my sad little problems. Who am I kidding, trying to make myself believe that I’ll be happy? That I can sustain myself through happiness? My happiness has always been nothing more than a flimsy lie.

“You’re starting to change color,” Thea says.

Speaking of lies, I can’t imagine how devastated Thea will be when she finds out all of mine. She’s a little naive, but she’s not stupid. God, but she’s not stupid. I bet the only reason she hasn’t figured it out is because she doesn’t want to. I’m her cool robot friend. She wanted me to be intelligent. She wanted me to be able to talk. I bet this is like a dream come true to her. Why would she bother waking up for someone as awful as me?

“Hey, whatcha thinking about?” Thea asks.

“You don’t wanna know,” I answer.

“Well, what if we think about… something else! Something you’re looking forward to on Earth.”

Getting disassembled by Preservers.

“Is there really no way you can live on Earth safely?” I ask. “Don’t you want to come with me?”

“Well… I certainly would love to be able to visit, but I doubt any of the other Preservers would be willing to cut me as much slack as Uma’tama. I did technically steal a very expensive weapon,” she answers, tapping her transformation stone.

“Did you tell the others?” I ask. “About what you and Uma’tama talked about?”

“…No,” Thea admits. “Mel would freak out if she learned I spoke to a Preserver alone. Nanaya would be mad, too. I don’t want to worry them.”

Focusing on other people is actually helping a little. Avoiding my problems, as usual.

“What do you think about what the cat said?” I ask.

“I’m not sure what to think,” Thea answers. “Uma’tama wouldn’t lie to me. It seemed like they were going out of their way to tell me things they weren’t even supposed to. I don’t know why they would do that if they didn’t… you know, care.”

“They certainly felt like they cared,” I admit, “but who says Preservers can’t project false emotions, or fabricated emotions? Presumably their whole society is pretty used to magic. There’s no reason to believe they don’t have methods of getting around empathy. So in that light, the reason would be Uma’tama trying to make you think they care in order to eventually pressure you into working against the Dark Rebellion, purposefully or otherwise.”

“But that’s… absurd?” Thea says, wrinkling her nose. “I mean, it’s Uma’mama. I don’t think they have a duplicitous bone in their fuzzy little body. I lived with them for years. They’re just not that kind of person. Like don’t get me wrong, something is up, I’m just not really sure what it is.”

“I guess that’s a fair assessment of the situation,” I admit. “I’ll keep my ear to the ground, but for obvious reasons I’m going to be trying to avoid Earth Guardians as much as possible.”

“Obviously,” Thea nods.

Cardinal reoptimization complete. Returning to manual emotion burn.

Oh. Oh wow. I turn and look right at Thea.

“Thank you so much,” I say. “Holy moly, that would have been awful without you.”