POV - Azra'il
Morgana's silence was a data glitch in my social analysis. A glaring, deafening error. It was not an empty silence, the sort filled by the sound of the wind or the creaking timber of a ship. It was a vacuum. A space where, mere minutes ago, there had been understanding, trust, and the comfortable familiarity of thirteen years of shared routines. Now, that space was filled by a single, crushing question hanging in the air between us like a suspended blade, invisible and terribly sharp. A question screaming: Who are you, truly?
Yara, the priestess who saw truths polite people had the decency to ignore with a forced smile, guided us through corridors of black stone and shipwreck timber. The architecture was fascinating, an ode to brutal pragmatism, yet I could barely focus. The true journey was happening in the three-step abyss separating us. I was hyper-aware of every single one, measuring the distance, analysing her posture, running real-time diagnostics as if she were an unstable system about to blue-screen.
[Probability of 'monster': 8%. She has seen worse. Probability of 'self-blame': 92%. Consistent with her psychological profile. However, you are omitting the most critical variable: the probability of her feeling betrayed is 67% and rising with every second you remain silent.]
<"Betrayed" is an emotionally charged and imprecise word. I prefer "surprised by a tactical omission of complex biographical information".>
[That is "betrayed" with more syllables and considerably less honesty. And you know it.]
I watched Morgana's back. Rigid. Contained. A statue in motion. I knew that posture. It was the same one she used when processing an injustice she could not immediately fix, a pain that needed to be internalised and catalogued before it could be addressed. She was recontextualising thirteen years of data. Every moment I knew too much. Every time my childlike body moved with the muscle memory of a blademaster. The way I spoke of poisons with the familiarity of an unscrupulous apothecary. Everything was being reclassified from "eccentric child prodigy with access to good books" to "ancient lying entity with a questionable history".
Statistically, her reaction was logical. Emotionally, it was a colossal inconvenience. I had grown fond of being viewed as a 'daughter'. It was a function I had mastered in this life with notable success. The dynamic was clear: I was the clever, occasionally troublesome child; she was the wise, protective mother. It worked. To lose that status would be... inefficient. And, to my surprise, genuinely unpleasant. An unwanted variable in an equation I considered solved. The feeling was odd, an uncomfortable twinge in the chest corresponding to no physical damage. It was... a stranger, in a sense, but a stranger nonetheless.
Yara guided us to the first chamber. The sound hit us first: the dull, rhythmic thud of fists against flesh, the crack of wood against wood, grunts of effort, and the controlled breathing of combat.
"This is prayer through action," Morgana murmured, her first sentence in an eternity, voice hoarse as if unused for days.
[Biomechanical analysis: The force of their strikes is optimised for impact, not damage. The goal is to test the opponent's structure, not break it. It is a physical dialogue. Fascinating.]
"The Serpent does not hear words," Yara confirmed, without turning. "She hears motion. Stagnation is doubt. Action is faith."
We continued, passing a quieter chamber, its walls covered in murals carved directly into the black stone. The history of the Buhru. I analysed the murals not as art, but as a historical data log. Primitive, but effective.
"It is a history of displacement," Morgana said, voice still distant.
"Why didn't they fight harder to keep it all?" I asked Yara, the question purely strategic.
Yara glanced over her shoulder. "Fighting change is stagnation. We survived because we adapted."
The next chamber contained ritual pools, the dark, deep seawater moving with a life of its own.
"Here we test spirits," Yara said. "The water shows the truth people hide from themselves."
[Detecting residual energy signature. It is not purely chemical. There is something else.]
I observed Morgana. She looked at the water with a mixture of attraction and repulsion. I could feel the faint heat radiating from her back. The chains, even beneath the glamour, were reacting to her unconscious desire for purification and her fear of what that purification might reveal. Predictable. And a little sad.
Finally, we reached a room that made me pause, not out of reverence, but out of sheer admiration for the scale of the concept. A vast chamber filled with... things. Piles and piles of objects. Broken weapons, rusted treasures, yellowed letters, bones. A depository for emotional baggage.
"People bring what weighs them down," Yara explained. "They leave it here because to carry it is stagnation."
"A disposal system for trauma," I observed. "Cheaper than therapy, but with considerably higher risks of tetanus."
"Not therapy," Yara corrected. "Release. The difference is the honesty regarding what cannot be fixed, only accepted."
I looked at the piles. What would I leave here? The memory of that time I accidentally caused a civil war between two species of sentient mutant ants over a sugar dispute? The regret of teaching a golem to feel, only for it to develop existential depression and disassemble itself? One thousand three hundred and forty-seven lives of mistakes and questionable choices? The entire temple wouldn't be large enough. The logistics would be a nightmare. Besides, my failures are valuable data. Discarding them would be a waste of research and personal development.
Finally, the journey ended. The atmosphere shifted. The air became dense, charged with ozone. Pressure dropped as if before a storm.
"The Truth Bearer is here," Yara warned, stopping before a larger chamber. "She already knows you are coming." She looked at us. "Illaoi does not lie. Ever. Not even for mercy. If you cannot bear the truth, do not enter."
I looked at Morgana. Her face was a mask of determination. She wouldn't retreat. Good. At least we wouldn't have a panic attack before the main event. We both nodded.
"Courage is the first step," Yara smiled. "Let us see if you have the second."
We entered.
The chamber was vast, not in size, but in presence. And in the midst of it all, back turned to us, stood a figure that made the air itself seem thin and insignificant. Tall. Muscular to a superhuman degree. And carrying a golden idol that must have weighed more than I did.
[Structural analysis: The mass of that idol is approximately 250 kilograms. Her ability to carry it with such casualness suggests physical strength exceeding human limits. I recommend not initiating a physical confrontation. Or, if doing so, use magic from a safe distance. A very safe distance.]
"So," her voice echoed in the chamber, deep, resonant, charged with the power of the sea itself. "The Fallen and the Eternal Soul finally arrive."
She turned slowly.
And her eyes, green, shining eyes that saw not bodies, but souls, fixed upon me.
And I knew, with a cold and irritating certainty, that she did not see a thirteen-year-old girl. She did not see a name or a face. She saw the fracture. The stitching. The point where this life was grafted onto something far, far older. She did not know the details, the names, the worlds, the sentient mushroom (thanks be to whatever forgotten deity is still listening), but she saw the anomaly. She could feel that the soul inside me did not fit perfectly in the vessel, like a jigsaw piece from another box forced into a space not its own.
The game of passing for "normal, just very clever" was over. The silence was about to be shattered.
I feel the same irritation as a master forger whose work, perfect to all other eyes, has been instantly identified as fake by an expert with a trained eye. It didn't matter that the expert didn't know how the forgery was made. The simple fact that it had been discovered was an unacceptable failure.
My greatest defence, the camouflage of youth and normality, had become useless. She saw the seam.
And that, more than any physical threat, was deeply, fundamentally, irksome.