For the Record

“Well, that was easy.”

Olive remains visibly disappointed that we didn’t return to the ‘manor’ she’s been maintaining for however many hundreds or thousands of years, but she’s just going to have to live with that. The human and former-human portion of my party at least seem much more at peace here in this small house than in the castle under the constant gaze of that other human.

‘Vivianne’, apparently.

We’ve been lounging in the sitting room (or sitting area anyway, since the common room is in fact just one room) for a few hours now, discussing plans and strategies and whatnot, all entirely things I deemed not to require my focus or input.

So instead, I’ve been relaxing while Olive does weird things like brush my hair – a thing I absolutely don’t need, since I can just disperse it to ash if it were an issue, but she seemed so hopeful, more hopeful than I was disinterested, so I just went along with it.

I get the impression that Astraea did a lot of things like this to appease her. Either that or I’m just easier to convince.

Well, whatever.

Izahne keeps side eyeing me though, all while radiating poorly muted jealousy... or is it envy? Probably envy. Anyway, it’s mildly annoying, so I lash some feelers around her and drag her onto my lap again. I’m not sure the reason why I feel some kind of satisfaction from the awkward squeaks she produces in the process, but that’s a thought I’ll deal with later.

Ah, now Olive is envious instead. I can’t help but sigh.

Boredom has long since set in, so I decide to entertain myself by picking through the fox spirit’s dimensional storage while ignoring the sounds she makes, something that it looks like the others are having more difficulty ignoring. It seems to be mostly full of clothing and random trinkets, broken dishes, empty makeup containers, and so forth. I also find several vials of murky liquid which she promptly warns me are dangerous in way too many words than necessary for clarity.

And then I find the bottles of powder, the same kind of powders that Omorth used to put on the humans’ food.

“Wait, you can cook?” I ask, interrupting my party’s discussion.

Olive pauses her brushing to offer a small bow, even though I’m not facing her. “This one serves in many respects.”

I glance around the room at the others.

***

Alright, so even I’ll admit that whatever the fox spirit is making smells good.

After a quick party vote and a unanimous result, Olive was appointed the new cook, after which she briefly left the room and returned in a frilly black-and-white outfit with an apron. Then with a snap of her fingers, several kinds of meat and plant materials appeared and arranged themselves on the flat workspace while the ancient oven’s hotplates flared to life despite not being loaded with fuel.

Almost like she’d done this many, many times before.

When she’s apparently finished, she demurely returns to my side with a bow and says, “Dinner is served.”

The mortals practically scramble for the table while the rest of us take our time. With a flourish, Olive floats uniform, carefully arranged portions of the... whatever it is, to the table on disks of blue fire. If the dishes had been the wooden slabs the party typically used I assume they may have been scorched or worse, but I at least won’t know in the near future considering the fox spirit provided fancy porcelain with shiny metal lines all over it.

After everyone but Olive, Omorth, and I have cleaned their plates – wait, how would Omorth even eat? Can he eat? He doesn’t even have a mouth! Anyway, I notice that Olive seems to be subtly watching me expectantly.

“You do know that I don’t need to eat, right?” I deadpan.

She doesn't respond, but she doesn’t have to. I sigh and use Telekinesis to move a morsel from the plate to my mouth. It has a savory flavor, mellow but balanced? From the looks on the mortals’ faces it’s clearly at least objectively good I think?

Not remotely as good as draining an Ascendant, and I think that sums it up. I absentmindedly pull some of the fox spirit’s mana through our bond.

...

And it’s the best I’ve ever had.

(Okay, but. Why are you surprised?) Nyx asks.

...

It occurs to me that she’s not at the table.

But there is one more face than I’d expected.

I glare at my uninvited guest and snarl, “What are you doing here?”

“Hmm?” Vivianne intones through a mouthful of food. They swallow and dab their face with –

(She’s a she. You’ve heard the others say it.)

Fine, gods! SHE swallows before actually answering.

“Ah, yes yes. Imagine my surprise at receiving a cordial invitation from your attendant to ‘recreate old times’, as she said. Yes, quite cordial indeed.”

I can’t help but move my glare to Olive. “Did she now? We’ll need to discuss this later.”

Wait, why did that trigger ANTICIPATION!? She’s supposed to be afraid of that! What in the hells did Astraea do to her?

Ugh.

Later, after personally confirming that Olive teleported Vivianne anywhere but here, I make the point of stationing Omorth in front of my door. Considering his usual nightly activities, I expected he’d be there anyway, but it felt necessary to emphasize his role to head off the fox spirit’s inevitable attempt to visit.

***

That damned fox stole my robes again.

I promptly retrieve them from her dimensional storage and deliberately ignore the loud squeak I hear her produce in the next room.

My sigh is accompanied by my wife’s usual awkward shriek as she fails to get dressed. I loop feelers around her to catch her clothing, which I supposed destroys the illusion that I can’t see everything she’s doing despite facing away, but she’ll get over it. The most she’ll do is blush darker than usual and act embarrassed.

Both of which she’s doing right now.

At least she doesn’t treat me like an absolute superior here.

...

Wouldn’t I usually feel conflicted thinking that?

...

...

Huh.

I also can’t help but notice that other than the usual emotional static my retainers leak, my mind feels like a much quieter place somehow.

(Well ex-cuse me, I finally have the option to talk to someone other than you and I’m damned well going to exercise it!) Nyx snaps.

Yeah, I know, I hope you and Pearl are having a nice, friendly chat.

(It’d be nicer if I didn’t keep running out of mana!)

...

(What?)

I say nothing and just, start channeling some of my own mana to her.

(...Oh.)

Yeah. Enjoy your chat.

As I enter the common room with my death knights in tow, I see Olive steadily preparing food while Abaris shuffles through his notes and the remaining two continue their conversation. I take my usual seat, this time not shared with Nyx whose usual place Izahne takes for herself instead – but not even a full minute later, the fox spirit reports that breakfast is served.

And for some reason, Vivianne is here again.

I glare at Olive, since I already know that she’s the reason. What I’m not sure of, however, is if she’s trying to include her or trying to get me to punish her somehow.

Well, whatever. At least my ‘guest’ is quietly enjoying their meal instead of bothering me.

...

Huh.

Wouldn’t this normally be bothering me too?

...

...

Alarm radiating from three of my retainers snaps me from my confusion to realize they’ve all apparently taken my sudden pause as a reason for worry. I answer it with a facsimile of the calm I’ve felt from Izahne in the past.

“Sorry. I’m just surprised that I’m less upset about this situation,” I say as I gesture at Vivianne.

“Oh dear,” she replies, “should my presence be upsetting? I should certainly hope not.”

“No, no. It’s not that. For a while, it felt like everything was upsetting, or annoying, or annoying. But now it’s just... I don’t care. It’s a familiar kind of relaxing in comparison, I guess, but still startling.”

Abaris furrows his brow across the table. “Is this possibly another phenomenon we should study?”

“That,” I say while pointing at the mage, “is an excellent idea! We don’t experiment with nearly enough things anymore! It’s always ‘go here, gather kin, kill razorvines’ or ‘go there, gather kin, kill razorvines’! We need a change of pace!”

(And now you want to experiment again,) Nyx interjects.

What?

(So ‘your majesty’ wouldn’t rather pretend you don’t want your ‘subordinates’ to bow and scrape?)

I don’t get it either! But at least this actually sounds fun, instead of annoying like all that other stuff. It sucks when everything is annoying!

“Obviously,” Nyx says out loud.

Giving her a sideways glance, I answer. “Oh, so now we’re talking out loud? Was there a reason we weren’t before? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t care if we talk out loud, I’m just confused.”

“And you’re admitting to being confused too.”

Pearl nearly drops her fork halfway to her mouth. “Is something wrong? Are you fighting?”

“No, we’re fine,” my former Assistant reassures her. “Abaris, I have a hypothesis for you.”

“Oho? What would that be?” the mage asks with a touch of excitement or at least interest in his voice.

“I think our party girl-not-a-girl queen-not-a-queen has an unstable personality.”

...

Was that an insult?

“No, idiot,” she says out loud again. “I mean that whatever pieces of memories you keep unearthing from the Queen of Hunger and the late Astraea keep drifting in and out of who you are, and it’s making you particularly unpredictable as of late. I know you’ve noticed it too – you've noticed it at least twice today alone.”