---Padin---

  #he who watches

  The space between realities has a texture all its own. Not quite solid, not quite void—something more like standing in the shallows of an infinite ocean, feeling currents of possibility wash against you from every direction. We exist here, Lucerna and I, watching the sleeper and his newly acquired bde.

  "He doesn't know what he's gotten himself into," I murmur, my voice barely disturbing the dimensional membrane between us and the Ororin vessel. "None of us ever do, really."

  The sleeping quarters are bathed in the dull glow of night cycle lighting. Harald—no, Jason who is becoming Harald—lies sprawled across a sleeping ptform clearly designed for Ororin proportions. Even so, his massive frame barely fits, one muscur arm dangling over the edge, fingers occasionally twitching as if grasping for something.

  Soulrender rests nearby on a weapon stand, her blue-steel bde catching the amber light in ways that seem to consume rather than reflect it. There's a hunger in that metal, a patient malevolence that makes my skin crawl even through the dimensional barrier.

  "She's waiting," Lucerna observes, her voice resonating directly into my mind. My own sword stands tall beside me, her presence a comforting warmth against the chill emanating from Soulrender. "Testing his defenses while he sleeps."

  I lean forward, squinting through the veil between worlds. "Can you see it? The rage-wall he's built?"

  "Yes." Lucerna's mental voice grows thoughtful. "Fascinating construction. Instinctive rather than deliberate. The rage doesn't control him—he's harnessed it, shaped it into armor."

  "Will it be enough?" I ask, though I already know the answer.

  Across the dimensional barrier, Soulrender seems to shiver slightly on her stand, though no physical movement occurs. It's more like a ripple in reality itself, a predator's anticipation.

  "She wants blood," I say. "Souls. His control, his very identity."

  Lucerna shifts beside me, the ghostly outline of her own grates word form wavering with emotion. "She always does. It's what she was made for."

  There's something in her tone that catches my attention. "You sound almost... sympathetic."

  "Understanding her nature doesn't mean approving of it," Lucerna replies. "We're not so different, she and I. Both bdes of power, both bound to wielders across realities."

  I give a bitter ugh. "You guided. Protected. She consumes."

  "And yet we both shaped our wielders." There's no defensiveness in Lucerna's tone, just quiet reflection. "Perhaps I was more controlling than I should have been, at the beginning. The line between guiding and controlling can blur, as you know well."

  My fingers trace the air where the dimensional barrier ripples, not quite touching it. Even at this distance, I can feel the radiating waves of Harald's rage, a crimson storm kept carefully contained behind walls of iron discipline.

  "An Esaki." I shake my head in wonder, studying the massive Ororin form. "I've never actually seen the end result up close."

  "Few have," Lucerna agrees. "The process is rarely so... complete. His consciousness has integrated remarkably well with the host body."

  "You mean victim," I correct her, unable to keep the edge from my voice. "Let's call it what it is."

  Harald's massive chest rises and falls in slow, almost metronomic breaths. Despite everything, there's something almost peaceful about him in sleep—the rage temporarily dormant, the violent purpose momentarily at rest. It's hard to reconcile this sleeping warrior with the blind, angry young man I once was in another reality, even if I was, like we all were, different in certain ways.

  "He was a child," I say softly. "Still is, in many ways."

  "As were you, when we first met," Lucerna reminds me.

  "That was different."

  "Was it?" Her mental voice carries a gentle challenge. "You were angry, lost, convinced of your worthlessness because of your blindness. The rage was your companion too, though manifesting differently. Apathy verses, excuse the pun, blind rage. Tempered, yes, but blind all the same."

  I don't answer immediately, watching as Soulrender pulses with a subtle blue light. The sword is meditating in her own way, communing with energies beyond normal perception.

  "Will you call a gathering?" Lucerna asks, changing the subject. "The concve should know of this."

  I nod slowly. "Hunter has much to answer for. This..." I gesture toward the sleeping form, "was never part of the covenant. Creating an Esaki without consultation, pairing him with Soulrender of all bdes..."

  "We'll need Fvious as well," Lucerna says.

  "Gods help us." I run a hand through my hair, a habit from my human days that persists across all Jason variants, Jar included. "Let's just hope Soulrender's creation doesn't trigger another interdimensional clusterfuck."

  Lucerna's amusement ripples through our bond. "We certainly don't need another situation like Grace bringing a sword that Healer and Akiko accidentally brought to life."

  "With Akiko refusing to even touch you because of your history," I add, sharing her dark humor. "And then Healer being the first to handle you, imbuing you with all his desire for connection and warmth, that then was the reason for our bonding, in the end."

  "Precisely," Lucerna agrees with the mental equivalent of a grin. "No one needs more of that fuckery."

  We pse into silence, watching the sleeper and the sword. Behind the dimensional veil, something shifts in the quality of Harald's breathing. His massive fingers twitch more purposefully now, and Soulrender's blue glow intensifies slightly.

  "He's waking," I murmur. "We should go."

  "We'll need to monitor this closely," Lucerna says. "That sword has destroyed every wielder she's ever had. The question isn't if she'll attempt to consume him, but when."

  "And whether his rage-wall will hold," I add.

  As Harald begins to stir, his eyelids flickering, we withdraw further into the spaces between realities. Soulrender's meditation state shifts as well, her awareness focusing inward toward her new wielder.

  The st thing I see before the dimensional curtain closes completely is Harald's eyes snapping open—golden Ororin eyes that nonetheless contain the unmistakable fury of Jason Stone's consciousness, a universe away from the life he once knew, bound to a bde that hungers for his very soul.

  Some problems can't be solved with a sword. But some problems are swords. This one has teeth, and won't just be happy with a few hugs and a particurly observant child who is the daughter of another version of her wielder. O well, if nothing else, we remember what Magnen always says, every variant of him, about blunt-force trauma and big fucking hammers.