"Wait. Wait wait wait. If you're not a god, and you're not a System Wizard, nor one of their clients, and you're just... a guy with a split mind..." The magpie fluttered.

  "Yes?" I prompted.

  "Then the gun unit body double won't be a problem for you to manage!" Charts exploded back to life with renewed vigor. "Because you're not trying to duplicate your consciousness—you're extending it, splitting two minds between two bodies! Yes. The answer to your question is a yes. Absolutely. I can make you a gun unit frame to wear and a second body which the second gun unit frame will control. But also… I'm having a big moral quandary. Because you’re undoubtedly going to do terribly illegal things with your second body."

  "No moral quandaries allowed," Shady stated with a flare of glowing eyes. "Or I rearrange bird spine."

  Kawathra shuddered at the stern look of the murderous Wendigo.

  "Aren't you happy having a lovely human consort, Kawthy?" Nexxali purred from the crystalline couch, her voice a tad extradimensional. "Aren't you enjoying working for us? Because if you're not, I can always make you… disappear."

  Kawathra swallowed, definitely not wanting to be vanished. "Why?" She asked. "If he's... not the local god, why are you both defending him to this degree?"

  "Because he's ours, Kawthy. Simple as that." Shady answered.

  "But what if—"

  "Nope. No ‘what if’s’ allowed here," Nexxali purred. The serval’s voice held a dangerous edge that made people remember she was a Marshal Commandant who'd executed thousands of prads for far lesser reasons. "You're either with us or you're a problem that needs solving. Which is it?"

  Kawathra's feathers flattened against her skull. "I... I'm with you. Obviously. I just... I need to recalibrate my entire understanding of local reality and our chances of success, that's all."

  "You can recalibrate while designing my gun body," I suggested. “Make sure that nobody would be able to tell that it’s fake. Make the gun unit’s face and body different from mine. Reference the picture of the Emperor from War-Gunner 50k wiki!”

  The magpie stared at me for a long moment, charts flickering around her head like dying fireflies. Then her expression shifted. The panic receded, replaced by quirky, analytical gleam.

  "Already on it," she said. "I just want to know… Why? I’d appreciate some kind of a rational explanation of why a Frontenachii Princess is..."

  "Love," Shady stated simply.

  "Love is a biochemical reaction designed to facilitate reproductive success," Kawathra commented matter-of-factly. "It seems incredibly irrational to betray your entire family for love and to stand against the entire Frontenachii Empire, Princess. The probability of your success in the endeavor of opposing the entire Third Fleet and the Admiral is…"

  "Kawthy," Shady said. "Have you ever watched a human jump into freezing water to save a drowning dog?"

  The magpie's head tilted. "I... have observed such behavior in video documentation via my gun units, yes. Statistically inadvisable given hypothermia risks and—"

  "Right, right, all the risks," Shady interrupted, waving a clawed hand dismissively. "But they do it anyway. Because care and love isn't about statistics or survival optimization or any of that rational bullshit. It's about looking at someone and thinking 'yeah, I'd fight a cosmic horror for you.' Or in my case..." She poked my chest. "I'd murder my insane great-aunt and doom my entire future as Princess for this dork."

  I chortled.

  "See?" Shady gestured at me with both hands like I was evidence in a trial. "He gets it. Love makes you stupid. Beautifully, gloriously, catastrophically stupid. The best kind of stupid!"

  "I'm not sure I appreciate being called stupid," I said with a yawn.

  "I'm not calling you stupid, dummy." Shady squished my face with a massive clawed hand. “I'm the stupid one, if anything."

  "This conversation does not inspire great confidence," Kawathra noted. “If you all admit that you are compromised by ‘love’ into stupidity then…”

  "When I was a kid, I wished on a Wormwood Star shard for a friend, for someone to actually love me. Just one friend who wouldn't see me as a spawnling of the line of the Frontenachii Empress," Shady's tail curled around my leg. "The Leviathan, in her infinite wisdom or cruelty or whatever, gave me Ash. This ridiculous, anxious, adorkable, coffee-addicted nerd..."

  "The Leviathan," Kawathra muttered. "So you're saying that..."

  "We're saying that Ashy is the Slayer of our hearts," Nexxali said. “Well, mostly Shady’s. I’m sorta like a clinger-on kitten, happy where I am at now.”

  "That's... that's not a technical specification I can tabulate," the Datamancer stated.

  "Love isn't technical, Kawthy," Shady replied. "That's the whole point. It's messy and irrational and makes you do things like—" She gestured at the cargo bay behind us, where forty-seven tons of crystalloid biomass sat waiting to make me a new, extra body. "—commit multi-dimensional treason for your boyfriend."

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  "You're telling me that the entire foundation of our current operation,” the Datamancer drawled, “the reason I've betrayed my posting and helped you deceive Commander Sillicia and potentially doomed my future, is because a Princess of the Frontenachii got... smitten?"

  "Yep!" Shady beamed.

  "With a mundane human."

  "The best human!" Shady corrected, smooshing me again.

  Kawathra massaged her beak, looking frustrated. “How long have you two known him? Surely you couldn't have established such deep feelings in such a short time frame!”

  “I’ve known him for thirteen years,” Shady replied. “Ashy and I were besties when we were kids.”

  “Fine. You’ve got a long-term relationship connection. This makes it more reasonable, I suppose. What about you, Marshal?” Kawathra looked at the serval.

  "I met him a few days ago," Nexxali stated.

  "A few days?!" Kawathra repeated. "And you are willing to risk treason for a human you have known for only a few days? The statistical probability of forming a bond that deep in such a short timeframe is negligible!"

  "Time is a poor metric for connection," the serval countered, golden eyes focused on the ceiling of the cargo bay. "I have served the Frontenachii fleet for far too damn long. I have met thousands of beings in my career as a motivator and executioner. Commanders, Legates, other Marshals, endless legions of prads. Do you know how many of them asked me what I wanted? How many asked me who I was before I signed the contract?"

  Kawathra blinked, beak clicking shut. "I... assume the answer is low."

  "Zero," Nexxali said. "Not a single one. To the Frontenachii, I am Marshal Commandant Everrim. I am the thing you point at a problem to make the problem stop breathing. I am a useful asset. To the other kobolds, I’m a terrifying executioner, nothing more."

  The serval shifted, stretching.

  "Then I met this human," she continued, "he did not know who I was. He did not care about my rank. He drugged me with catnip, yes, but when I was compromised, when I was vulnerable and effectively helpless... he handed me a guitar."

  "A musical instrument?" Kawathra asked. "Tactical application?"

  "There is no tactical application, Kawthy. That is the point. He asked me to play. He listened to my songs. He looked at me and saw a person who missed her home, not a soldier. For the first time in forever, I felt... seen. I felt… happy."

  Nexxali turned her eyes toward the Datamancer.

  "You ask why I am loyal? Because he gave me permission to be Nexxali the Song-Keeper again. He offered me a home. A place where I do not have to be a weapon unless I choose to be. You cannot quantify the value of that with your probability matrices. It is worth more than the entire Third Fleet."

  Shady let out a soft, approving churring noise.

  "Also this Wendigo-bae is constantly in my head," Nexxali poked Shady. "Using my mind to focus herself. Her trust for Ash resonates through me. It's... nice. Nicer than the catnip high, an ocean of feels."

  "So," the Datamancer murmured, tapping her silver rings against each other. "The Princess is motivated by a decade-long childhood bond and guilt. The Marshal is motivated by a desperate psychological need for validation and a sudden release from decades of emotional suppression. And the human... sits there and accepts this devotion."

  "Pretty much," I agreed.

  "Illogical," Kawathra concluded. "Completely irrational. Highly dangerous. You two are abandoning everything for a human who has no magical abilities whatsoever."

  "He's got me," Shady pointed out. "That's basically a magical ability. I'm very magical."

  "Likewise," Nexxali said. "Here's the thing, bird. Ash might not be magical, but the people he's gathering around himself are. Magical enough to do incredible things when we work together. Back on Desolada the Chorus-Mother gave me the title of the “Song of the Wormwood Star”. Do you know what it means?"

  “Not an expert on Desolada prad Riff-lore.” Kawathra shook her head.

  "It means that I can break reality with my voice," Nexxali expressed. "Not just bend minds in a desired direction."

  "What?" Kawathra blinked. “Break reality, how?”

  "Shear concepts with Entropy. The Chorus-Mother warned me that my voice is capable of great and terrible things. Most Riffwelders can bend emotions, plant suggestions, manipulate perception. I can decay causality. I can pull song lyrics and instrumental accompaniment from the deepest, darkest Abyss. The 'Everything' responds to me, Kawthy."

  "The Everything virus is entropic!" Kawathra stammered. "It's the echo of the Wormwood Star's eternal destruction. It doesn't respond to direction—it consumes, corrupts, breaks!"

  "Tell that to the song I sang recently." Nexxali shrugged. "It made cold shower water feel warm. That wasn't simply illusion magic, nor me merely influencing my mind to feel warmth. T'was me successfully telling reality 'no, this water is comfortable' and reality going 'okay, sure, whatever you say.' My songs wobble the physical. Not forever, mind you... just for a bit. It's why I'm so good at murdering prads. It’s why Omnids like the Admiral and Legates trust me to solve ‘personal indiscretion’ problems with gun-to-the-head. My orders wobble, cleave right through defenses of prad minds, perma-erase memories of events before death in such a way that not even a Scrut or a Seer can find the truth."

  “Right, you're extra-good at breaking people." Kawathra tilted her head.

  "Yes. Here's the most important thing you're not getting. If I understand things correctly... I am bending reality the most around Ashy and Shady. That's the trick. I'm not doing it alone. I'm dissolving the bonds between the physical concepts with my voice and then Shady's Fractal Engine heart pulls in, reassembles things in just the right way. The two of us work in tandem. Together. Because we care for each other and for Ashy. Without Shady and Ashy I'm just a voice that destroys bonds, ends prads. With them I'm... remaking, reinforcing bonds."

  "You're describing Syntropic manipulation, which is the opposite of Everything's nature," Kawathra commented.

  "I know," Nexxali said. "I've been wobbling my own future for decades. Every time I used my voice on myself, I was pushing against the current, obliterating the bad futures, digging a tunnel through probability toward something better than what the Frontenachii planned for me. A way out of my dumb-ass contract. A way to be free. Ash isn’t a simple relationship goal, he is my path to freedom. This entire planet with its thick-ass Aether is my path to freedom. I’ve been waiting to find this place for so, so very long.”

  Shady petted my side. "Same. My wish on the Wormwood Star shard? That was me wobbling my future with pure entropy."

  "So you're both... what?" Kawathra blinked. "You're both probability-diggers?"

  "Terrible term, but sure.” Shady rolled her eyes. "The fun part was that we both dug our way to the same ridiculous human. What are the odds of that?"

  "Astronomically low," Kawathra breathed. "Unless... unless the digging itself created a convergence point. A probability sink, a liminal tree… where multiple impossible futures collapsed into—" She stopped, staring at me. "Into him."

  "Into us," Nexxali corrected. "All three of us together. That's the point. Separately, we're broken knobs trying to escape our predetermined paths. Together..." She paused. "Together we're not just digging another tunnel or cutting out bad futures. We're collapsing the entire mountain!”