A compressed galaxy floats around me, a nebula of planets and ever-shifting beauty. I open my eyes, despite having already seen my surroundings, and take in the warmth of my god's embrace. Here, in their realm, I am safe. I am loved. Here, in this world, there's just me, my god, and infinite possibilities.

Hey there, god. Long time no see.

HeLLo, TwisTINg SCARS reSHape fatE.

I wince, preparing for the headache, but… heh. That one only stung a little bit, actually.

CeleBRATIONS. You are mOre.

Is that what it is? I guess I've been having an easier time understanding you, if not an easier time remembering you. I feel oddly lucid, though. I guess I'll remember the dream when I wake up this time?

YES.

Neat. With a nudge of will, I get myself to move, heading toward some of the ever-shifting planetoids in this dreamy expanse. I remember some of them from my brief stint in the alien home dimension, though… I can't really see the rest of that dimension from here. My dreams don't take place in that world; they're just dreams of that world. Or… no. The world of the aliens is… a recreation of the dreams? Something like that, anyway.

Curiosity satisfied, I give into exhaustion again and let myself float, my ever-shifting form nuzzling happily against Possibility's limbless embrace. It's so comfy here. I have so many questions for Possibility, but in this moment I barely even want to ask them. I just want to bask in… all of this. But I'm no worshipper of Bliss, that's for sure. I steel myself, take a deep, false breath, and speak to my god.

"Why have you been bringing the aliens to Earth?" I ask.

The JOY of POSSIbiliTY.

"You're not forced to? You're just doing it?" I press. "What about the god of Nothing?"

NothiNG is NOTHING.

"Uh… okay. Do you mean that tautologically, or are you trying to deny the existence of nothingness? Because I already explained this to one of your other Princesses, the absence of matter is very much a thing that exists in our universe."

BeauTY. VaSTness. PossibilitIES beyOND POSSIBILITY.

I rub my temples a bit, the minor headaches starting to compound. The universe shifts apologetically around me as I try to parse that. It's a shame god can't just write me a well-structured essay about the nature of the universe and leave me with perfect knowledge of all things. I was really kind of hoping for something like that. Because I'm an idiot, apparently.

"Can I ask you to try and get the other gods to stop dropping Queens on dry land, at least?" I groan. "You guys need the ocean. The ocean! We have plenty of ocean. So many more people will survive if you just stick to that. The gods like people, right?"

YOU aRe LOVE.

"You love people," I correct myself. "Okay. Is that a yes, then?"

We do NOT comMANd. WE dO not ASK. We ARE. OuR chilDREN ARE.

"That's a no," I sigh. "Okay. Fine. Next question. What can you tell me about the Grand Queen?"

The world rumbles, and all at once I am reminded why I don't usually ask god this many questions. Divine emotion engulfs me, consumes me, subsumes me, and rends me into nothing. I grieve, because I am grief.

ThE moST beLOVED SUFFERS, my existence breaks. AgrEeD by ALL goDs, yet FORsAKen.

Regret, despair. A failure that not even Failure loves. The Grand Queen clings to life with her unparalleled power, but what use is mere power in the infinite vastness of space? What worth is strength against the unparalleled light and heat of the sun? What value is divine love to the empty, soulless stone of the moon? What can she fight if she is being killed by NOTHING!? How could a world this beautiful allow a tragedy this great!?

And then I'm myself again, sucking in a terrified gasp of air as tears stream down my nonexistent face. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Okay. God. Aaagh. Too much, that was too much. I'm left a shuddering mess in a pool of what was once pure love and relaxation, my god's regretful apologies only making the lingering feelings worse.

The Grand Queen is alive. She's alive. But she's been trapped in the vacuum of space, entirely alone, for thirty fucking years. She's not doing well. She's not doing well at all, physically or mentally. And for all their power, the gods can't save her, because once again, the emotionless brutality of physics impedes them. Normal Queens are the size of a small town, and they can barely survive the fall to Earth from a couple-mile drop thanks to the full might of their god-given abilities.

The Grand Queen, on the other hand, is the size of the goddamn moon. She doesn't have to do anything to end all life on the planet other than try to come here.

I wake up in a mild panic, thin, crusty trails of salt itching my face and the corners of my eyes. My heart races, and though the lingering embrace of my god fades to memory, the experience of becoming their grief will haunt me forever.

It takes me a minute to gather myself, and I have another moment of panic when I remember everything that happened before I fell asleep, but despite the fact that our van is almost certainly tagged and wanted, we haven't appeared to run into any trouble. It looks like Peter just took the offramp, and the van's deceleration is what woke me up. Half of Demon Maria is still settled in for a nap, at least, leaving the other half only rather lethargically lashing out at everything that gets too close. Which, in this cramped little van, is everything. I never thought I'd say this, but thank god we have Peter.

"Hey! Wakey wakey! You should probably be the one to get gas, Jules," Peter says, instantly invalidating any positive opinion I've ever had about him.

Haha. No. Nope. I can't handle this right now. My patience is officially zero.

"Call me Jules again and I'll drown you in your own snot," I threaten him bluntly.

"Ah, but Jules, if you do that to me then who'll drive theaghkaghpagh—" he says as I reach inside his face and flood his trachea with mucus. We're parked, did he seriously think that would work? Peter starts coughing it all out, splattering the yellow-green gunk all over the steering wheel and dashboard, but soon he doesn't have any more air to cough with and no way to inhale anything but slime. I wait just long enough to let him realize he's about to suffocate to death before I fix it all at once, eating everything he choked out for good measure.

The whole car is silent for a few moments, with the humans staring at me with various expressions of surprise and horror, Blossom manically grinning, and Maria even pausing her quest to slobber all over everything she can get her mouth on.

"Don't call me Jules," I say simply, shapeshifting into a person unrelated to any of us and slipping out the back of the van, extracting some cash from one of my 'pockets,' and heading into the convenience store so I can use it to pay for the pump. Seriously, is that really so much to ask? It's not my goddamn name. Either of them!

I pay for the gas upfront and head back to the pump to fill the tank, Peter having already popped the lid. The entire time I'm watching for ambushes or other incoming dangers, but again, nothing happens. The gas tank fills with agonizing slowness, but eventually it's done. I finish things up and slip back into the van, making sure no one else can see inside.

"Okay, we're good to go," I report, heading back into my seat and giving Maria a pat on the leg.

"We're… getting Emily next, right?" Anastasia says, cutting through an awkward silence that was trying to form as Peter starts the car.

"Yep," I confirm.

"Won't they be watching her house?" Christine asks.

"Probably," I shrug. "But that's fine. She's a precog. We'll stop at a few different out-of-the-way places around town before heading to her house. If her house isn't safe, we'll end up finding her at one of them."

"And if we don't find her anywhere?" Christine presses.

"Then it's either not safe for her to be with us at all, or she failed to escape some kind of danger and needs help," I answer. "But we wouldn't really have any leads on that, so we'll assume it's the former and come back for her after we save Maria."

"Kinda cold," Peter comments.

"…It's just logical," I scowl. "We'll have a much easier time rescuing her if Maria is sane enough to help, or at least to not get in the way."

"Hey, um, Julietta… are you okay?" Blue asks, fluttering hesitantly closer.

"Y—" I start to confirm out of habit, but then Blossom kicks me in the shins. I scowl at her. She sticks her tongue out at me.

"…I'm stressed," I admit with a sigh. "I don't think it's anything to worry too much about, but I'm probably going to be on-edge until we reach the ocean."

Christine snorts.

"Only you would become more relaxed upon reaching the ocean, of all places," she says.

"Hey, I dunno, maybe some really old people like the ocean," Peter says. "They seemed to really enjoy the place in movies and stuff. Julietta could just be an old lady."

Hah. That's cute. He's trying to find a new way to annoy me now that he's too scared to call me 'Jules.' Poor, predictable Peter. He just can't feel in control if he's not flustering or frustrating someone.

Blossom breaks out into laughter, but everyone else's heads turn to look at me, not her. What?

…Wait, did I say that out loud?

"Yes!" Blossom confirms, still laughing her head off. "Poor predictable!"

"Yeah you just kind of tonelessly mumbled that to yourself," Christine confirms. "And like, go off, I guess, but uh… yikes. You already nearly drowned the guy. Not sure even Peter deserves all this."

"I-I, that's not… the Jules thing is different, he's had that a long time coming," I insist. "I never meant to say the other stuff out loud!"

"But you've been thinking it about me, all this time?" Peter says, putting one hand over his heart. "You wound me, sister, you truly do."

"Y-you of all people know exactly what I think about you!" I snap.

"Maybe not that specific deconstruction of my psyche, but yeah, of course I do," Peter says. "I'm just shocked you'd actually come out and say it. As much as you love thinking terrible things about people, you hate saying them."

"We working on it!" Blossom nods happily. "Communication is for healthy."

"I don't 'love thinking terrible things about people!'" I protest, ignoring her.

"Oh, really? Then why do you do it so much?" Peter counters.

"Because people have flaws, and I happen to notice them. Everyone does," I press. "Don't act like you don't have less-than-flattering thoughts about me."

"Actually, my thoughts tend to be less condescending than my words, not the other way around," Peter says. "I wonder which one is actually less pleasant?"

"Can we not fight, please?" Anastasia asks.

"Ah, no!" Blossom chirps, gesticulating in distress. "The lying by not lying! It happening! I learning so much. Keep yelling at the humans!"

"Nope, Anastasia's right. Can we pivot away from this topic and finally talk about the Angel in the car?" Christine asks. "Julietta's snappy because she's an entire extradimensional realm filled entirely with stress, and Peter is snappy because Julietta almost killed him for getting her name wrong. Dandy. You can kiss and make up later. But what the fuck possessed you to give an Angel human form, teach her English, and bring her into a military compound? What the hell have you been up to this past month?"

I sigh. Right, I guess I haven't had the time to catch everyone up to speed yet. It's been kind of hectic. Maybe I do need to calm down a bit, and explaining everything I've done for the past month isn't the worst way to get my mind off of the potential threats coming our way.

"Well, when Maria was… changed, I tried a lot of things, but I couldn't help her," I say. "So the Queen of Legion suggested I find a Queen of Possibility. My Queen. Apparently even humans have them, we just can't feel them because we don't know what we're looking for. It's like… it's like the same tug as when we look at the moon."

Every single one of us glances in the same direction. Yeah. That moon. It's not even visible right now, but we know where it is.

"You have another one too, don't you? That's the direction of your Queen," I explain. "But if you go there… well, you might end up like Maria, because the aliens can't talk to any of you. So they'll try to fix that."

One of Maria's heads wails, recognizing at least on some level that we're discussing her fate. Her mutant form is a failed attempt at kludging together human and alien biology, and one that the aliens assume by default will work out just fine. It doesn't.

"…But I don't have that issue for several different reasons, first and foremost being that I can talk to aliens. And the Queen of Legion said that my Queen might know what went wrong and how to fix it, so… I went to find her. And I did."

My body shifts as I adjust how I'm sitting, the faux clothing I use for my disguise flowing into fur, then hardening into spines, and finally blooming into crystal scales.

"She's… well, she's huge, of course. And beautiful. She lives down where the sun can barely touch, so she herself is the light of her colony, glowing enough for food to grow all across her body so everyone can eat. She's very kind. A little naive, but very kind. Her name is The Divinity of Wonder."

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I let myself chuckle a little.

"Alien names are so cool, by the way," I say. "In addition to the Queen, my council's names are Chaos Erupts in Indifferent Blessings, Pathless Wanderings Gladden Futures, and of course A Blossom of Wilted Chances. Isn't that so cool? It's way less of a mouthful in their native language, of course, but it's all descriptive of themselves and their power, the way they intend to use their blessing to live their lives. Chaos Erupts in Indifferent Blessings has a crazy power, it's very random. The effects can sometimes hamper him more than help him, and that influences not just how he uses the power, right? It influences his worldview. His perception of himself and his god. It's… really fascinating. And they're all just so sweet. They mean so well, and they pretty much all dropped everything to help me when I asked. I've… never felt so welcome anywhere, honestly."

It's only after the words slip out of my mouth that I realize I'm speaking them to an entire car full of my closest friends. That… is probably something they might take some offense to.

"U-uh, not that I don't like all of you," I quickly stammer. "It's just… the dynamic is different, and… I mean it's just… I… you don't need to… you can feel it. Ugh, sorry, I don't know why I'm struggling with words so much, it's…"

What the fuck, me? Just explain it. It's not hard. Words are something you're good at!

"You can feel how much they love you," I say. "They don't just tell you about it. They don't just try to show you. You can feel it. It's just there. Inarguably. Like nothing else in the world."

Nobody says anything, but Blue and Yellow give me lost, sad looks. Anastasia leans over and gives me a big hug. Shit. Definitely not the reactions I'm going for. I'm still messing this up.

"I-I'm not saying I don't know you care about me, I just—"

"You were just flung between uncaring foster homes as a kid, and you're too emotionally abused to trust people to care about you anymore," Peter chimes in. "See? You're not the only one who can do it."

"Peter. Zip it," Christine snaps. "It's alright, Julietta. Continue with your story."

"Um," I say, really not wanting to do that right now for some reason. "Actually, shouldn't this wait until we get Emily back? I don't want to explain all of this twice."

"…Sure, I guess that's fine," Christine sighs. "I mean, I think I can intuit the rest. Your weirdass brain pack bonded with Blossom, and now she's here helping out because your semi-psychopathic rizz is oddly effective at inspiring loyalty in deeply broken people."

"…What?" I ask, offended but only half-sure what by. "The hell do you mean 'semi-psychopathic?' What even is that?"

"Don't worry about it. Blossom, nice to meet you. Please don't eat anybody or whatever."

"Hmm. Sound wasteful but okay," Blossom magnanimously allows. "I suppose we in hurry."

"…Uh, was that a joke? Is the scary alien joking?" Christine asks.

"It was half a joke," I answer. "She mostly understands the cultural context, but her kind does cannibalize their dead."

"Is efficient. Corpse no complain. Feeds colony," Blossom shrugs.

"Uh… but what about diseases and stuff?" Christine asks.

"Don't have," Blossom answers.

"What? What do you mean?"

"Dis-ease-is not happen. Don't have," Blossom repeats. "Just human thing."

"The aliens come from a universe designed from the ground up by gods," I explain. "Diseases never evolved."

"Oh. Uh. Isn't that bad?" Christine asks. "Cuz like, even if they didn't evolve back there, microbes are still going to evolve here. Your alien friends are going to get War of the Worlds'd in a couple years, tops."

"Not happen yet," Blossom shrugs.

"I'm pretty sure the aliens do actually have an immune system," I hum, bringing up the templates in my mind.

"But why would they have immune systems if they come from a universe that doesn't have diseases?" Christine asks.

"The same reason they have working wings despite coming from a universe with such a thick atmosphere there's no real concept of flight," I shrug. "Intelligent design. Queens can rebuild other aliens at the cellular level as long as they're not too big to fit back in the womb, and the gods gave them a heads-up on what designs they'd need to survive."

"Why didn't the gods tell the Queen of Legion how to not hurt Maria, then?" Anastasia asks.

I… huh. That's a good question.

"I don't know," I admit. "Maybe they just didn't think to? Or… no. Maybe they didn't want to. Maybe they don't want humans to be changed by Queens in the first place."

Because the gods definitely could have given working instructions to the Queens and prevented the Demon problem altogether. They just… didn't. I don't have any idea why, though. I suppose their divine revelations are… vague at best, but still.

"Not bad idea," Blossom hums. "Even if god not want change humans, most probably not intervene. Only few would. Perfection? Perfection bossy."

"If that's true, then Perfection Queens wouldn't accidentally make Demons like the other aliens," I say. "Whether or not that's true is something the military might have records on, but we don't really have any way to find out."

"Then let's not worry about it," Peter says. "We're less than an hour out from Emily's place. Where did you want to try and meet up with her, exactly?"

"Like I said, anywhere," I say. "There's no real need to be picky. Any secluded parking lots nearby?"

"Probably," he shrugs. "Let's have a look."

Once again off the highway, we roll into Columbus, Georgia, heading vaguely in the direction of Emily's house before veering off into an odd parking lot sandwiched between two buildings, the kind of vacant overflow lot built way back when we had the global population to need something like that. And sure enough…

"God damn," Peter says. "There she is."

She's just waiting next to one of the surrounding buildings, her body getting tense as we drive up and park right next to her. After all, she doesn't know why she's here. She doesn't know who we are. She was simply directed here by her power's vague grasp of fate, as I expected she might be. I pop open the back of the van, stick my head out, and shift to and from Lia's face.

"It's us," I assure her. "Come on in, try not to freak out."

"Oh thank fuck," she sighs, a relieved hand over her heart. "No need to worry about that. Trying not to freak out is like, my number one skill."

"Oh yeah?" I challenge as I help her into the van.

"Y—is that a fucking Angel!?"

"Yes," Blossom confirms with a wave. "Hi!"

"Not you! …Wait, what?" Emily says, doing a double-take. "Wait a second. Holy shit. Is that the doomed girl you were giving doe-eyes to?"

"Excuse me!?" Pink snaps.

"…Did you lose any capacity for tact while we were gone?" I grumble. "Sit down and buckle in. Yes, that's Maria."

"I'm pretty sure she never had any tact," Blue scowls, flitting around my head as I sit down as well.

"I promise she used to," I insist.

"That wasn't tact," Emily says. "It was lying. Totally different. You told me to stop doing the latter, so that gives me an excuse."

"Okay, but are you actually going to stop, or are you just going to be way ruder while you continue?" Peter asks.

"Why are we rescuing this girl again?" Yellow complains.

"Because she's my sister, and she saved my life," I answer. "Plus her power is crazy useful for making minor short-term decisions, such as planning routes to avoid encountering law enforcement."

"Ohhhh, you all defected," Emily realizes. "Right. That makes sense. Well in that case, get your ass out of the driver's seat, Peter. I've got this."

"But the seat is so warm and ass-shaped!" Peter fake-whines, getting up regardless and heading out the driver's side door. He and Emily pass by each other outside the van, and Peter forces her into a quick, unexpected hug. Emily squawks in surprise, but he just lets her go before she can do anything and heads into the back with the rest of us. Emily puts the van in reverse and quickly gets us out of the parking lot, adjusting her mirrors as she drives.

"Okay, so what crazy plan do you all currently have?" she asks.

"We're heading south and going to the ocean," I answer. "I shapeshift everyone so they can breathe water, we swim to my Queen, she fixes Maria."

"What? What the actual fuck are you talking about?" Emily asks. "You can shapeshift other people? You have a Queen? You think going to the ocean is a good idea?"

"Yes," I confirm. "Is it?"

"I…" Emily says, trailing off as she presumably queries her power about it. "Yes? What the fuck? Okay, sure, we'll go to the ocean then. But there's no need to swim the entire damn way. We can just head to the coast and drive along the empty highways in alien territory. At minimum, we should skip swimming around the Florida peninsula."

"Yeah, I was worried about more active, immediate pursuit and need to get out of view of pursuers ASAP when I made that plan," I tell her. "We kind of pissed off Agnus Dei."

"Oh! Oh. Oh boy. Maybe we do go to the ocean, then. I dunno, I'll keep an eye on the odds," Emily frowns. "How the hell did you piss off Agnus Dei and live?"

"I more confused about how she live," Blossom pouts. "Was such good ambush!"

"Juliettaaaaa, did you sneak an Angel into human territory and let her try to assassinate humanity's strongest hero?" Emily asks with fake sing-song cheer.

"She's evil! She killed like a dozen guys to hide the fact that one of the Queens wanted a peace treaty!" I defend myself.

"I can't help but notice that's not a no!"

"You're weirdly calm about being around an Angel at all," Christine points out.

"Eh," Emily shrugs. "She's not gonna betray us. Just being near her improves my survival chance, actually. Also she looks suspiciously like my dead ex-girlfriend, and I'm devoting at least eighty percent of my brainpower to not thinking about that. Seriously, what the fuck, Julietta?"

"I did not do that!" I insist yet again. "Blossom chose that!"

"It still funny!" Blossom confirms happily.

"REEARGHAAH!" one of Demon Maria's heads screeches, possibly trying to add her own two cents to the conversation before getting quickly distracted by a globule of blood Anastasia floats in front of her face.

"Oh yeah, she also kind of looks like Maria, too," Emily frowns. "Damn it, I can't unsee that. That's so much worse."

"Well, fuck you too," Yellow scowls. "Thanks for nothing on your prediction, by the way. This last month has been a living hell."

"Emphasis on the 'living,' though," Emily snaps back. "You're welcome."

"Look at me!" Yellow snaps, indicating Demon Maria. "Isn't this basically death?"

"Well you have your domain still, so no," Emily answers simply. "Doesn't count. But whatever was going to kill you has passed anyway, so someone did a good job somewhere along the way. Speaking of, what the hell happened?"

I sigh. Well, no more excuses or procrastinations. I settle in to tell Emily everything she missed, the others adding details here and there as I catch her up to what the rest of the van knows. The incursion, the way I convinced the Queen of Legion not to kill anyone, the way she nearly killed Maria anyway and turned her into an insane, four-headed monster… and, of course, the way I found my colony and felt unconditionally loved in a way I never have before.

"Objection," Blossom silently chimes in over the network. "Love given freely is not identical to love given unconditionally. I told you before, several things could lose you the love of your colony, and far more things could affect the severity with which we feel for you. But is that not ultimately a superior love? One that you could lose, yet one you WON'T lose, because the sort of person who would cease to be worthy of it is simply not who you are?"

"I… sorry, A Blossom of Wilted Chances," I sigh back. "Thank you."

"You have ceased to properly listen again, Twisting Scars Reshape Fate," she chides me. "The presence of your kind has reignited your instincts to close yourself off. Relax your guard. Genuine love is not so easily scared away by secrets."

"You say that, but they already got offended when I mentioned not being able to feel their affection in the same way I do with the colony," I protest.

"You offended Chaos Erupts in Indifferent Blessings many times. Did he cease his care for you?"

Ugh. I can't argue with that, even though I really want to. It just feels like it should be wrong, I just can't find the reason for it.

"Everyone hug Julietta," Blossom suddenly announces out loud. "She being stupid."

"Wh—" I start to protest, but Anastasia of course needs no further prompting to wrap her little arms around me and squeeze. Blue and Yellow are next, followed shortly by the ever-silent Purple and even Pink, who has been incredibly grumpy with me since I got back. They all fly over and press themselves against me, their tiny fairy limbs struggling to squeeze anything bigger than one of my cheeks. Which… oh, fuck it, why not.

I shrink down to their size, Anastasia letting out a surprised yelp followed by an excited squee as I become just barely bigger than a human hand and sit down on her thigh. The Marias flounder a bit as I suddenly shrink out of their grasp, but when I wave up at them I immediately get swarmed, a kaleidoscope of laughing fairies descending on me and crushing me in the center of a group hug.

I never really paid it much thought before, but the glowing energy constructs that make up their bodies still somehow feel like skin. When Blue grabs my face and plants a kiss on my lips, it's almost exactly like the first time. …Except, a traitorous part of my mind insists on repeatedly reminding me, all of the Maria fairies are ass-out naked and hugging me all over. Guess they never found those doll-sized clothes they were thinking about earlier.

…Ha. 'Earlier.' What the hell am I talking about? That was an entire month ago, after which I had no choice but to abandon her with no human contact to a council of aliens she couldn't even talk to. All of her different selves have had no choice but to get used to casual nudity, given that they no longer have a human form they can safely return to. If they recombined, they'd immediately go insane.

As if responding to that thought—possibly actually responding to that thought, since I let it leak into the network—Maria's main body, the twisted mess of fused torsos and monstrous limbs, reaches down and places one huge, clawed finger on top of my head, gently scraping it along my tiny scalp.

"J…Ju," one of her heads chokes out. "Ju… li… eh…tuh…"

My gaze and that of every other Maria all snap up to her at once, our surprise shared. Demon Maria has said a few words before, sure, but she's been distinctly monosyllabic. 'Hurt,' 'why,' 'pain,' and what she usually calls me, 'Ju.'

"I'm here," I assure her, reaching up and grabbing the proffered claw in both of my tiny hands.

"I… here," she repeats back to me, and I think it's just mimicry at first, but… no.

"I'm here," she said at the same time, through the network, the meaning clear and undeniable. I see now a spark of understanding in her gaze, the way her pupils actually focus on me, the way that head's torso stills and doesn't immediately get distracted by something else. Another part of her body screams, its torso grasping its head and shrieking as if to try and let out the madness just long enough for a different part of the body to be sane. Everyone else in the van tenses in terror, expecting another thrashing episode, but I just meet Maria's gaze and give her a nod.

"We're fixing this," I promise her. "It won't be long now."

She keeps staring at me, her eyes no less intense. Aloud, she says nothing. But still, I hear her.

"Acknowledgement."

And then, the moment passes. The lucid part of her body sags with exhaustion, eyes unfocusing as her other torsos shudder with emotion or scrape madly at the walls. Blossom and I share a look, her being the only other person in the car to have heard that. Demon Maria does have everything she should hypothetically need to speak in the network, but she's usually just screaming out nonsensical pheromones as random as the twitching of a seizure victim. That had been much less the case when I returned than when she was first changed a month beforehand, but…

"Instinctive comprehension of the network would have been part of the changes to your beloved's mind that her Queen attempted," Blossom says, confirming my suspicions. "Additionally, the neuroplasticity of a blessed's new form is intentionally quite high so that they may be able to discard the instincts of their prior form and accustom themselves to their new role more easily."

"So there's a chance her mind is self-repairing," I summarize. "That she's slowly crawling her sanity back from the brink."

"Indeed," Blossom confirms. "Which, for our plans, may be quite bad."

Oh shit, she's right. There's a chance that this is just a complete win, of course, but there's also a chance that the more Maria gets used to her current body, the more she'll have to relearn everything again when we rebuild her with a more human brain.

"What do we do?" I ask.

"Nothing," Blossom answers. "Overall, this is something to celebrate. Something that may reduce her pain in the short term and possibly have no negative consequences going forward, if she adapts well. And while there are many negative consequences she may face, I do not believe any of them are both severe enough and likely enough to risk trying to STOP your beloved from recovering her mind in her own way."

Right, yeah. I immediately fire off an agreement with her assessment, the two of us giving each other a silent nod. It's something to encourage. If there are consequences later, we deal with them later. For now, I grow some insectoid wings of my own and start flying up to Maria's heads, landing on top of the now-torpid one who just spoke. The fairy Marias float close, but most of them keep their distance. Physical contact is the first prerequisite to recombining, and none of them seem willing to risk it.

For my part, though, I just… settle in. Resting in her hair. One of her other heads turns and looks at me and makes curious noises, but their conjoined torsos are too restrictive for her to try and grab or claw me with that part of her body. The Maria head I'm resting on seems to have completely shut off, not even breathing as her other heads handle getting air into her bloodstream on their own. But in those breaths, I think I smell something almost like gratitude within the chaos of the pheromones, so I stay where I am as the van rumbles down the road.

We'll save you, Maria. Just rest and wait.

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