Claire lay face up, sprawled in her bed with her eyes on its canopy. Normally, she would have fallen asleep the moment she laid down. It had always come easy to her on account of her phantom blood, but for some odd reason, on that particular night, her consciousness refused to slip away.

It wasn't like she was uncomfortable. She had her head resting on a cloud and her body ensnared in the comfiest blankets known to moosekind. Her arms were not allowed to be lonely. A fluffy orange tail sat between them, tickling her nose with every twitch. The conditions were perfect. And yet, she was wide awake, stuck without even the faintest hint of drowsiness.

The worst part was that she had no idea how one was meant to fall asleep in the first place. It normally came so naturally that she'd forgotten what it felt like to stop and consider the process. Even more confusing was her lack of distress. She wasn't tossing about, debating a complicated topic, or dealing with any sort of intense emotion. She was simply lying in bed with her head empty and body at rest. But somehow, she was awake. Even though Sylvia had already started to snore.

A sigh on her lips, the snoose slowly rose from her seated position and strolled across the room. The wind fluttered in when she threw open the balcony's door, half lifting her nightgown and hair in tandem. Closing it behind her, she stepped out into the moonlight and gazed upon its origin. The goddess was in the midst of her usual journey, almost completely unobscured by the cloudless night sky.

The heavens were clearer in Valencia than she'd remembered. She'd expected them to be duller, given the ongoing festivities, but the welkin refused to be overshadowed by the celebratory lights. Clouds of cosmic dust dyed the sky in a nebulous purple while a canvas of stars shone with a fiery ardour. The brightest among them danced through the aether and shot across the nightly abyss, one, three, five at a time.

For a while, Claire simply watched in silence. She gazed upon the stars until they stifled the meteors that crossed their paths. And then, she looked upon the city. The guest room was high up enough for her to see over the ramparts, but, annoyed that they still blocked her view, she spread her wings wide and rose above them.

She couldn't be bothered to put on her armour, so she assumed her true form instead, causing confusion and panic aplenty among the guards. It was almost entertaining to see them so startled. They shouted about summoning magic as they attempted to surround her and determine her purpose. While their bewilderment was certainly entertaining, Claire soon shifted her focus away. She ascended into the heavens, opened up a portal, and vanished from castle grounds.

When she emerged from the other side, she was in her lyrkrian form. She wasn't exactly unmasked—she wore a dark cloak atop a set of rogue-ish leathers, obscured her features with a piece of cloth, and held up her ears to give a more cottontail-like impression—but neither was she particularly well-disguised.

Anyone that looked carefully enough could still make out her eyes, and there existed no such thing as a rabbit with ears as shapely as hers. Her tail wasn't doing her any favours either, but Claire cared little. The most she did to compensate was return her sclera to their natural, darkened state.

"I don't know about this. It doesn't really seem like the best idea with Daddy's men crawling all over town." A familiar, irritating voice spoke to Claire from over her shoulder. Looking towards it revealed a snake who was equal parts present and not. Ephemeral, translucent, and entirely imaginary, but also present in the moment with a mind of its—his—own.

"Nonsense! We are simply going into town and enjoying ourselves a few Cadrian delights. There's nothing wrong with that now, is there?" said the disfigured horse on her other shoulder. The second sock puppet was just as ugly as usual. Resembling more so a drawing made by a child than any sort of real animal, its body was less than a fifth of its total volume, and its legs were stubby as a corgi's. The rest of its real estate was dedicated to the oversized head that held its ever-starving lips.

"We're going to get caught."

"Maybe so, my fellow shoulderbeast, but it'll be worth it through and through." The pony twisted its lips into a grin. "Are you forgetting that her stomach has become an infinite void? She can literally eat as much as she wants."

Claire sighed. "I think I miss my broken circuits already."

"Oh, Claire, you silly little thing. Don't be so coy. We know you missed us," said Shoulderhorse.

"Yeah, ignore that lout," said Shouldersnake. "What's the plan?"

"What plan?"

"The plan to raze the city, duh. You are planning on killing everyone, right?"

"Not particularly."

"Oh, come on! We've literally got a golden opportunity set front and center," grumbled the serpent. "Father literally spent the past thousand years setting this up for us. You'd have to be insane to pass it up."

"I'll be killing the Polluxes. But that's it."

"That's just boring. You're boring. We leave you alone for just like what, a year? And you end up like this?" Shouldersnake sighed.

"Look at the bright side, fellow Shoulderbeast. She's been eating a lot more lately, and enjoying it too."

"Who gives a shit what she eats? It all gets turned to mana anyway. Her taste buds might as well not work."

"Of course it ma—"

Claire grabbed Shoulderhorse by the face and shuttered its somewhat-existent mouth. "Knock it off already. I know you're the same person."

"Uhhh… what's that thing you always say again?" Shouldersnake and Shoulderhorse took turns speaking the words. "Right. I don't know what you're talking about."

"You have to admit, he got you with that one," said another voice, from atop her collar.

"Great. Now you're in on this too?" Claire breathed a sigh as she walked out of the alley and into the streets. "Dead people aren't supposed to talk."

"We're dead, not extinguished," said Collarsaur.

"God, I wish I was extinguished," said Shouldersnorse. "But Flux would never let that happen."

"I wish you were extinguished too."

"Oh, come on. I'm half the reason you survived Llystletein."

"You made me sit through a full decade of abysmal roleplay."

Shouldersnorse laughed. "I'll admit, I'm not exactly the best actor unless the character is at least a bit overexaggerated. You know, typical theatre kid problems."

"That term means much more to you than it does any of this world's inhabitants," said Collarsaur. "Tersians are the only ones who might be able to make any sense of it at all, considering their widespread use of the performance arts for combat."

"Most countries do that. Look at Kryddar," said Claire. "There are bards and artists everywhere."

"Tersia is a lot more enthusiastic about the whole thing. Their culture is as focused around the performance arts as Cadrian culture is around the martial arts."

"I see." Claire dodged a drunk as she tried and failed to imagine such a nation. It almost seemed too ridiculous to be real. If everyone was as obsessed with art as Cadrians were with combat, then there were sure to be art battles all over the city, and such nonsense was unlikely to be anything if not incredibly obstructive.

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"Speaking of being creative," said Shouldersnorse. "How about you name that last skill of yours? The one that has to do with soul magic."

Nodding silently, Claire popped open her menu and inputted her decision. She'd long come up with the name. She'd just never bothered to assign it.

Log Entry X

Animus Magicae 0x00000000001f99a2 has been designated Spirit Assimilation.

Spirit Assimilation

You are able to absorb the deceased. By converting souls to spirits, you may temporarily return them to the realm of the living and call upon the abilities they had in life. Spirits assimilated in this manner regain the capacity for systemic growth if it is applicable, but are no longer strictly considered to be distinct individuals. Spirits must be subjugated prior to assimilation.

Available Spirits

- Farenlight

- Greymane

- Olethra

"Why'd you even bother putting it off for so long if you had a name in mind this whole time?" asked Shouldersnorse.

"I didn't see much of a point in naming it."

"And you wonder how you ended up as a frosty longmoose."

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Claire.

"Frosty longmoose?" asked Collarsaur. She opened up a giant terminal, but Claire flicked her face into non-existence before she could scroll too far.

"No. Down. Bad weird dinosaur."

"Weird dinosaur!?" Upon reforming, the weird dinosaur pressed a hand to her chest and winced.

"She's not wrong," said Shouldersnorse. "You proto-lizardmen have always looked a little strange to most of the other races."

"We look perfectly fine!" said Olethra.

"Don't worry, Collarsaur. You don't look that weird. Just a little," said Claire.

"You aren't helping," muttered the tiny parasaurolophus.

Shrugging, Claire directed her focus away from the imaginary pair and looked down the city's main street. At least for a while, she simply basked in it, walking casually along the still-crowded roads without a hint of a destination. She turned with the crowd, moving through the labyrinth city only because she could until her ears caught a curious distant sound.

It was almost like a resonant thumping, so heavy and deep that she felt it in her bones. And yet, it was quiet. It didn't grow much louder even as she approached it, but she started to make out a pair of familiar voices. And unlike the two that had only just faded, they weren't half imagined.

"You'll want to make it a little wider here for some of the larger species. Whales can get about three times as thick as centaurs," said the first familiar voice.

"Stop! Wait! Do not use that brick. It's hideous! The patterned sort would make for a much better aesthetic," said the other.

There was a whole group of workers abiding by the two of them, running back and forth and moving materials to and fro whilst working on a massive tunnel lined with waterproof spells. Claire recognized most of the faces—they were soldiers, members of the standing army, many of whom had once trained under House Augustus' banner. Evidently, her father was following through on the claim that he would soon have a location prepared for the portal to Vel'khan.

The familiar voices, however, did not belong to the army's members. They were associated instead with the two officials watching over the process.

One was Amereth, House Augustus' personal shark-tailed chef. She was brought in as the resident marine-life specialist, one of the few people in the country familiar with the many species soon to be wandering the streets.

The other was a noble lady that almost looked familiar. She had flowing platinum locks, shapely ears, and a pair of piercing blue eyes. Her silhouette might have resembled Claire's from afar had her hearing devices been just two and a quarter times larger. It was hardly a surprise. As one of King Ferdinand's grandchildren, Octavia was her second cousin. And considering that Panda was most likely childless, she was one of her closest blood relations.

Octavia was a purebred cervitaur, but the two were of a comparable size. Unlike many of the others that shared their blood, Octavia wasn't 100% moose. Her father was an ordinary deer, as could be seen through the shape of her tail and the width of her body.

For a moment, Claire considered either turning invisible or changing into her armour, but she didn't bother. Still in her rogue outfit, she walked into the construction site as if it were no one's business and approached her known acquaintances.

One of the moose nearby tried to shout something in her direction when she noticed her, but she tied up her tongue with a series of vectors and forced her to return to work. The way her muscles twitched and bulged made it seem like she'd probably tried resisting, but her efforts were irrelevant. Her body ignored her wishes and started single-mindedly shoveling its way through the surrounding area. There was a brief pulse of magic each time she bashed the ground. The tiny hexagonal artifacts scattered all around were intercepting the sound waves and dampening them, hence the overall lack of noise in spite of the ongoing construction.

The closest soldier wasn't the only one to notice her—she was walking around in plain sight—but even so, none of the others had ever quite spotted her. She turned their heads away before they could so much as look in her direction.

Neither Amereth or Octavia noticed a difference in the workers' behaviour. The former was staring at the waterway whilst contemplating the accommodation of pedally-challenged fish, while the latter was simply devoid of intelligence. The white-furred deer-moose didn't react despite watching the soldiers' heads turn unnaturally in real time. Not even a full 180 degree rotation was enough to stop her from grumbling about the way that the workers had laid out the stones.

Claire had to admit, her sheer stupidity was every bit as praiseworthy as it had been during their previous encounters. She was almost the wrong person for the all-important job of impressing their guests. Her sense of aesthetics was certainly up to par, but she didn't quite seem to understand that her explanations were insufficient.

Just to mess with her some more, Claire had the soldiers arrange the next few lines of bricks such that not a single one conformed to Octavia's design.

"What in the name of the gods are you doing!? I explicitly instructed you to follow with a grey row and two red rows!"

The former princess screeched in confusion, but the soldiers only shrugged and continued haphazardly plugging away.

"Stop with that nonsense immediately! All of you! I command you to stop!"

There was a brief moment where the whole workforce looked curiously in her direction, but it soon returned to plopping bricks down and filling the gaps with mortar.

"I said stop!" Livid, Octavia stomped over to the closest soldier and grabbed his hand, only for him to slowly turn in her direction and cock his head.

"What's the matter ma'am?" His voice was a little strange, almost unnatural, but Octavia didn't call it out.

"I told you that this section has to be made of coloured lines. Why in the world are you laying the blocks haphazardly!?"

"I'm just doing what you told me to, ma'am." He briefly pointed to the white brick in front of him. "See? This one's red, which is why I'm gonna put another red brick on top of it." He raised the grey block he had in hand. "I'm not really sure what else you want."

"H-huh? Neither of those blocks are red!"

The worker slowly looked between the two bricks and the former princess. "They look pretty red to me."

"Same here," said another soldier.

"They're clearly white and grey!" shouted Octavia. She looked around for affirmation, but the soldiers only raised their brows and exchanged awkward glances.

"I think you might need to take a little bit of a break, ma'am," said the brick-laying soldier. "It's been a long day. Visual colour distortion happens all the time when you're deathly tired. Happened to me a few times during our last campaign."

"Same here," said a second soldier.

"Yeah, me too," parroted a third.

Octavia briefly opened her mouth, but she cut herself short as yet another soldier arrived with a carriage in tow. "We can have you back home shortly, ma'am. We'll pick you back up in the morning, once you're rested and back to normal."

"Err… alright," said the cervitaur, meekly. She didn't really see where the soldiers were coming from. Sure, she was feeling a little bit tired, but she wasn't anywhere near exhausted enough to lose her colour vision. In fact, she'd never even heard of a case of any such thing ever occurring. But if all the men were not only insisting, but agreeing with one another, then something must've been wrong. It wasn't like she had ever experienced the extreme exhaustion that the soldiers so often did while they were out on the field of battle.

"I understand," she muttered. "I'm terribly sorry. I'll retire for the night and return first thing tomorrow morning."

A little frazzled, Octavia got in the carriage, sat down, and sank into the chair, her eyelids immediately growing heavier as she did. She couldn't help but think that maybe, just maybe, the soldiers were right.

"Stupid toilet drinker." A voice echoed through her head right as she began to relax. "I can't believe you're still this gullible."

She immediately shot back up to her feet and started looking around the carriage. But it was empty.

Of course it was.

Even if no longer in line for the throne, she was still a Lady of House Augustus. There was no way that the secret service would have let a rogue infiltrate her carriage, let alone one that knew of the nickname.

Shaking her head, she returned to her seated position and closed her eyes.

"I should pay Claire a visit. It's been some time since we've had the chance to speak."

It seemed that she really was every bit as tired as everyone had said.

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