I want to go home.

The thought dominated The Butterfly's mind. Rather, it haunted it. She didn't have a home; she didn't have anything. That was the price she had to pay to do her job. She couldn't be biased by anything. She couldn't be connected to anything.

That meant she never spent longer than a month in the same bed. The quality of said bed also fluctuated, as an Arbiter too accustomed to luxury could be tempted by bribes, but one too accustomed to poverty lacked the perspective to understand those in power. It was never fun to stumble into her new room, exhausted to the bone, and discover she'd be sleeping on a pile of straw.

And what was her reward for her many sacrifices? Dealing with monsters in human skin. A metaphor that was never as literal as it was before Lourianne Tome. She'd come to Quest expecting to rein in an errant summoner with some Abyss-spawn contracted to her.

Instead, she got something she could only call a god.

It had taken a long time to acclimate to her new eyes. Unlike the poor bastards born with true manasight, she'd been taught the way to turn it off from the beginning, so she hadn't sacrificed regular vision. However, her training involved a year of willingly giving it up, to become accustomed to viewing the world through mana. A necessary step as no one could teach her what the impressions meant; each mind interrupted manasight differently. Then came the daunting part, seeing both worlds at the same time. It was incredibly difficult to focus on someone's expressions while looking at the way their vibrant fire mana circulated through their body. The stronger the caster, the more distracting their mana could be. Add the whispers of the world related to them, imposing visions of their past and future over their present, and it quickly became overwhelming.

She passed out the first time she'd looked a person with the full force of her gaze.

After decades of exposure and training, the worst she normally had to deal with was a headache. But the freshly promoted countess was in a different realm compared to others. The Butterfly couldn't say a thing about the noblewoman's appearance aside from the summary in her reports. Her attention was entirely preoccupied by the light show in the vague outline of a woman.

All nine affinities. It was a thing of myth, considered impossible. The affinities were the ingredients which made up all of creation. Theoretically, a being with all nine could create a world, though it would take an immeasurable amount of mana. Such power didn't belong in the hands of mortal beings. It had never been recorded before, not even in the records of the old kingdoms.

Yet, here was a woman barely into her twenties wielding such mythical power. A living deity. A world maker. Not yet, but one day. Maybe. Even the possibility was terrifying.

The Butterfly refused to even look at the visions surrounding the not-woman. Certain people affected the world around them more than others. That's what she thought of as destiny; an existence with such a heavy presence that it distorted the fate of others around it. She'd met people like that before. To the world, they were like a particularly glamorous noblewoman, the kind that set new trends. The world was interested in every little thing about them and would never shut up.

Lourianne Tome took it so much further. If the world was interested in those destined people, it was obsessed with her. Forget gossiping. All of creation was screaming at the Butterfly. Visions of saints-knew-what pressed at her mind, like an excited child speaking so fast she couldn't make out the words. She knew that if she paid the slightest attention, if she tried to discern anything of the woman, she'd suffer a worse consequence than passing out. Despite her fighting not to know, she still learned a few details, and each one horrified her.

She thought back to her meeting with the king before she'd set out for Quest. She had to force down a sneer as she recalled meeting him in the throne room, the royal looking down at her while in his "big boy" chair to make himself feel better. If he had the qualifications to sit on it, she wouldn't have needed to run herself ragged for so many years, putting out fires all over the kingdom.

She wanted to laugh as she remembered the way he'd demanded that she leash the noblewoman causing him so many problems. He'd had the audacity to make her include Kierra Atainna sharing her gifts with the royal family a condition of the promotion. He was getting older. Melding had kept him fit and healthy despite an inactive life, but the magic was starting to lose its effectiveness. Dowager was of age and had recently proven himself in the campaign against the goblins. The crown prince just needed a queen and Sebastian would be ready to pass on his crown. However, he wanted to be able to properly enjoy his retirement.

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Him asking anything of this family was like an ant demanding obedience from a titan. She wondered what would happen if she voiced such a ridiculous statement. Would Lourianne come to hate the king? Did she already hate him? He better hope not, or his reign would end a lot sooner than he thought. She'd enjoy giving the order to smother that idiot. She might take the opportunity to do it herself. Saints know that she's imagined it enough times.

"Then if there's nothing else, I'll take my leave," she said, eager to escape. She didn't know how much longer she could maintain her calm. Trying to remain cordial and friendly with the end of the world, if she wanted to be, was fraying her nerves. She needed to find a small, dark room where she could curl up and scream out all the anxiety bubbling in her stomach. Actually bubbling. She was more than a little concerned that she'd spill her breakfast on the floor if she had to endure the pressure for much longer.

"Oh, one more thing."

The Butterfly forced a smile to her face. "Of course."

"What's your name? It's not really Butterfly, right?"

Of all the things. "I don't have another name."

"What…you changed it?"

Another secret but she refused to lie to creation incarnate. With her luck, the not-woman would have a way of knowing if she lied and the kingdom, no, humanity couldn't afford for her to leave anything but an impeccable impression. "No, I mean that I don't have one. Someone in my position gives up everything they are. My name is gone, as well as my family and everything else of my identity before I became The Butterfly."

She wasn't used to sharing the circumstances of her life. That made her sensibly unused to being looked at with pity. It didn't feel good. She was too entrenched in her role to worry about whether it was right or fair. Her only thoughts were how her story affected the not-woman's opinion of the kingdom. Sympathy was good. Distaste wasn't. Thankfully, her target was showing more of the former.

"That doesn't bother you?"

Why would it? She didn't know anything else. She couldn't be anything else, not with the tools in her head. "It used to," she admitted begrudgingly. "Then I saw what would happen if my role didn't exist. Have you seen war? Real war, not the one-sided beating you gave the hunters."

She held back a scoff as the not-woman shook her head. Of course you haven't. That's why we suffer. The thought wasn't wrong, but she couldn't let it go to her ego. Her position was one of sacrifice, not entitlement. The moment she thought the world owed her something, that the people she was saving owed her something, that would be the beginning of the end. She could count on one hand the number of Arbiters that died to outside influence; it was pretty hard for assassins to reach her when the grass laughed to her about the sneaky people creeping up on wherever she was resting.

The number of Arbiters that died at the hands of their comrades after acting beyond their station? Too many to remember.

"It's the ugliest thing in the world. The things people will do to others. Saints, what they'll do to themselves and those they love just to make a point. Avoiding that is worth everything."

The not-woman crossed her arms. "I…don't necessarily disagree. I've seen what people with power do if left unchecked. And that's the point that I don't understand. What's the point of peace if people are still suffering?"

I guess she's talking about the Grimoires. If only they could simply eliminate every problem. Unfortunately, they survived through subtlety. If they simply removed nuisances, it wouldn't be long before the people they were protecting turned against them in fear. There would be war and the Arbiters would be the targets.

"No one's perfect. Despite these eyes, we can't see everything, and we certainly can't be everywhere. If we can keep eighty percent of the kingdom safe and happy, that's pretty damn good. We're all about the big picture. If we stopped for every suffering soul, we'd never get anything done. Honestly, shit happens. And we have to respond in ways that protect the most people. Otherwise, I'd have brought an army with me."

She smothered a smirk as the not-woman lightly winced. Heh. Pretty hard to complain when it works for you too. Sigh. Maybe I shouldn't taunt the little god-thing? I'm not young enough to be so reckless. I need to retire. But can I trust a newbie to handle this mess? No, I just need to get away.

It was becoming hard to think through the noise, the screaming of the world causing her head to throb. She needed a dark room and a cold rag. Maybe a drink. She'd heard good things about a brewer in the city. A half-goblin of all things. She supposed he got away with being green as people overlooked it in the Myriad Zone.

"Well, now that we've got this settled, I'll get going. There's a whole city to see to."

"How do I reach you?"

She wants to talk again? Saints save me. "I'll be at the camp but if I'm not there, wave down one of the royal knights about. They'll know where I am."

"Hm."

"Then, countess. Ladies." She executed a quick courtesy; her target responded better to an informal tone, but it wouldn't do to completely ignore her station.

The Butterfly walked from the room, keeping her gait casual until she disappeared from their view. Then she practically ran through the hall, startling the two knights stationed at the end.

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