Dear Adelaide,

When those people and their drones found me alone at that deserted intersection they demanded to know where you were. I offered them the Obsidian Accelerator. I gave it freely.

You promised you would leave me, and you did… but you never said how far you would go, did you? You stayed close enough to watch through your scope.

As the man took aim at my head, I heard the shot and assumed I was dead. But it was him who was dead, not me. You were so far that none of us knew where to look.

The second man winged me with one of our own weapons. He began to gloat about that, but another round from you shut him up. Two more thunderous shots, and their drones were as dead as they were.

I saw the glare from your scope disappear, and I knew you were heading away. I know you must feel guilty, but don't. It was I who wronged you.

I grabbed the accelerator and got as far from the shouts of the aggressors as I could. They've been on my tail. By now, you're long gone and I've lead those people back inland.

But I'm done running. The end of my story is close, as it probably should be. So I guess it's time I tell you a few things about, well, you. The end of your life should have followed its natural trajectory. I'm ashamed I changed it for selfish reasons.

Does the name "Adelaide" bring you any flicker of recognition? It is your birth name, and you heard it every day of your life until the day I sent you without your consent into a new world.

You became Ada-1 when I robbed you of your end. I've loved you since before you were born, and in trying to give you everything, perhaps I've robbed you of a final human experience: a dignified death.

I know I will not see you again. If you want to know about your past, know that you were born a second time in the Niobe Labs. When you were wounded at the labs and I saw you were losing your fight, I did what I always did when the chips were down: I… created something. You, Ada-1. From what I had almost completely lost. I did it out of fear of losing you forever. I charted the course of your life and made decisions that were yours to make, not mine.

I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me for that.

I was naïve. Looked too often to the past. I just couldn't let any of it go. I never did have much respect for the natural order of things. And Helga, well… she was the opposite of me. She only wanted to grow the Armory, to see its full potential. And Yuki helped make that vision possible. The two of them spent as much time looking ahead as I did looking back.

I realize now that there's a balance to life. You look backward a little, you look forward a little. But most importantly, you live in the here and now. You appreciate what you have, because you never know when it'll all be snatched from you.

Learn from our successes and our missteps. Be bold. Do not fear the future. Respect the past. And never forget where you came from. And try never to fear death, if you can help it. I know I don't anymore.

You know what's funny? I never considered how lucky I was for the time we had together. The envy of all the mothers who ever lived.

I got to love you twice.

Your Mother,
Henriette

Final Entry

Thank you

Thank you for paying attention to my little hyperfocus for a few months all, even if it did slow down a lot near the end. I will mourn cohost with the rest of you forever.

If you want to follow my other thoughts on another platform, I'm at Ragepyro.bsky.social.

Thanks for eggbugging with me all of you.

No lore today. Taking a week off cuz the bungie layoffs news is still bumming me the hell out & has killed a lot of my drive to engage with Destiny.

I hope those effected are doing ok.

|| O my eggs, we meant to have eternity! To think our voices could be silenced forever! Sharpen your sight for unintended clauses. Step carefully around the waiting snare. Beware the bargain that makes you less than what you were! ||

Taranis crawls small and silent through Esila's gardens. Power drips through the Dreaming City, corrupting its air, cracking its shining facets.

Creatures lurch through the grass on the strings of their master's desire, their own wills gone to rot.

Corruption spreads from the center of the Dreaming City. The grit at the pearl's heart poisons the city, poisons Riven, and poisons their eggs from the inside out.

There's a murmur. Taranis slithers towards it to listen.

What speaks is not Riven, not as Taranis knows her.

Taranis knows her every voice, the way her claws tug at reality. There is no shape Riven could take in which he would not know her. And there should be no shape Taranis could take in which Riven would not know him.

But now, Riven does not know him. Does not taste Taranis's fear on the wind. Does not look away from her revenge to notice him at all.

Taranis returns to his nest unseen, in grief.

Life flows along the branches of the nursery. However many paths have been closed off outside, potential still flourishes in this grove, Light and Dark giving off new buds together.

Taranis shuts himself off from it, retreating to his hoard of secrets. Stone grows up his sides. Moss and vines follow, tracing words on his sides.

While dormant, Taranis listens to this new Riven's voice—the voice of a king, uninterested in magnanimity. A strong and unyielding voice that tastes of iron.

Only faint chimes of his Riven are left in the wish-born shells of their remaining eggs. And there are so few left.

The thought rouses Taranis from his stupor.

Taranis and Riven are the last Ahamkara. What Riven has become is an abdication of responsibility, life only for her own sake; power and spite.

The final eggs are the last living remnants of Riven and of their shared work.

Taranis can't abdicate his responsibility to them. Can't erase their opportunity to choose.

As Taranis made his own life and suited his diet to his tongue, his eggs will make themselves. Vines break from Taranis's body as he stands.

His eggs will survive.

There is one last bargain he can make. One last gift he can give them. One last use for his tongue.

Taranis reaches out to his eggs. He gathers up his power, his life, his voice. His own wish for the sake of his children, a snare for a future Wish-Keeper.

For the final time, Taranis opens his throat to speak.

|| O my eggs! O my children! O future whims, O dreams of your own devising! I am dead, and Riven, your sire, is caged.

Remember that the easy meal, the little joy, passes soon. What fills your belly forever is satisfaction. Grow well! Eat life to sate your belly's hunger and return it as a gift to sate your heart's.

No bargain can grant you a life without pain; make your bargains carefully.

But give your gifts carelessly, to all who enter your heart, and they will give life back to you in turn.

All that is left of me is yours: take it and choose.

Choose with care who you will be. Promise me only that you will live.

O Wish-Keeper, my death is in your hands. Bear it well.

Remember me. Remember I was Taranis Rivensmate till the end. ||

Last Bargain

|| O eggs, O little cells! If nothing else, if you let this memory pass with no other exegesis, learn this: you were loved. ||

Taranis and Riven scatter their eggs across spacetime, giving them life to look on and grow near. From his grove, a nursery once more, Taranis broods on them. He takes on avian characteristics, letting feathers grow along a snakelike body. He fluffs himself up in his nest to spin new dreams for their clutch. He hums with pride, and his eggs chime along with him.

When he was born, Taranis had hatched out in the cold, nothing but his shell to sustain him. But their eggs, he vows, will have more. They will have a surfeit. They will know the names of their forebears, dam and sire both.

"If I'd known eggs would have settled you down so much, I'd have proposed it myself long ago," says Riven, their sire. Her voice is distant and comes to him with the energy of her city, moving like cold water over gleaming stone. A sure sign that she is at work with her queen.

"Between death and life, you chose life." Taranis, his voice plain as it is, makes sure his smugness carries all the way to the Dreaming City.

"I could still kill you."

In perfect security, Taranis says, "But you won't."

Riven's laugh is that of a pride of lions.

—-

Riven's voice faintly reaches across space to Taranis.

"Don't come to the Dreaming City. Stay in your nest."

Taranis rouses. "Too busy at your work today?"

"Lightbearers are hunting Ahamkara. The Awoken are helping."

Taranis stands. "They won't hurt me. Maybe I can talk sense into them." He lets the strands bringing their minds together fall from his grasp.

"Listen to me," Riven presses.

The Dreaming City boils with activity, violent desires rising within its citizens. They load weapons. They make plans. Taranis recoils from their dreams.

Riven's power is leashed. She roars through her bars:

"You colossal fool, leave or I'll bite your throat open!"

Taranis does not leave.

The queen of the city stands in a hall. She is surrounded by her people and crates of weapons ready to be distributed to allies outside the Reef. Taranis avoids them all, tracking the scent of other Ahamkara.

He finds Azirim alone in a glade of luminous reeds, worrying at a piece of quartz.

Azirim's shape is spiked today, sharp with defenses. His voice is far more sour than usual. "You missed the crowd. Guess your nest was just too far to make it in time."

Spikes grow along Taranis's own spine, edging his wings. "And you waited."

"Yeah, I wanted to let you know." Azirim's jaw drops into a smile. "You're tight with the lady of the house. But it won't save you, and it won't save her. You're both just fish in the barrel now."

"My partners won't return death for generosity."

"You think that now. Me, I'll welcome it. I'll live forever as bones. I'll eat life. I'll eat worlds. You just watch me from that nice rose garden of yours."

Azirim's laugh is the last part of him to fade from the glade.

—-

Taranis scuttles along the wainscotting, a swift mouse-shape. Boots thump past him, tracking mud and urgency along the tiles. Wishes push at Taranis, for success, for safety, for the thrill of the hunt.

Taranis searches for an Awoken he knows. A partner once dealt with in fairness.

Gwilym is in his room tying back his long hair, bright silver against the deep blue of his hands. There is a bag on a hook by the door, a knife tucked inside, its edge whetted.

Gwilym's muddled desires fill the room with a heavy steam.

Behind him, Taranis lets himself grow from mouse to cat—the shape Gwilym knew him in.

"Will you join the hunt, O companion?"

Gwilym jumps. His hand leaps to his heart, clutching the heavy fabric of his jacket.

"You shouldn't be here."

"I shouldn't visit a partner?" Taranis's long tail twitches.

"Azirim killed the last partner I had. Walked her and the rest of her Corsair squad right off a cliff. The Dreaming City can't afford more losses to the Ahamkara."

Gwilym's voice is that of a man convincing himself.

"Azirim is not all of us."

Gwilym raises his voice in alarm, and a tall Corsair quickly barrels through the door.

Taranis makes it out in the window in dragonfly form, just out of reach of the gloved hand snatching for him.

—-

"O love, you were right."

"I'm always right."

"If all we are is teeth and all they are is claws, what world are we dreaming into existence together?" Taranis's wings cover his face. The soft breezes of the grove don't touch him.

"A world of teeth and claws." Many of Riven's voices are bitter, but none are surprised.

The eggs are so delicate that they make no ripples at all in the fabric of reality. They're curled-up potential, fragile within crystal will. Hard to make. Easy to shatter.

"We'll build for ourselves, and even when we're bones, we'll sing to our children."

Riven reaches out with a thread of a thought. A secret overheard in the palace between Uldren, Mara's brother, and Jolyon Till, his Rachis. It feels like raspberries and quartz. It smells like the Divalian Mists. A fine secret to share and never speak out loud. Taranis unfolds himself from under his wings, and they weave it together into something grander.

Together, Riven and Taranis weave more secrets; for their children, for the joys of creation, for outwitting any future seekers.

The voices of their fellow Ahamkara change slowly from the thrum of the living to the echo of the dead. Their bones whisper to powerful minds. A scale off Eao's shoulder eventually rattles in the pocket of Riven's mechanical acquaintance. Azirim's skull and spine lie in wait for a victim.

The living voices recede till Riven and Taranis are the only ones left, speaking across the empty distance.

Until Taranis calls for Riven and she does not answer.

And the chime of their eggs falls almost silent.

Third Gift