“So, are we adding another being to our group?” Lia asked me as I was sitting on a high branch in the darkness, simply enjoying the slight elevation and the clear view of the stars it allowed me. Luna must have told her about her suggestion to take Sasha with us, maybe hoping that Lia would help in convincing me to accept it, or maybe Lia had realised that the methodology Luna and I employed when dealing with Sasha was far from our usual experimental process. For one, we hadn’t tested anything truly invasive, hadn’t pushed Sasha in any serious way, hel, we had barely touched her soul at all, merely observing it due to the curious, if glacially slow, restoration process it was undergoing.
“Maybe,” I admitted, as I was still considering the idea, “The biggest problem I see is that she might slow us down, both in terms of travel speed and in terms of combat. She would be a liability if we are attacked, and that is assuming she doesn’t turn on us or take the opportunity to escape if we ever turn our back on her.”
“If she decides to escape, why not simply let her?” Lia asked in return, briefly throwing me for a loop. Somehow, my mind had defaulted to the assumption that if we took Sasha with us, we would have to make sure she wouldn’t escape, but, at the end of the day, why would we care too much about that?
If she escaped, it would be annoying. Getting such an interesting specimen had been quite a stroke of luck, but beyond that, why would I care? If we performed our usual experiments, it was almost certain that Sasha would, by now, be fundamentally altered to the point that we could only release her back into the wilds, or she would be dead. Going by past performance, being dead was the more likely option, as most of our initial experiments ended with the subject’s demise while we were trying to figure out what didn’t work.
“You may have a point,” I admitted, “But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to risk having Sasha try to kill us in our sleep. She’s somewhere between normal animal and sapient in intelligence, so who knows what’s going on in her head?”
“Just like you didn’t know what was going on in my head back when you put my shattered Soul back together? At least somewhat?” Lia asked, and by now, I could see where her mind was on the question of whether we should take Sasha with us or not.
“Apples and oranges,” I couldn’t stop a grin from forming on my face, “Sure, your Soul was largely shattered, just like Sasha’s was, but where Sasha’s Soul pulled itself together in some strange, natural way, yours was pulled together by myself. And, if you remember, I initially made sure that you knew to obey me, that you understood I was the one keeping you together,” I paused for a moment, not completely comfortable with how I had treated my daughter in the beginning, even if she hadn’t been my daughter at that point. Hindsight was strange; I knew why I had acted in that way back then; I knew why it had been necessary. But imagining anyone treating my dear daughter Carnelia that way felt utterly wrong and made me somewhat angry. Likely because the person subjected to the treatment had changed, she had stopped being the possibly unstable vampire Carnelia and had become my dear daughter. A curious process, though not one I truly understood.
“Mhm, you enjoyed having me kneel before you, didn’t you?” the smirk on Lia’s face gave away that she was poking fun at me, though I couldn’t help but flush just a little when remembering the original way in which I had fed her.
“Compared to the other options, I continue to believe it was a comparatively good one. Imagine if I had allowed you to feed in the same way you fed of Samantha,” I retorted, getting Lia to cringe in an incredibly amusing way.
“I think I’ll take the kneeling and submission, thanks,” she admitted, shaking her head in a vain attempt to get rid of the images. Sure, the images were only as disturbing due to the way our relationship had turned out, that she saw me as her mother, and I her as my daughter. Who knows what might have happened in another universe?
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“Back to Sasha,” Lia quickly changed the subject, likely still trying to get rid of the disturbing images I had put into her head. Or maybe she was still somewhat hurt from the way her relationship with Samantha had turned out, making me feel bad for reminding her of it, even if she had been back with us for over two weeks. But then, given that I was still utterly consumed with my relationship with Sigmir, despite it being over a year since her passing, I should have known better.
“Yeah, let’s discuss the possibility of her joining us,” I agreed, giving Lia’s shoulder a quick squeeze in support.
“Yeah, let’s,” she nodded, sounding a little bit relieved, “I’ll be honest, I see a bit of myself in her,” she then admitted, making me pause for a moment and consider what she meant. And, with a bit of thought, I could see it.
Lia had been on the way to becoming a complete Shattered. We had met just in time for me to change the process and alter her to become a Vampire. Sasha, on the other hand, had completely Shattered but, later, by some strange process we had yet to understand, turned into a Sasquatch. Sure, Sasha wasn’t the only Sasquatch, but she was the one we had right with us, so a bit of empathy between the not-quite-Shattered-turned-Vampire and the Shattered-turned-Sasquatch should be expected. As should be her desire to make Sasha into something beyond a somewhat simple beast, Lia could likely see her own fate in Sasha, a fate I had managed to break back then.
“I don’t think I can safely change her to become more like you,” I admitted, only to see Lia roll her eyes.
“Mom, not everything needs to be changed with your blood. Not everything in the world needs to be dragon-blooded,” she snarked, making me snort in response.
“But the world would be a much better place,” I replied, despite knowing just how insane the statement was. And how utterly false, I was well-aware that I had a few glaring deficiencies, especially concerning empathy and what most would call morals. A world filled with beings like me would either turn into an utterly streamlined and strict meritocracy, or maybe magocracy, or it would become an anarchic hell-hole until somebody managed to rise to the top and force that streamlined system into existence. Maybe Lia had a very good point.
“So, what do you have in mind?” I asked, simply ignoring my previous statement.
“I would like to see what she can become, what I might have become,” she admitted. Now, I felt a little strange, wondering if Lia felt resentment over the way she had turned out. Sure, given the circumstances at the time, her demise had been almost inevitable, but that didn’t stop the ‘what-if’ questions tumbling through one’s mind.
“Without outside interference?” I asked, wondering if I would remain limited to non-invasive experiments on Sasha.
“Eh, not necessarily,” Lia shook her head, “We are interfering anyway. You interfered when you saved Sasha’s life, and taking her with us will expose her to dangers she’d normally never encounter, as well as outside influence from your mere presence. The same for Luna, little sis can’t help herself but be a beacon for Lady Hecate’s influence on the world.”
“True, she’d most likely be more powerful than any Sasquatch in their community within weeks, just due to the few beasts we encounter on our travels,” I agreed, wondering how that would turn out. My understanding was that it was incredibly difficult for a stronger group to train up a weaker member, so how would things turn out in this case?
A curious question and one that made me realise I had effectively already made my decision. Sasha would join us, unless she decided to run away the moment I opened the door to the room she remained locked into. If she tried, I would have to reassess my decision, but for now, it was quite obvious that I would learn a lot more about the world if we took her with us. Even without invasive experiments, we would learn something.
Additionally, some careful and gradual changes to her Body, Mind and Soul would hopefully allow me to learn more about all three of those.
“I guess we’ll try to take our Sasquatch for a walk tomorrow. We still have to figure out if she even wants to come with us. If we have to drag her the whole way, it would be a serious annoyance,” I decided, letting out a small sigh at the possibility that this might all fail because the Sasquatch had a mind of her own. Only time would tell.
