plumnovel 64. Relationships
64. Relationships
"Castaliaaaaaa!" I call out as I drag Thea back into the kitchen. "Hey! Go shopping with us!" "Okay," Castalia agrees.
"See?" I say, turning to Thea. "It's that easy."
"B-b-but Castalia!" Thea whines, hiding behind me.
"Castalia I press, poking her cheek.
"Buh!" Thea says miserably, looking up at me with her huge, wet eyes. I press my finger into her cheek harder and move it back and forth, squishing her adorable face around like dough.
"She's not scary, Thea," I insist.
"She can disintegrate me with her brain!" Thea protests.
"So what?" Almost everyone you know can disintegrate people with their brain," I point out. "It's not like she's actually going to it."
"That's true," Castalia confirms, floating a little closer.
"See? It's true!" I repeat. "Thank you, Castalia!"
"I placed a lot of trust in you, Thea," Castalia continues. "You repaid that trust by helping someone very important to me, so I hold none of your past against you. So long as you continue showing yourself worthy of that trust, you have nothing to fear from me."
Somewhat predictably, that doesn't make Thea feel any better, instead eliciting more squeaky otter noises. I'm not entirely sure she knows she's even making them, because I'm pretty sure she'd be blushing if she did. Castalia's eyes widen at the sound, Thea's overwhelming adorableness providing a slight boost to her power.
Yesssss. My plan is already working! Muahahaha! I mean, we're maybe lying to Castalia a about the whole 'not having a master thing' and she might be immeasurably pissed off if she figures that out, but it's If we just get Thea and Castalia to be good enough friends before the secret slips, we can just trust her with that secret of our own accord, and she'll help us! It'll all work out.
Just keep telling yourself that, Luna. It'll all work out.
"Alright! You coming with us, Su-san?" I ask.
"No," Amaterasu denies flatly.
"Suit yourself!" I say, having not actually cared that much about her attendance. "Let's go then, ladies!"
"W-wait! Shouldn't you put your skinsuit back on?" Thea asks.
I guess I should put my skinsuit back on. No, wait, it's a question!
"I can if you want?" I offer. "I'm comfy either way."
"I don't really want to draw attention to us…" Thea says.
She doesn't want to draw attention to us.
"Skinsuit it is," I agree. "I assume you're going in incarnate form, then? Assuming you have sunglasses and an alternate outfit to put on it. The witch getup is hot as fuck, but it's definitely not subtle."
"Whbuh!?" she exclaims, her cheeks turning brown. Hehehehe. "I… I don't know if my other clothes will fit…? They all have huge holes cut in the pants for my tail!"
"Hmm, I see your point," I nod. "I certainly wouldn't complain, but it might be a little embarrassing to show all of Costco your butt."
"L-Luna!" Thea whines. "Quit teasing me!"
Ah. Uh.
"…Sorry, do you really want me to stop?" I ask. "I can if you're really upset."
That's the most natural way to say 'master, please don't make me do that,' right? Yeah. Thea's got a bad poker face, but that should be gentle enough to work. Her eyes widen a bit, and her fear spikes a little, but she gets the message well enough.
"O-oh, no, I… sorry, I'm just… flustered," she stammers.
"Well, yeah," I say. "That's the point of teasing you."
She whines again, and I manage to relax a little. Crisis averted. It would have been a true tragedy to be denied one of my life's greatest pleasures: getting Thea to make funny noises.
"I'll just… go change, then," Thea mumbles, scurrying back to her room.
Castalia turns to me, a tiny amount of concern managing to touch her expression.
"I'm not intimidating, am I?" she asks.
Haha. What?
"…Castalia, you're the most powerful person on the entire planet," I remind her.
"No, that's probably Melpomene now," Castalia corrects me.
"Well she's not on the planet, she's in the Dark World," I correct her right back. "But either way, you are very intimidating. At least to most people."
"But not to you?" she asks.
"Pfft, you already know the answer to that!" I tell her, opening up some of my plates so she can feel my current lack of fear. "I know too many of your weaknesses to ever be afraid of you."
"My… weaknesses?"
"Her Amaterasu also butts in, seemingly very intent on judging me as a threat again. Oh my god, girl, chill out. I only cut your legs off like, one time.
"Yeah, you know, like spicy food, horror movies, social interactions, and Mario Kart," I say, listing them off on my fingers one by one.
"I am not bad at Mario Kart," Castalia protests. "You are just…"
She trails off, her mouth opening in shock as she puts two and two together.
"You cheated at Mario Kart!" she accuses.
"Whaaaat? Naahh," I wave her off. "I mean, does it really count as cheating to just play the game at my best?"
Castalia hovers indignantly, her stub arm wiggling slightly in my direction as she tries to figure out how to baselessly accuse me of yet more evil.
"I should go put my skinsuit on," I say, politely excusing myself from the situation. "I can't make a smug expression like this, and for entirely unrelated reasons that's really cramping my style right now."
Amaterasu snorts with something that might be amusement, no longer paying attention to me as I depart. Castalia is left behind, scandalized and betrayed, after learning my darkest secret yet: being a robot makes me unfairly good at video games. Oh! We should play Mario Kart with Amaterasu! Hell, and the kids, too… although, that's five people. Six if we include Thea. That's more than can play on one console. Maybe I can emulate multiple instances of the game on my own hardware, wirelessly connect to everyone's controllers, and effectively host a jury-rigged LAN party? That sounds fun. I'm gonna figure that out.
I make it to Thea's room, knocking on the door to announce myself.
"You decent in there?" I ask.
"U-um… kind of?"
Well. I don't know what that means.
"May I… come in?" I try.
"S-sure."
Hmm. Considering those responses, I make sure to slip inside very carefully, not opening the door any more than necessary, because sure enough, Thea's just in her underwear. And her incarnate form, meaning the several pairs of tail-hole overalls she has strewn out around her room are not going to be very useful for covering up that underwear at all. She's sitting on her bed (her bed, not the pile of blankets she sleeps in), staring miserably at all the useless clothes she's strewn out around the floor. She looks… overwhelmed.
I've seen Thea in a state of undress a few times now, but I think this is the first time I've seen this much skin on her incarnate form. Rather than the pretty light green of her physical body's skin, she's pale as a sheet, so much so that it's almost as obviously inhuman as her natural hue. The black sclera of both her eyes doesn't help that impression either, but I suppose she doesn't have crystals growing out of her body, a thick tail tipped with a big sharp green diamond, or adorable otter feet too tiny to fit in any shoes.
Hmm. Hold on a moment, actually.
"Do you… own any shoes or socks?" I ask.
She freezes, and then drops her face into her hands with a groan.
"Noooo," she admits. "Ugh, I didn't even think of that! Stupid, stupid,
"Hey, hey, it's fine," I assure her. "I'm sure someone here will have shoes close to your size."
"I don't even know what my shoe size Thea complains. "I haven't needed to know that for seven years!"
Seven? I thought she was only in the Dark World for six yea… oh. Right. The eight months I was a pile of scrap. Forgot about that again.
"Can you just… summon different incarnate clothing?" I venture. "The underwear you're wearing right now isn't real, right?"
"It's definitely Thea protests. "But it is… conjured, yes. Right. That could work, that's a good idea. I just need to figure out how to… do it. Um…"
She grabs the giant tome of twisted flesh lying next to her on the bed (you know, the one everybody just keeps nearby) and starts flipping through its tattered pages.
"Say, how come your incarnate weapon is always around?" I ask. "You never unsummon your tome like everyone else does with their weapons. I've only seen you turn it invisible."
"Oh, uh… it's a real book," Thea answers. "At least partly. The parts of it that I actually write on aren't made of conjured matter, because that would automatically 'repair' itself blank while not summoned."
"Nnnneat," I say. "You write down spells? I thought you magical girls just cast with vibes."
"It's still mostly that," Thea admits, "but I've done my best to examine and copy down spell circles, and even if I don't understand them, having the spells written down helps speed up my casting. I'm figuring out a little more about how magic actually works. I wonder if there are any major differences between Antipathy and Preserver magical theory…"
"There aren't," I say simply. "I think the evidence currently suggests that the Preservers taught the Antipathy everything they knew about magic. Their system for understanding it was copied wholesale."
"Yeah, that checks out," Thea sighs. "Explains why the Preservers refuse to teach anyone anything."
"Yeah, probably," I allow. "So about those shoes, then…"
"I-I'm working on it!" she protests. "I'm not actually sure how conjuring incarnate materials works, okay? If I could control this stuff I'd look a lot more normal than Honestly, I probably shouldn't even go…"
"None of that. I'll get you some shoes to borrow," I say. "And I can probably sew up one of your sets of pants for you."
"Y-you don't have to do that," she insists.
I mean, I do if I want you to come with me! I'm not just letting you give up and rot away in here until the end of time. That wouldn't be good for you at all!
"It's fine," I say out loud. "You don't need to worry about it, Thea."
Because the more you worry about me, the worse I feel. God, this is so from being Melpomene's slave. I was actively fighting her as hard as I could, after all, and part of her whole deal is that she wanted to hate me. She didn't care if I suffered at all. But Thea cares and I know if she understood the full extent of what her being my master does to me, it would her.
So I can't let that happen, can I? She can know, she would to know, but only up to a point. The constant details and intrusive thoughts can be something only I need to worry about.
I collect my skinsuit, putting it on and pointedly saying nothing while Thea pretends to not be watching me put my clothes on afterwards. It's only fair, really, given her current state of dress. Plus, y'know, she built it. She's earned the right to admire it, and I don't particularly mind being admired. Once I'm decent enough to be in public, though, I quickly calculate the exact dimensions of Thea's feet and set off to find her the pair of shoes least likely to hurt her. After doing similar calculations with the rest of the Earth Guardians…
Huh.
Thea's feet are almost exactly the same size as Even when they're humanoid, her feet are freaking
"Hey, Su-san?" I ask, tracking her down and finding her in a hallway. "Do you think Veritas would be mad if I stole her shoes?"
"…What?"
"Thea doesn't have any shoes," I explain. "Or socks. Veritas and her have the same shoe size. I want to take her shopping for some, but you kinda need shoes to go shopping for shoes since most stores disallow barefoot shoppers for complicated legal liability reasons."
"Uh… I'm not sure what isn't clear about that," I admit. "I mean, besides the legal liability stuff, but that's kind of a minor point."
"Thea… does not own any shoes?" Amaterasu asks, scrunching her eyebrows together.
"Wh… Su, she has webbed paws. Do have any shoes that would fit paws?"
"Su- please," she says sharply.
"Awww, but can't we be close friends, though?" I ask, sidling up next to her and batting my eyelashes. "You can just call me Luna. I don't mind if you drop the honorific."
She seems somewhat taken off guard by that, but I suspect it has more to do with me actually having a vague understanding of what Japanese honorifics than my transparent attempt to ingratiate myself with her. Alas, it seems my suspicion was correct: most magical girls don't watch anime. Or perhaps even worse, they and they watch—oh, I can barely bring myself to think it—the The horror of the idea! Yet another thing I will need to fix around here.
"Stop," Amaterasu commands, but she's not my master so "Please just call me Su-san. As for Veritas, she probably mind if you took some of her things… but I doubt she would notice if you brought them back before tonight. I believe her temporary guardian purchased her more clothing, so she likely has her old shoes somewhere in the base."
Huh! Well, that's actually a very polite and reasonable response. I guess I should cut down on the teasing. For now.
"That's great to know. Thanks, Su-san," I nod. "Are you sure you don't want to come with us? I'd be happy to buy you some things."
"It is fine, Luna-san."
"Well if you don't ask for anything, I'm just gonna get you whatever I think you might like," I tell her. "You live here, right? How do you survive with so little food?"
"There is enough to sustain ourselves on," Amaterasu dismisses. "…Also, Aurora invites me over to eat somewhat frequently. I lived with her family for a little while after your Dark Rebellion destroyed the base. They are kind people."
"Hey, I've gotta protest that 'your' Dark Rebellion business. I don't like those people," I say. "Except for Thea, but like, she joined them when she was twelve. It's not really her fault."
"Of course it was," Amaterasu scowls. "Children are still Luna-san. They are responsible for their own decisions."
"Sure, but they're leniency for things they are ignorant about," I counter. "Children are still learning and growing. They're ignorant about a lot of things, and they're easy to mislead or manipulate."
If Su-san was still in her incarnate form, I just those wolf ears of hers would be flat against the back of her head in irritation.
"If this is just another one of your bits of nonsense about the Preservers manipulating—"
"I'm talking about I say, cutting her off. "When they left, Thea was twelve, but Melpomene was not to mention a member of the team that just saved the world. Of course Thea trusted her. How could she feel any other way? If you asked the girls on your team to follow you in a situation like that, wouldn't
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"No," Amaterasu growls. "But I see your point. They certainly would have followed into the Dark World."
Oh, ouch.
"…Sorry, Su-san," I tell her sympathetically. "They're probably still mourning."
"Eight months is a long time for mourning," Amaterasu counters. "Or at the very least, long enough that I cannot attribute our lack of cohesion to it alone. I am deficient as their… no. Forgive me, I should not be speaking of this to a near stranger. Enjoy your shopping trip. Veritas' room is down the hall to the right."
I already knew that, but I give her a nod of thanks anyway. Poor Earth Guardians. They all need so much care that they aren't getting. I really have my work cut out for me on this.
I also can't really get a read on Amaterasu. It's pretty clear that she doesn't like me, but she's being much less of a jerk about it than I expected. And it's not as though any of her reasons for not liking me aren't justified! I beat her up a whole bunch. I was worried we wouldn't be able to move past that, but she seems to be giving me a fair shot, if nothing else. I think she has a lot on her mind.
"Have you been… enjoying living in America at all?" I venture.
"The Earth Guardian base here is identical to the one back home," she says. "All the way down to the layout of the rooms. is where I have been living."
"…Ah," I wince.
"It… has been nice getting skilled with English, however," she says. "The others will be jealous when I return home."
"Well! That's fun, at least," I rally. "And hey, really, if you think of anything you want me to pick up for you while I'm out, just send me a text or something, okay?"
"I… do not have your phone number," she says.
"Yes you do," I wink at her. "Just check your contacts."
She frowns.
"That is creepy."
"What!? No! It's cool!" I protest, pouting as I turn away. I've got some shoes to steal, after all. Or, well, borrow.
It's not difficult to find Veritas' room, nor locate her… honestly kind of ratty shoes. They're pretty cheap sneakers, worn down to hell and back. I suspect her family wasn't very rich before they left her an orphan; hopefully this 'Mrs. Mckay' person is helping out. Ugh. I should do a social media search for her and see if she's a creep or something. Something tells me that if I don't keep the Guardians safe—at least from everything than extradimensional monsters—no one else will.
I make my way back to Thea's room, knocking and carefully letting myself in to find her curled up miserably on her bed. Oh no, that's bad.
"Hey, Thea! I found some shoes and socks that'll fit you!" I call out softly. "Have you picked which outfit you want me to fix up?"
"This is such a bad idea," she groans.
"I think you're just a little depressed and overwhelmed," I say. "Some good food and time in the sun will help with that, alright? Just leave it to me!"
She doesn't answer, but I go ahead and pick out one of her pairs of pants for her, quickly figuring out how to make a magical needle and tracking down some spare cloth from which I can fashion some thread. About five minutes later, I have the tail hole sewn shut. I toss the article of clothing at Thea, quickly followed by a shirt, and direct her to get everything on, finishing with the shoes and socks. When Thea gets to the shoes, though, she stops.
"Are… are we sure this is a good idea?" she asks. "I'm probably going to get found out. Sunglasses can't really hide my eyes well."
"It's fine if you get found out, though?" I say. "We'll be with Castalia. Everyone will just assume you're one of the good guys. Because you are! Or, well, you're a good anyway."
She blushes a little, though she feels more embarrassed than flustered. Hmm.
"I… I dunno, I just… I don't think…" she protests incoherently.
I'm not having it, though. This will be We both know that.
"What's the real problem here, Thea?" I ask. "It's not like you to turn down a visit outside."
"I… she blurts. "I n-never learned how."
Oh, honey. How young she when she became a Guardian?
"Well, that's not a big issue," I assure her. "I'll tie them for you today, and I'll teach you how once you have your own pair, okay?"
"O-okay."
With Thea fully dressed, it's finally time to get out of this stuffy white underground lair and do some shopping! Holding her hand as I pull her out of her room, I quickly track down Castalia with my sensors and head her way. She seems rather surprised when she spots Thea's incarnate form in plainclothes, though not enough to affect her expression. Even without magic empathy, I'd be able to tell from the way she rises slightly higher off the ground and very mildly straightens her back.
"Hello," is all she says, though.
"Hey!" I greet Castalia back. "Ready?"
"Yes."
Off we go, then! We take the teleporter back to town, and I plot us a route. Thea says she'd rather walk than fly, so that's what we do, taking our time to appreciate the fresh air as we wander through town toward our destination. People stare our way rather frequently, though, and Thea tries to hide behind me almost every time despite the fact that they're definitely all staring at Castalia, not us.
"Come on, Thea, what are you even scared of?" I ask, poking her cheek. Not even her incarnate form can make her less delightfully squishy.
"I don't know! Nothing? Everything?" she admits. "I'm afraid people are gonna figure out I'm not human!"
"Why… would that be bad, exactly?" I ask. "It's not like they can do anything about it."
"I'm not worried they'll me!" Thea protests. "I'm just worried they won't like me."
Oh. Well. I'm much more used to being worried people will attack me, so I'm not entirely sure I can relate.
"If people decide they don't like you because you're strong and cute and have adorable paws, I don't know what to tell you other than the fact that their opinions are obviously awful and don't matter."
"I was more worried about the fact that I used to be a member of the Dark Rebellion and we killed a bunch of people at your school," Thea insists, though my comments do earn me another blush. Hehehe. But also: crap, that's actually a good point.
"…You in incarnate form for the big fight," I hum. "And the big fight was recorded by some idiot who should have run away. Still, it's not like anyone will be able to recognize your face from that. The footage wasn't the best."
"They'll probably put two and two together if they see my eyes," she whimpers.
"Well that's what the sunglasses are for," I remind her. "No one is going to bother to look close, especially not when Castalia is here to stare at. Who wouldn't want to do that?"
"Perhaps more importantly, if anyone have an issue with your past, it is not necessarily something to fear," Castalia says. "You have changed. You have learned. You are not the same person anymore. Your shame may be warranted, but it can also be moved past."
"I'm a green mage," Thea mumbles. "I'm not to move past my fears."
Castalia wrinkles her nose.
"…That's wrong," she says, but the conversation doesn't continue further.
We do eventually make it to our destination. One of the unsung advantages of keeping your pants in extradimensional storage is that when your body gets obliterated by magical death lasers, you don't lose your wallet. Nanaya hasn't bothered to cancel my Costco annual membership that she already paid for, so they let us in with a simple flash of my ID, and then we're set loose upon the warehouse.
"Woah…" Thea says softly. "This place is
"Says the girl that lived in a castle," I smirk at her. Though… I still have my usual facemask on, so she probably can't see it. My mask isn't even weird anymore, though! Almost everyone is wearing one, and a couple people give us annoyed looks because Thea and Castalia aren't. I guess most people don't know magical girls are effectively immune to disease. Still, I glance around and find some complimentary disposable masks, getting one for each of my companions and instructing them to put it on.
It's kind of wild to think about the fact that there's a right now. Like… geez. I thought stuff like the black death was well in our past, but I guess not! It's the kind of thing that probably would have had me constantly freaking out about it before I became, you know, a It's kind of not really an issue for me personally, but I'm still really worried about my more mortal friends. They be fine, given their age bracket, but still!
"The castle isn't one single room!" Thea protests. "Look at all this stuff! Look at all these
"Ehehehe. You've been to the mall before, right?" I prod her.
"Well, yeah, but only briefly and only while trying to stop Anath from committing suicide by Casta…lia. Haha. Um. Not that you would do that."
Thea glances hesitantly toward Castalia. Castalia says nothing. Thea's power rises.
"So!" I say, getting one arm around the shoulders of each of my companions. "I figure we'll do clothes first, and then food. I don't know if things can spoil while in my extradimensional storage, but that's a test we can perform another time! Castalia, how are you on the tank-tops-and-short-shorts front? Ever think about switching things up and wearing a skirt?"
"While it seems relatively standard practice for Earth Guardians to wear skirts despite our propensity for flight, I have personally never found it comfortable," Castalia answers.
"Ah, but you see, we're in the magical land of Costco, and that means all the skirts they sell here are secretly just skorts."
"What is a… 'skort?'" Castalia asks.
"It's a skirt on the outside but shorts on the inside," I explain. "All the fun of swishy swooshy with none of the risk of perverts! It's truly a perfect creation."
"Hmm. I will try one of these 'skorts.'"
"Eeeeexcellent. What about you, Thea, wanna show off them gams?"
"Show off… what?" she asks.
"Your legs! You have great legs, but you're always hiding them in those baggy overalls."
"W-what are you talking about?" Thea protests. "My legs are super weird!"
"Thea, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret," I say, pulling her in a little closer. "I'm not sure if you know this about me, but most people would probably describe everything about me as 'super weird.' But that's the thing. I weird stuff. I like weird people. And I your weird legs. I don't think you should feel like you have to hide them. So what if we… don't?"
Thea makes another squeak of protest, blushing furiously as she pulls herself out of my grasp.
"What is you today!?" she whines. "You've never acted like this before!"
"Well yeah, I was enslaved to a crazy lady before. And now I'm not! It's still only just now sinking in how massively my life has just improved overnight. Well, overnight from my perspective, anyway. But look at me now! I get to hang out with two of my favorite people in the whole world, and no dumb purple monarchist or her creepy obsessions can prevent me from flirting with either of them!"
"Oh. That's useful confirmation," Castalia says quietly.
"Luna, are you blueburning!?" Thea demands.
That's… actually a good question. Let me see here. Hmm.
"…Kind of," I conclude. "My crystals are still blue-aligned, and I'm just not very sad right now? So basically all of my negative emotions are being thrown into my reserves. I guess it's throwing my robot equivalent of hormones out of whack. I should probably realign northward."
"Yeah, we don't want you to run out of power," Thea agrees. "Or have a manic episode. I don't think I could handle you having a full-on manic episode."
"I mean, probably, but I don't want to do it I groan. One of the big advantages of being a robot is that I'm supposed to have anxiety attacks in the middle of Costco anymore!
"Could I have the current situation explained to me, please?" Castalia asks.
"Oh, um, Luna can make herself run on happiness instead of sadness, but in order to do it she has to spend a minute or two using up all of her happiness and not being able to feel any of it," Thea summarizes. "She'll basically just be a yellow mage afterwards, anyhow, and it's looking like that will probably be best for her."
"You're just mad because the years of anxiety and social isolation have left you without any of the tools necessary to know how to accept genuine compliments," I pout.
"…She does seem to be a little more energetic than usual," Castalia hums. "If this is best for you, Luna, you should probably get it out of the way."
"And we're both gonna be with you the whole time, so no need to worry too much about anything bad happening, okay?"
"Ugh. I give in. "Come on then, let's go find a free sample cart. If I'm going to have a complete emotional breakdown, it may as well be with the assistance of extremely bad organic smoothies."
"Will that… help?" Castalia asks.
"No," I say. "It's a I'm being It's more that proximity to an undeserving retail worker will help encourage me to not say anything too overwhelmingly stupid. Now then… where all the free samples?"
I can't see a single one. I track down a store employee and ask them.
"We've temporarily stopped offering those due to Covid."
"Oh," I say. "Well, you know what? This works great too."
"Pardon?"
Northward emotional intensity at 186% of threshold. Crystal realignment is available.
Hella. Pop it.
Initiating cardinal reoptimization: one hundred and eighty degrees. Condensing available energy…
In response to the comprehensive dump of all of my positive emotions, my skinsuit automatically reacts by beginning to cry. Pretty much my whole tear reserve is being dumped on this. It's a worthy cause, I suppose. I feel like absolute shit all of a sudden.
"Ma'am?" the Costco employee asks, a bit of panic starting to form on their face.
"Oh my gosh. S-sorry! Come on, Luna, let's go… this way."
I knew it. I'm already causing problems. This is such a stupid idea. Sure, I might be happy right now, but that never lasts. It's just like when I first started living with Castalia: things might be good for a while, but magitech alien torture prisons have a way of ruining everything eventually. Go figure, am I right?
"Hey! Luna, let's focus externally. Maybe talk about something?"
That's definitely a bad idea. There are too many things I'm not allowed to talk about. Speaking of, am I I've been spending all day flirting with Thea, but what the hell am I going to do if she actually starts to reciprocate? Sure, I like her. If not for the current circumstances, I'd probably want to date her. But due to the current circumstances, if she decides she wants to date me… I'll probably have to say yes. I could try to wiggle out of it, sure. Thea is someone who needs a lot of support, especially right now, so I have a decent bit of freedom when it comes to interpreting what's in her best interests, but Thea's best interests and what Thea are two different things. Ultimately, I'm beholden to the latter more than the former. Melpomene certainly made that very clear when she was in charge.
In some ways, though, it's worse with Thea. Because similarly, what my master wants me to do and what my master tells me to do are also two different things, and I am more beholden to the former than the latter. Thea may have said that she doesn't want to restrict my free will, but that is not necessarily a more important desire than any other thing she might happen to want from me. There's not a true tiering system; it's all just whatever I happen to believe is most important to her in the moment. I can only imagine the Antipathy who designed this thing didn't want to deal with a slave who tries to loophole out of every command like an evil genie, so I am first and foremost compelled to act in good faith toward what I genuinely think is my master's desire. And Thea, as I have recently mentioned, is a mess.
She might say that she wants my freedom, and she probably truly believes it, but what she also wants is someone close to her whom she can trust to tell her what to do. She's so used to living in an environment where the people around her dictated everything about her life, all the way down to when and what meals she ate, that she couldn't even pick an outfit to go outside in by herself. And in a vacuum? That's fine. I don't have any problems with that. God knows I've been in worse places in my life and needed someone's help to pull me out of it. So I want to be that person for Thea, because I care about her.
Right?
That's the question. That will always be the question, until I'm truly free. If I was free, I would probably be spending most of my time helping Thea, so how much weight does her desire to let me act on my own free will truly hold? How much am I justifying my actions to the Cage, and how much is the Cage justifying my actions to me? Do I want to do this, or do I to do this? I don't know. I don't know I don't know I don't know
And now that I'm not burning all of my blue, I'm going to keep asking myself that question over and over again. Genius move, Luna. Way to take advantage of how happy you were.
"Luna," Castalia says, setting her stub gently on my shoulder.
Were I in any other situation, that simple touch would probably be enough to make my heart soar. And certainly, I can see the numbers in the back of my head rise. But I can't feel it. Not figuratively or even if we're being pedantic. The data I receive from my contact sensors is just pretending to feel like something after passing through my bioemulator. None of this skin is really me. I'm barely qualified to be Luna's ghost.
"You'll be okay, Luna. It'll be over soon," Thea reassures me.
That's the thing about emotions though, isn't it? Even if I know why I feel like this, even if I know it's irrational and artificially induced and probably a bunch of thoughts I won't agree with once it's over, those thoughts, truly my entire soul, do not exist without those emotions. Emotions are the only objectively real part about me. If the person I am right now is going to stop feeling the way I do once this is over, does that mean I've functionally died? Am I about to be killed off and replaced by a Luna that everyone else thinks is much more rational, reasonable, and 'real?' I suppose that's not the worst thing in the world. I've certainly contemplated killing myself plenty of times without knowing if there will be a me afterward.
That one felt harsh, even for a yellowburn.
Cardinal reoptimization complete. Returning to manual emotion burn.
Ah, that would explain it. Even though it's entirely performative, I take a deep gasp of air the moment my body can feel happiness again, my whiplashed mental state rapidly attempting to restore my sanity. I hate doing that.
"Luna, are you okay?" Castalia asks, staring at me very closely.
"Oh, yeah," I huff. "I only thought about suicide once right at the end, and like not even in a way that would require intervention, so I think that's pretty good as far as these things go."
Castalia makes a low noise of distress and disapproval.
"Luna, don't say that," Thea orders unintentionally, but it still caused her obvious distress, so that counts as a real one.
"Sorry, sorry," I wave them both off. "That was just dark humor, I really am fine. Promise."
"If you're sure…"
Sure, I'll be sure. Just for you. I don't want to hurt you, Thea. But more importantly, you don't want me to hurt you either.
The shopping trip continues from there, and perhaps predictably my urge to flirt with the two hottest girls in the world wanes slightly. It's not the sort of thing I can be reckless about just because I want to be. Plus, y'know, I like Castalia Thea. I'm not some kind of soap-opera church girl who believes that to be an unsolvable contradiction or anything, I'd poly their cules any day of the week. But just because down for a relationship where we all date each other in a big happy girl pile doesn't mean either of are. It is not a question that has ever come up before, and monogamy is the cultural default for a reason.
…Okay, so purely based on the way she talks about her old team, I'm Castalia wouldn't have any problems with it, but did not know what the word even meant, and come to think of it, might still not know because when she asked me about it I mostly just turned it into a joke at Melpomene's expense. Which on one hand I will never regret entirely on principle, but on the other hand what the heck, past me, you had a perfect opportunity and you dropped the ball.
So. Slightly flirtatious friendship will be our baseline standard going forward. No need to rush into dangerous waters, especially not in a situation as precarious as mine. For now, we focus on shopping. Whenever we find something that someone seems interested in, I squirrel it away in extradimensional space with a quick incantation and move on to the next area. Food, clothes, and various hygiene necessities all vanish into thin air as we wander through the massive store, possibly causing deep concern to anyone watching the security cameras.
Fortunately, Castalia is completely above the law, and everyone knows it, and if we just walked out here without paying I doubt anyone would stop us. I'm a literal millionaire, so I may as well pay. Plus it means I get to do this.
"Hey," I say to the cashier.
"Um, hello," she says, trying and failing to not stare at Castalia.
Don't worry ma'am, I can help with that.
"Check this shit out," I say, and then instantly fill her entire conveyor line with all the stuff I nabbed, causing a loud popping sound.
"Huh!?" she yelps, jumping back a little.
"Our total is three hundred eighty-four dollars and twenty-six cents, by the way," I tell her. "But if you gotta scan it all up anyway for inventory reasons, I understand."
"Luna… be nice," Thea sighs.
"I am being nice!" I insist.
"Will you be needing any boxes for these…?" the cashier asks as she starts scanning things through.
"I am being very nice, even though my audience has not been paying attention," I pout. "No, we're good on boxes, I'm just gonna make it all magically disappear again."
"Are… all three of you Earth Guardians?" the cashier asks, a bit of wonder creeping into her voice.
Thea and I share a look.
"Uh… yeah, technically," Thea confirms. "I guess we are."
"Yep. That's us. The three most 'yeah, technically' Earth Guardians there are," I agree.
"It traditional to work in teams of three," Castalia hums. "And we have a support, a ranged specialist, a frontliner between the three of us…"
"Oh! Are… you okay with that, Castalia?" I ask.
"Yes," Castalia confirms, seeming wistful. "I think I am."
Gosh. Okay. Well… I almost feel bad for the next kaiju that shows up, in that case. That poor bastard isn't going to know what hit them. Though on the other hand, it only takes a glance at Castalia's scars to remember that kaiju aren't something you can get away with underestimating.
Still. A team. I can work with this.
It will do Thea a lot of good.