Aria awoke in her own bed. Not her quarters in Citadel 4, but the bed in her parents' home in Arborhaven. It was…nice. Soft. The AC was running full tilt, and she'd been tucked into her duvet, just the way she liked it. It felt so strange, just being home. She was so different now, from the last time she'd slept here, but the bed was just the same. The smell of detergent in the freshly-washed pillowcases was the same one her father always used, and she sunk into them happily.

Sounds of conversation and laughter bubbled in from outside, alongside the lightly-fermented tang of dough frying on the griddle.

Aria's Presence extended out towards the kitchen, and a half second later promptly collapsed back in on itself, twitching and quivering like failing muscle, far from the leaden bulwark it had been for her before. It ached, so terribly that Aria thought she might cry. As it was, she simply groaned into her pillows, gently cycling her Radiance to soothe the pain.

Her Body wasn't faring much better. Mostly, it felt like the most comprehensive gym-soreness imaginable, except for her arm, which instead felt like one giant homogenous bruise. Evidently, letting herself be struck by lightning was not the safest play she could've made.

Still, sore wasn't the same thing as broken. Aria lazily rolled her ass out of bed, stumbling on jelly legs while leaning on the wall to stand, out of the door and into the main room of the house.

Stumbling limply across the surprisingly clean floor — not even a trace of the chunks of bone and gray matter she'd splattered there shortly before — she walked towards the dining table half-unconscious from the effort.

Seeing who was sitting there almost took her the rest of the way.

Like something out of a dream — which she felt fairly certain this wasn't, because there's no way she could've slept through dreaming of this much pain and discomfort — her parents sat happily around a table with her Martial Mother.

Volkova was no longer dressed in her robes of office — bar the amulet, which still hung in its usual place around her neck — having instead changed into something clearly quite a bit more casual, but nonetheless exotic, a set of floral pattern embroidered robes cut moreso for comfort than for officiousness or regality, conforming much closer to her body and accentuating the underlying forms for beauty rather than enlarging her presence.

Her parents had both changed into casual clothes as well, both wearing light, breathable Lynon shirts, with skirts made of some silken fabric she couldn't recognize at a glance, and she'd already learnt her lesson about engaging her Presence, in her current state.

Her weakness briefly forgotten, Aria stood up straight, bowing deeply. "Greetings, Martial Mother! And also normal mother. And father."

Evidently, rapid head movements were also off the table for today. The world ran circles around her, the floor rapidly approaching her face.

Hands of crimson light emerged from the ground, catching her fall and standing her back up on her feet long enough for her to manage to lean on a wall and stop her head from spinning.

"Good morning to you too, Normal Daughter," her mother laughed. She laughed. Aria felt like she was about to faint, until she heard her father concealing his laugh in a sip of tea. Any active effort felt like death, but that didn't mean she suddenly stopped having a cultivator's body, or the senses that came with.

Her eyes locked on his, narrowing, which may have looked more impressive if she wasn't struggling to keep herself standing. "What are you playing at, baba?"

He gently placed down his cup, smiling at her. "Nothing at all, Kiddo. Simply having a guest over for breakfast. Why don't you join us?"

Aria hadn't eaten anything in…too long, she decided not to think about it too much. She took a seat at the table, pouring herself a cup from the tea kettle that sat gently warming at the center of the table.

Her teacher placed a small packet of blank pink paper in front of her. "Medicine. Mix it in with the tea. It'll help with the Soul damage."

As uncomfortable as Aria was with basically everything about this situation — it felt as though two sides of her were colliding that had always remained separate and distinct — she wasn't stupid or bratty enough to turn down medicine, especially given her current state.

She tore open the little paper packet, and poured the powder contained within into her tea. It had a strong medicinal scent. Not unpleasant but, certainly not appealing. Yet as she brought the cup to her lips, she could feel the potent, refined Radiance contained within the powder. She wondered how that was possible, given the lack of a Will binding it in place, and made a note to research the subject when possible.

She placed the cup down on the table, very gently, and then placed her hands on the table, somewhat less gently. In her defense, now that she wasn't spending most of her energy at any given moment simply trying not to fall over, she had a fair bit more to put elsewhere. How was she supposed to know it would shake the whole table?

"Will someone, please explain to me what happened while I was asleep? Why are you two sitting here chumming it up with…with…" In spite of her best efforts, Aria failed to find a term that would adequately describe the magnitude of absurdity that was having Sir Volkova sitting at her table for breakfast.

"I really don't know what's so surprising about this to you, darling. It's not the first time we've had one of your teachers over, we always kept cordial relations with them."

"Most of my teachers never taught me how to kill people."

"I did," her father piped up, earning him her best attempt at a withering glare. And in all fairness, for most people it would've had them wilting on the spot. It's just, he knew she'd learned it from her mother, and she was much better at it.

"You know what I mean, baba. And Martial Mother, you are an Inner Disciple. I. The political implications alone, especially given mother's dealings with Dorian Merrick—"

"Are none of your problem, or your concern. Not for many years, at any rate." Volkova gave her a gentle push with her Presence. Aria remained enamoured with how articulate the woman could be with that thing — like watching fingers dance along the strings of a zither.

"Your sole concern at the moment," her father echoed, "is getting better. Laylah says you're out of commission for any sort of serious exertion for a week, maybe more."

"You are not going to tell me you are on a first fucking name basis with her — deepest apologies to both my present mothers for my vulgarity."

Volkova — Sir Laylah Volkova, Aria noted mentally — slid a small piece of fried flatbread with cream on top into her mouth, gripping it in the perfectly-unblemished fingers of a courtly lady. Aria fucking hated it, which she probably recognized given the babbling echoes she felt from the woman's Presence.

"Why do you keep doing that?"

"Doing what, Martial Mother?"

"That. You switch between these two wildly distinct registers, when you talk to me versus when you talk to your parents. Which one is the real you?"

"They are both the real me, Martial Mother."

"Well, look at how I'm dressed. Look at how you're dressed. Neither of us is representing the Monastery, yes? So let's stop talking like we're going to cause the Elders to lose face if we don't crush the egos of every other person sitting at this table, and let's eat."

Aria sighed. "Fine. But you don't get to scold me for insufficient deference."

"Well, in my defense," she popped another piece of bread into her mouth, "I only did that because you'd made so much trouble for me. And really, the one mostly responsible for that…" She turned a raised eyebrow on her father.

"And I fully stand by my decision! It'd be damned unfilial if I did otherwise. After all," he said in a lower voice, "What is the point of us parents if not to pave a path for our children, no?"

Laylah nodded gravely. "Too many people who don't understand that. You know, the tradition of things like calling Aria here my Martial Daughter—" which she had never done even once, Aria noted "—really originates there. It's a reminder of the sanctity of the lineage from Teacher to Student."

"Given we've already had one lesson involving me getting stabbed at, and you've already taught me how to get people to shut up just by looking at them hard enough, I would say you're making good pace on parity with my actual parents."

Laylah laughed, and again, Aria felt it in the way her Presence moved with it. She wasn't putting on airs. She really was just. Sitting there. At the table. Having breakfast with her and her two mortal parents.

And enjoying it.

Aria quickly poured herself another cup of tea and started shoving food into her own mouth — much less genteel than her teacher, thankfully — so she had an excuse not to speak. The conversation proceeded apace around her, the occasional glancing eye, or Presence, of concern directed her way.

As soon as she felt something approaching full, Aria hastily excused herself from the table, quickly wiping her hands and mouth before shambling off. She didn't wanna go back to her room. She felt sick enough as was, she didn't need to be a bedridden patient.

Instead, she shambled toward the front door — or rather, the front doorway, since they still hadn't had time to replace it after it had been blown off. The blood and bone, the corpses, had all been cleaned up by now. No trace of them, except the craters left by bullets in the walls and floors after they'd passed through them.

Aria walked out of the front entrance, past where at least two people's bodies had been splattered across the wall in a horrible spray of gore. She felt sick to her stomach. Not from the thought of the gore, or from their deaths.

Those things didn't bother her in the slightest.

And that bothered her immensely.

She took the elevator. Deciding whether to go up or down took…surprisingly long, but she ultimately decided up, to the roof of the complex. She was still leaning on the wall, and she just didn't have it in her to stroll through the city at that moment without a mobility aid, and getting one would take longer than she cared to wait.

The rooftop didn't have any walls, just a carpet of high-efficiency photovoltaics covering the floor and a guardrail around the edges to prevent accidents. Thus, Aria decided not to bother going very far. She took two steps off to the side of the elevator doors — she wasn't a hooligan, she wasn't going to disrupt anyone else who might have business up here — and simply collapsed to the floor.

In all fairness, it was a very dignified collapse this time. Very graceful. Very ladylike. She splayed her arms and legs out, not particularly worrying if she got her soft pajamas soiled with dust. The wind blew all around her, this high up, whistling in her ears, and cooling her face that burned fever hot from the exertion of getting all the way up here in the first place.

She had decided by now that evidently, Radiance, or perhaps immortality more broadly, just did things to people. It made them less risk-averse, more maniacal, more…well, just, more. She'd never been as risk-averse as most people. She'd always had a manic streak. So, the logic would track that her cultivation had simply made her more of those things that she'd already always been — maybe an extension of her Mind Facet?

But…had she then always been a killer? She'd never taken a life before yesterday. And then, all at once, she took two. Later, a third. And she felt nothing about it. No guilt, no remorse, no grandiose sorrow about the sanctity of life.

They'd been.

And now they weren't.

And that was because of her.

And she couldn't even muster up the shame to feel guilty about it. About snuffing out those flames, and sending those Wills onto…whatever awaited such things, when they weren't trapped by feral madmen.

"I'm sorry," she attempted in a hoarse, throaty mumbling whisper. It came out insincere. The insincerity of it made her feel even worse. She couldn't even muster a sincere apology to the people she'd killed, to the lives she'd ended, or even really to the lives she'd no doubt irreparably damaged by extension of her actions.

The old saying went, The finger of a Saint lifts, and the casket of a King comes with.

She was no Saint. She never would be. They were immortals among immortals, the gods among the gods. But to mortals, who were no kings…was she any less? Did the difference really matter in a mind that was gushed out across the floor like the insides of a mince pie?

Really if anything, the comparison made her lose her appetite more than her apathy.

And it was all so infuriatingly petty. That was the worst part — well, for her, for the other guys it was probably that they were dead. Still, it felt so horrifically petty. All those lives spent, and for what? So she could fulfill her childish dreams of immortality? Because House Lance didn't want to lose face having their precious investment sniped by their rivals? No shot in any Hell that thing wasn't insured, so it wasn't about the money. Just about the insult.

It just all seemed so fucking pointless. What was the point of cultivating immortality if it was all going to be spent doing…this?

She heard the elevator doors open. Her father came and laid down next to her. He pulled her in close. She was so much stronger than him now, and she still just melted into his hugs. He was soft. He smelled nice. Like home.

"Something's on your mind." To his credit, it wasn't a question, insomuch as an invitation for her to speak.

"It's been a long day." Aria's voice felt uncharacteristically hollow to her own ears.

"It has. I'm sorry."

Aria wept, softly. She didn't want to. She really didn't want to. But what else was she to do?

She stayed there, weeping, for a good while. Minutes, not hours, but how many she didn't bother counting. She wept until she could speak again. Her father didn't say anything. Just held her close. Patted her back on occasion.

"Why?" Her voice was soft. The voice of a child. That was okay.

"Hm?"

"Why did you do…any of this? Why put yourself in danger like that? Why put us in danger like that? Why…just. Why?!"

"Because I trusted you'd do amazing things with it. Because I would've hated to see your potential squandered doing anything less…and because I knew if I didn't you probably would, and you'd probably make a much bigger mess of things, so I thought I might as well head that off."

Aria half-laughed-half-sobbed at the last point. He was right, and she was utterly incensed about it.

"So do you think you were right, then?"

"Hm? About what?"

"Did I do amazing things with it?"

"If what I'm hearing from your teacher is any indication, you've been quite remarkable."

Aria sighed. "I don't know why you listen to that woman."

"Why do you?"

Aria opened her mouth to answer. Then closed it. Then opened it again. And closed it again.

"Hm."

"You know the answer and you don't like it?"

Aria didn't dignify that with a response.

"What exactly is it that you hate about her so much?"

"I…don't hate her. Hate is a strong word. But I'm distrustful of her. Have you felt her Presence?"

"Well she's been in our house, so I would hope so."

"Not her presence. Her Presence. Like."

"It's a cultivator thing?"

Aria nodded. "It's this…aura. That every cultivator has. You can use it subtly, as an omnidirectional sense, like touching everything all around you for as far as it reaches. Or you can use it bluntly, and it feels like having someone stamp on your chest so hard you can't breathe, like your heart can't beat, like you're going to die."

"That sounds terrifying."

Aria nodded again, smaller this time.

"It's…honest. Painfully so. It's this profound expression of the user's Will — another cultivator thing, don't ask — and it feels impossible to lie with it. Doing that would be a subversion of your own essence."

"And you've felt hers. You don't like what it showed you?"

"That's what's bothering me. It didn't show me just one thing. With the…cultivator," she loathed using the term for such a rabid beast, "I fought before, his Presence and Will were unrefined, but they were clear. Blood-soaked, screaming, clawing, but clear."

"And your teacher?"

Aria needed to take a second to order her thoughts. "It's…water. But it's every characteristic of water. It's the drowning depths of an ocean when she's angry, pressing down all around you, driving the air from your lungs, pushing you down deeper and deeper, until the thing that kills you is that your ribs crush in under the weight of it all."

"But she's every aspect of it. When she gets protective, she feels like summer rain falling through the treetops, and I can't help but want to stand in it, let myself get soaked, let it seep into my clothes and into my skin. But I can't forget what's behind it. I can't forget that weight. That cold death. And I recoil at the thought of letting something like that into me. Into my Soul." She decided not to mention she'd already done so once, and not exactly suffered for it.

"You're letting me hug you right now, aren't you?"

"Are you implying I ought to be as terrified of you as I am of that woman?"

"I'm saying that if what scares you off her, makes you distrust her, is that you know deep down some part of her is a killer…well, there's no 'deep down' with me or your mother, is there? You saw us send those hired guns to the stars. You know we're killers, because you've seen us do it."

"It's…different with you two."

"Different how?"

"Because I know you're not just that. You can be, when you need to be, but you aren't, not at heart. I've seen the kinder side of you. You and mama both raised me to be who I am, and, I don't think you raised me to be that kind of person."

"And you haven't seen the kinder side of her?"

"Well…"

"What makes you think that isn't the more real side of her?"

Aria couldn't think of an answer that satisfied her.

Her father hugged her tight. "No one is just one thing, Kiddo. You have to judge them based not just on what they are, but on what they do, and when and why they do it. Now, if she's been cruel to you, as your teacher, then by all means, kick her to the curb."

"But if she's been kind to you…maybe the summer rain's just as much a part of her as the wintry death is. Maybe she's just like me, and your mother, and now you. A big, complicated person, doing bad things for good reasons. Not exactly a rare sort to find."

Her father gave her a kiss on the forehead, before releasing her and standing up, dusting off his clothes. "I'm taking a ferry to Sojourn. Meeting up with some old friends."

Aria frowned, "Baba you just got home. And even there, you almost got killed. Can you not stick around just a little bit?"

Her father smiled at her. "Not those kinds of friends. Not anymore. I'm thinking…since you're a disciple of the Monastery anyway…maybe I'll just retire. Spend my days with your mother. Take the occasional job for the Censorate, to keep myself busy, but. Really, what do we need the extra money for? Besides, I'm getting old. I've got enough put away now not to have to worry about that sort of thing. I wanna enjoy my retirement now."

"It's a hell of a job to cap it off with too, isn't it? Viktor Rostov, master thief, steals an elixir from House Lance, as a birthday gift for his daughter. Yeah. All downhill from there. I think I'm gonna quit while I'm ahead. Take a nice, cozy retirement, so I have lots of time to cheer you on from the sidelines."

Her father called up the elevator. "Take care of yourself, Kiddo. And be kind. To yourself, and to the people you know you oughta be kind to. Anything less is gonna get you hurt."

Aria just lay there, for a while, after he was gone. Just looking up at the cloudy sky. Thinking.

Eventually she stood up. It came easier now. Not easy, not by a long shot, but. She was getting used to being so much weaker. Used to being a sick human, before she was an earth-shattering immortal cultivator.

She went to the edge of the rooftop, and leaned on the railing, looking out over Arbour Sound. Seeing the lighters rushing around on the water's surface, seeing the early morning freighters make their landings as barges took their places ready for offloading.

She looked down at the city. Her Presence was still faltering, so she couldn't quite reach down and feel every heart beating below her, but…she didn't need to. She could see them. See all the lives being led down there. There were work crews, today, fixing the pavement that had been wrecked by the fighting yesterday. By evening, it would be as though nothing had ever happened.

So many people lead their lives right below her. So many lives that could've ended from a single uncaring hiss of the Viper. There were families, running around today, eating, drinking, making merry, making plans for what they would do the coming week, or month, or this time next year.

Families that hadn't been torn apart, because they lived beneath her, of all people.

How much stronger than her was Laylah Volkova? How many families lived below her? How many blazes had been put out by that rain, and how many floods had come from that river raging over its banks? How kind or cruel had she been, for those to whom she owed nothing? Where did she draw her own lines? Where did Aria draw hers? And what right did she have to scold someone else for theirs, when hers evidently didn't preclude thoughtlessly taking a life?

Aria looked back out over the sound, seeing the ferries coming and going, and sighed.

Retirement.

For a mortal, it was easy enough to tell where their path ended.

Where would it end for her? Unaging, growing, always getting stronger, always more and more lives finding themselves in the shadow of the Falcon's wings…where would her path end? Would she know when it was time, when her Body could no longer tell her?

She tried not to think too hard about where Mwangi's path had ended. In the path of a relativistic tungsten ferrite slug, put there by someone he regarded as an infant.

Had he known that was where his path would end? Almost certainly not.

She had a thought. It was audacious, but then, that had served her well so far.

"There is no end to an immortal's path. There is only the next mystery."

Something resonated within her. It felt…right. She had no clue what it meant, but she held on to the thought as she headed back downstairs.