Aria couldn't move.

She wasn't paralyzed. There was no physical impediment to her mobility.

But she couldn't bring herself to think about something as trivial as merely moving her limbs. Not after what she'd just seen, what she'd experienced, what she'd felt.

A sight of the infinite. A peek beyond the veil of death, the tiniest glimpse of what lay beyond that forbidden threshold.

And she'd come back from it. From total destruction, she'd been remade. An immortal soul in truth.

The elixir that had previously felt so suffocating in its density now felt like an uncomfortably narrow trickle, until Aria maxed out the autoinjection speed.

Her sole, singular aperture, that was before so narrow, so choked now breathed free, drawing in a raging river of Radiance. Sovereign Guard's spirals came easier now as well, fuller, far wider at the "funnel" end, and her newly-refined Presence was capable of tapering them to a much finer point at the "spout".

Aria flexed and warped her Presence. It was such a strange thing. It felt like an appendage, one she'd always had and yet somehow had simply forgotten about her whole life. But here it was, answering her as readily as her own fingers would.

It seemed to emanate out from her, in a sort of bubble, softly wrapping over and around whatever it ran over, and Aria was stunned by how, for lack of a better word, real it all felt. Shapes and textures made themselves readily apparent to her, in more vivid detail than she'd ever been able to glean even with her own fingertips.

She turned her Presence inwards, and in spite of herself, smiled.

Her first Star sat within her Constellation, the Radiance swirling around it, feeding into it, emanating from it out through to her channels. A vast, beautiful, exotic star, its ultraviolet core wreathed in a perpetual storm of raging blue lightning. Blindingly bright, were she looking upon it with mere mortal eyes, but in here, within the confines of her soul, she could appreciate its beauty unimpeded.

Aria turned and gently probed the Facets that walled the star on four sides, though the more time she spent in here, the more she understood why a three-dimensional representation was grossly insufficient. A useful abstraction, certainly, for a fledgling mind, but there was more here that she couldn't grasp until she let go of those conceptions. She could feel that much.

Her Facets had gone from gossamer, to paper, to now finally feeling like true, solid walls. They still had some give to them, some flexibility, like stacked bricks, mortared in place, but without any bracing running through it, no steel-strong armatures to guard it against adversaries who would seek to overwhelm it.

With a core full of Radiance, and still more coming in, it would be grossly imprudent not to fix them in place. Gently, she spooled columns of Radiance off of her Constellation, and threaded them through each of her four Facets. Their substance seemed to have a certain plasticity to it, still, and the modifications were relatively easy.

One by one, she planted a crosshatched lattice of bracing pillars within her Facets, each threaded into its neighbour, pulling them close together, multiplying their strength, defending them against both collapse and separation. Having been through both in her breakthrough, it wasn't an experience she was particularly eager to repeat.

Once every buttress was firmly in place, Aria quickly went through and made the needed fine adjustments. Obviously she'd learned the optimal angles and ratios for this sort of arrangement in her eighth year of education, part of the Continuum Physics unit on mechanical stress and its management. A support scaled in or out here, a strut bent three degrees there, and by the time her Facets had begun to put up firm resistance against her ministrations, she was finished.

With a thought, the braces turned from flexile strings to rigid, uncompromising bones, the Facets they connected pulling together into a cohesive whole, each leaning upon their fellow in a way that Aria knew, at least by the numbers, would make them anywhere from ten to fifty times stronger than they'd otherwise be.

Finally, Aria once again turned her newly-reinforced Presence outwards. Her body, her mind, her soul felt strong. Stable. She knew, both rationally and intuitively, that she'd laid a strong foundation, one that would not be shaken by an unworthy challenge.

Unfortunately, it seemed her perfect foundation rather despised the imperfection and impurity that still plagued her.

All at once, thick, black, rancid-smelling sludge began to issue forth from every pore and every orifice on Aria's body. Thick, greasy rivulets sloughed off of her skin under the kind, relentless purge of the shower that still beat down on her, but there was no escaping the smell. It filled her mouth, her nostrils, it erupted from her eyes, her ears, her hair. No part of her was spared from the onslaught, and if she'd had anything in her stomach it would no longer have remained there.

Her newly-enhanced senses picked up on subtle notes of sick that she never even knew existed before now. Her singular saving grace was the mild solvent solution mixed into the water; it was designed to be gentle on skin and hair, with a mild fragrance, but made quick work of dissolving away the oily filth that clung so desperately to Aria's body.

Trying to force down the memory of that searing, terrible smell, Aria moved to stand up, pushing gently off the floor with one hand, and immediately launched off the ground and face-first into the wall. She hadn't put in any more effort than she normally would've, and yet.

With careful, tender hands, like a giant trying not to snap a twig, she turned the shower valve closed, before turning on the warm air dryers. While the streams of hot air blew the water off her body and out of her hair, she stood and simply. Marveled. At what she'd become.

She'd been remade, she knew that much, but that one word didn't even begin to adequately encapsulate just how stark the change was. She couldn't think of a word that did. She wasn't sure there was one.

Every sense, every thought, every intent was suddenly possessed of such a stark clarity. As though she could finally see, for the first time in her life, as though everything before this had been myopic, cataractous, ecliptic shadows cast by the true form.

Aria opened the closet, taking special care not to tear the doors off the hinges. It felt absurd to worry about such things, but she had to do so now. She laced up her corset, surprised by how much force it took, like the bones struggled to compress her newly-reinforced flesh.

Over her undergarments, she put on a soft, loose-fitting ivory-coloured tunic and a dark, charcoal-coloured knee-length skirt — both made of synthetic Lynon fabric, albeit the skirt made from a twill weave, while the tunic used a plain one.

It'd been ages since she'd worn simple, comfortable, civilian clothing. The Sentinel maintenance project had consumed her life these past months, and she'd scarcely had time to do much more than go to work, return to her quarters, and then go back to work, with food, sleep, and showers scattered in between at irregular intervals.

As much as she did love her work, and wore her technician's jumpsuit not only with pride but as almost a sort of second skin, civvies were just undeniably more comfy when one didn't have to worry about loose fabric getting caught in machinery.

Aria grabbed one of her vests — a fitted black button-up — and gently draped it over her torso. Doing up the buttons was an exercise in patience, and more than once Aria came uncomfortably close to ripping them off of one of her favourite vests, but after a few very frustrating minutes, she did finally make it work.

She looked at herself in the mirrored door of her closet. Her clothes still fit basically fine, but she couldn't deny that there was something visibly different about her physique. As though she'd grown denser, her muscles corded tighter and bulging outwards just that little bit more. Not something anyone besides her was likely to notice, thankfully.

Aria looked good. Better than good, really. She looked down at her body, rolling her fingers, then her shoulders, wondering. It was certainly ostentatious, and arguably a bit self-aggrandizing, but. She felt the best she'd ever felt in her life.

She felt she ought to look the part, too.

Aria gingerly removed a silken tailcoat from the closet. It had cost a fortune, a gift for her 19th birthday. Tailored, custom-fit for her, singularly the nicest thing she owned, and besides Tenet, it was also the most expensive.

It was currently a beautiful, deep, rich forest green. She'd last worn it to the Founding Day Festival in Arborhaven, around eight months ago, and the green had seemed a perfect fit for the occasion then. Now though…

Aria slid her fingers along the inner edge of her forearm, along a rigid but unobtrusive strip of material sewed into the optical fiber-integrated fabric. With each movement, the hue of the Luxweave shifted, before Aria finally settled on a particularly deep, rich shade of violet.

Finally, she finished the ensemble with a vibrant cerulean sash tied around her waist, holding her coat closed, taking the time for the most beautifully elaborate knot she knew how to tie. Her mind recalled the deft finger movements required far more readily than it ever had before, and her hands moved with a dexterity she could scarcely have prayed for a few hours ago, to finally bring together the full ensemble.

Aria took a second to look herself over in the mirror. The short tails of her coat — coming up to her thighs — combined with the tasteful yet bold violet colouring, and the sharp, contrasting blue sash cut an eye-catching silhouette of colours, pinned perfectly against the neutral, accepting backdrop of her skirt, tunic, and vest.

Was it hubristic of her to practically flaunt her crime? To wear the colours of the roiling star that now burnt within her? Absolutely. She wasn't ignorant for even a moment of what she was doing. And yet, somehow, she couldn't bring herself to worry about it. Such a momentous occasion called for a somewhat…ambitious, touch, in her opinion.

Aria strolled happily towards her door, ready to go out and find the limits of her newly-reinforced body and mind.

She managed to get all the way to having her hand on the doorknob before the universe seemed to fold around her. Her stomach sank, not simply from the nauseating sensation of having the dimensions around her warp in and around themselves in unnatural ways, but from the knowledge that there was only one person she knew of who could do such a thing.

The universe unfolded before her, as fast as it had collapsed moments before, and Aria stood atop the stony, lightning-pocked mesa overlooking Citadel 4. Supposedly, a cultivator duel some forty-odd years ago had taken the whole top off the mountain.

"You're settling in quite nicely there, aren't you firebrand?"

An overwhelming hostile sensation crashed over her. A sense of drowning, of deep black fathoms full of unknowable horrors overtook her, almost knocking her to her knees. On instinct, she flexed her Presence, like clenching a muscle before an impact, and immediately the sensation lessened. She wouldn't use a word as vast as subsided, but its intensity reduced meaningfully.

Aria pulled her Presence in close, wrapping it around herself like a shell, pulling inwards. She couldn't lash out, not against this, so she wouldn't try. She'd simply take the pressure as best she could.

The hostility didn't pull away, even a little bit, as Sir Volkova spoke. "Apparently I didn't make this sufficiently evident in our first meeting. I don't take kindly to liars, Aria. I took kindly to you. Are you a liar? Because if so, then by my reckoning…you made me compromise on my principles."

"I'm not, Sir Volkova." Aria spoke through gritted teeth, and only barely managed to turn to face the source of the voice. She stood, arms crossed, leaning on one of the large boulders that one of the frequent rainy rockslides had deposited on the mountaintop.

"Really? Because by my count, you sent me on a WILD. FUCKING. GOOSE CHASE. While you sat here, and took a — might I add very expensive, and exceedingly rare — Violet Crown Elixir for your own selfish benefit."

"I didn't lie, Sir Volkova." Aria wanted to keep her voice level, and she tried desperately, but her words came out more pleading than she would've liked.

"A lie of omission is still a lie. Don't push me."

"I didn't omit anything I knew to be the truth. All I omitted was conjecture."

Volkova sighed. "Maybe I've grown soft. Sloppy. You lied to me, straight to my face, and I just wrote it off as nerves. I should've put the screws to you right then and there."

Aria tried her level best not to wonder how literal the screws were. Unfortunately her best was not particularly good today. Nonetheless, she pushed forwards. "Did the information I give you mislead you?"

Volkova fixed Aria with a predatory stare, and for a moment Aria had a desperate, primitive, atavistic urge to turn around and run as fast and as far as she possibly could. She kept it under control, thankfully. Volkova likely would've just found her attempt insulting.

"Fine. I'll bite. No, for a given definition of the word, it did not. It wasn't a warm trail, but it was a trail. In fact, it was the trail that led me to you. Given the choice between ensuring I never saw their faces again or me tearing their limbs off and beating them to death with them, my interlocutors were quite cooperative."

"They quite readily dispensed the full story. One Viktor Rostov, a notorious – ugh – retrieval specialist. Famed, reputed, a man of his word, supposedly a legendary rogue who'd never failed a job."

"Unfortunately, it seems no one told them they were the job. Rostov made off with the elixir, and left them to explain some truly remarkable contraband to Admiralty Customs. You can guess how the dots got connected from there, I imagine."

"I swear to you, Sir Volkova, I didn't know any of that until just now."

Volkova's Presence slammed into Aria, and she couldn't stay on her feet this time. "Silence, you insolent child. Do you have any idea how big of a headache this is going to become for me? That elixir was purchased — with the kind of blood and sins that don't just wash off — by House Lance. And now, not only did a Rostov steal it, some half-bastard sixty-seventh heiress took it, and broke through."

"And do you know the worst part? The part that really drives hot iron through my marrow?"

Aria didn't have breath in her lungs with which to speak.

"You did a good job of it. Had you squandered it, built flimsy foundations or pissed away half its energy because you used that garbage excuse for a cultivation art, I could've torn your Core out right here and now, and any half-decent alchemist could at least refine it into something that would cover a fraction of what you've cost me."

"But you had the audacity, the sheer gall, to go and do…this. To go and build a ponderous, uninspired — frankly moronic — foundation, solid enough to rival that of any of the coddled little marquises that get tossed at our doorstep every fifty years."

"Do you know, most people at your level, and every mortal – without exception, every one – would've had their Presence Facet ripped clean off by that momentary lapse of my restraint? But not yours, no, you thought of that didn't you, you little pest? You'd have me denigrate myself by tearing up something so thoughtful, if grossly uninformed, in its construction."

Volkova sounded legitimately exasperated, which was a shocking expression for Aria to hear from the immortal. She sighed, and the pressure retracted from Aria enough for her to be able to move again.

"I shall strive to be more mediocre going forward, Sir V-"

"Oh no. Noooo, no. A mere 'Sir' isn't going to square this one away you audacious little brat. You wanted to be an immortal so bad? Well congratulations. You get to be one. From hereon out, you call me Martial Mother. Do you understand?"

Had Aria still been a mortal, she probably would've frozen. It was probably a placebo, but she could've sworn she felt her Mind Facet straining to move as fast as it could go. In a moment she answered, "Yes Martial Mother! Thank you Martial Mother!"

"Eugh, don't wear it out."

"My apologies, M-. My apologies!"

"Good. Now, I didn't care about you enough to mention this before, but the people your father stole that elixir from know where he and your mother live. As I understand it, they should be kicking down their door in…about an hour or so."

Aria stared, slack-jawed, at the woman she'd so thoughtlessly accepted as her master, and suddenly realized with terrible clarity that she'd made a horrible, horrible mistake.

"If I'm sponsoring your entry into the Monastery, I don't want you bringing that sort of baggage with you. So, here is what is going to happen. I am going to give you five minutes of my time, for direct instruction. After that, your first task as my student: clean up this mess, and don't get killed doing it."

Even with her enhanced mind, it took Aria several precious seconds to realize what had happened to her.

Oh well, she thought. So it goes. One must make the best of things.

"Martial Mother has a terrible sense of dramatic timing," Aria bowed. "Your humble student eagerly awaits instruction!"