Die. Respawn. Repeat.

The world around them changed, and He-Who-Guards watched.

He didn't recognize this space. It was a small workshop of some kind with a ceiling so low he had to bend over to avoid scraping his head against it; an assortment of technology, both legal and Integrator-derived sat, scattered around the workbench and shelves.

Miktik's workshop. A small part of him recognized it, but he'd never been inside himself—Whisper had been rather specific about making sure both he and his proxies avoided the area. He supposed now he knew why.

Ethan stood next to him, eyes closed and brows furrowed in concentration as he recreated the memory, detail after painstaking detail slowly resolving into the makeshift world around them. Aris looked around at the workshop, eyes wide and antennae twitching, filled with equal parts dread and anticipation, hope and longing.

And a heartbeat later, as Ethan opened his eyes brought his memory of Miktik into being, Guard understood why Aris looked so different now compared to when they first met. It had surprised him at first, but looking at the two of them side by side...

Aris looked just like a younger version of her mother.

Miktik had built her and then sacrificed everything for her. The form Aris chose when they first met was a temporary thing, constructed so they could have a conversation, but this was how she truly saw herself.

Then Miktik reached out like she wanted to hold her daughter. Aris seemed surprised at first, almost hesitant—but then she took a trembling step forward, then another, and practically fell into her mother's arms.

And just like that, they were holding one another.

"I'm sorry I never got to meet you," Miktik whispered. "There were so many things I wanted to show you, I—I don't even know where to start."

"It's okay," Aris said. Her voice shook. "It's okay, mom."

"I wanted to show you how to build things," Miktik said. The words were sad, but she tried to smile anyway. "Because it's what I love doing. But I was looking forward to helping you find a calling of your own. It was going to be amazing. I even convinced all my friends ahead of time to take you on as an apprentice, did you know that?"

"I didn't," Aris said. She looked up at her mother, responding like she'd forgotten that all of this was just a memory—like her mother was really there. "All of them? Isn't Bimar's specialty poisons?"

"I know Bimar's specialty is poisons, but I wasn't going to rule anything out." Miktik chuckled softly, then reached out with one of her limbs, brushing it gently across Aris's cheek. "I hope you know that's part of why I did all this. I wanted to make the city safe for you. I wanted you to be born free to do anything you wanted, not as another one of Whisper's tools..."

Miktik trailed off and sagged. "But I failed. I gave you to her."

"You didn't want to," Aris said. "She would've killed both of us if you didn't. I know why you did it, mom."

"I know she threatened me. I know I couldn't have done any different. That doesn't make it any better. But I find myself wondering sometimes what might be different if I'd been a little more careful. I still don't know how she found out..."

Miktik sighed, then looked up into the air. "No, you're right," she said after a moment, responding to some unseen thing Ethan had said. "I should just say what I want her to hear."

The reminder that this was a memory made Aris flinch. She stilled slightly, not pulling out of Miktik's arms but no longer leaning in.

"Aris. I wanted to see you grow more than anything. I'm sorry I never got to. To be honest, there were times I thought you'd never get the chance to grow at all—that I lost you to Whisper and would never get you back.

"I don't exactly know why, but I think... I know this human is going to find a way to give you that chance. So I'm going to say this like you're in front of me. Like you're alive the way I always wanted you to be, and I want you to remember this moment like I am too."

Then Miktik looked down at her daughter. Somehow, even through the gap of time and possibility, their eyes met. Miktik took a deep breath, forcing herself to smile, and when she spoke, it was with a new strength and an unwavering voice.

Something in Aris seemed to break at this. She clung to Miktik fiercely, crying as her mother spoke like they were both really there.

"My name is Miktik of the Ayulch clan. A long time ago, we were best known for inventions that revolutionized gardening, if you can believe it." She smiled a small smile. "That legacy is yours, but only if you want it. So is my workshop. I've made sure you can break through the firewalls, so have at it—consider it a final challenge from your mother. 𐍂𝙖𐌽Ȏ₿ĚṢ

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Be strong. Be brave. But more important than that... be yourself. Live life the way you would want to live it. Not for me, you understand? Find something you can be proud of, something that brings you joy.

"I love you, Aris." Miktik drew her daughter close, pressing their foreheads together. "Never forget that. And because I never got the chance to say it..."

He-Who-Guards remembered in an abrupt flash what Aris had said to him the last time they spoke.

Forget goodbye, I... I never even got a chance to say hello.

Like mother, like daughter.

Miktik pulled back just enough to give Aris one last smile. "Hello, Aris. Welcome to the world of the living."

Aris let out a choked sob. Her voice was small, but she forced the words out all the same. "Hi, mom."

And just like that, the memory ended. The three that remained stood in Miktik's tiny workshop, and they were silent for a long moment. It was Aris that broke the silence.

"I need a moment," she said quietly. "Thank you. Both of you."

Guard felt her disappear back into his systems. He tried to figure out what he wanted to say. He'd known Ethan had done something to strain his Firmament so deeply. He hadn't known it was this.

He'd stayed. Not just for some final words to pass on. He'd stayed to give a mother and a daughter a chance to speak to one another across death itself.

"It seemed almost as though she could see her daughter," Guard said quietly. "Was that your doing?"

Ethan shook his head. "No. That was the memory, as real as I could make it."

"Just a coincidence, then." The words didn't feel right, though.

"Doesn't feel that way, does it?" Ethan glanced up at him. "I mean, maybe sometimes a coincidence is just the universe being kind."

"That would imply it can also be cruel." Guard tilted his head.

"It does, doesn't it?" Ethan said. "I mean, it's just probability, at the end of the day. But..."

Ethan hesitated, his gaze lingering on the center of the workshop where Aris and Miktik had been.

"But it is up to us to make these possibilities real," Guard said, finishing the sentence for him.

Ethan nodded—

—and in that moment, something crystallized between them.

He-Who-Guards knew that it was this that he wanted to protect. The endless possibilities of the future. The bonds between individuals, superseding the boundaries of species and culture. These rare, impossible moments, cultivated and brought to fruition.

He was who he was because he held an unwavering hope in a future that was better than the present, even in the smallest of ways.

He couldn't bring Miktik back, but he could at least help Aris speak to her like this, one last time.

This is who I want to be. I don't know what being the Scion of Change meant to someone like Kauku, but for someone like me, it's simple. I know what all this power is for.

To create hope when there's none left. To make all things possible. To change things for the better, even in the smallest of ways.

I might not be able to bring Miktik back, but I can at least let them speak to one another, one last time.

A Temporal Link snaps into place and then surges to life with a strength I've never seen before, fueled by both Guard's soul and mine. That change ripples down through my bond with Ahkelios as reality fades back in, and he lets out a slight yelp as he flares with sudden power; his next attempted attack slices straight through the Hand's thumb, reinforced as it is by the onslaught of absorbed Firmament.

"Did you two just do something?" he calls. "What just happened?"

"I'll tell you later." I shoot him a grin, then turn to Guard. The strength of this new link changes things slightly. I'd originally planned to use my ability to channel Firmament and combine it with Guard's enormous reserves to try to overload the Hand, but now... 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

I don't think we can share skills. Not yet, at least, and not without a lot of practice. The way Guard uses his skill circuits are too different from the way skill constructs operate.

But skills aren't the only things I'm capable of. What if they aren't the only things I can share?

"Think you can help us out?" I ask the Void Inspiration. It perks up at my words, excited. "I've got a lot of Firmament here for you to eat."

"yes!" it exclaims. "Hungry!"

It takes only a second for me to tell Guard what I want him to do and for him to agree. Then the link between us burns the color of Void—and that color spreads to his chains, drawing in all the Firmament around it.

Specifically, it draws in any Firmament the Hand tries to use to heal or channel toward any of its other skills. There are three more skills I haven't seen it use, and I have no desire to find out what they are.

And then it's my turn. The Hand's core is stuffed to the brim, and the Void chains are absorbing any Firmament it tries to use against us.

"You cannot help him!" it tries to shout. "You will fail!"

"No," I say. "We won't."

I use Firmament Control to direct a stream of my power—mine and Guard's, really—directly into the Hand's slowly cracking core. There's nowhere for all that Firmament to go except into the Void, and the Void isn't eating fast enough to overwhelm the sheer amount that's already in there.

Cracks appear in stoneskin flesh. Golden streams of Gheraa's Firmament begin to leak through, back into the dungeon.

Uncorrupted. Safe. It melds with the rubble scattered around the dungeon, and slowly but surely, the walls begin to heal.

And the Hand, meanwhile, begins to scream.