For a soul with my curriculum vitae, living as a cosmic Tamagotchi was a slow-motion humiliation. The cycle was primitive and relentless: emit a sharp noise, be filled with a dubious-tasting substance, suffer the indignity of hygienic maintenance, and then be forced to sleep. One week of this routine and I was already starting to feel my millennial mind turning into goat cheese. The trouble is, every Tamagotchi needs a reliable power source, and mine, in the form of milk of questionable provenance, was running on fumes.
The last portion had the flavour and consistency of dishwater. I've subsisted on worse, of course. There was the 'Nutritious Plankton 3000', served in every canteen of the Intergalactic Starfleet, which had the lively taste of 'giving up'. There were the Souls I absorbed from the great fallen warriors in Lordran, which were crispy on the outside but had a slightly bitter centre of existential dread. And once, I was forced to eat the fruit of a sentient plant that would only ripen if you told it a truly dreadful joke. My survival that week hinged on my appalling sense of humour. Still, this body was new, fragile, and demanding.
That morning, Morgana confirmed my suspicions with a scowl. She stood in the centre of the cottage, her eyes scanning the now limp and sorry-looking waterskin, the dwindling pile of firewood, the last bundle of clean cloths. It was the look of a general calculating her provisions before a long and possibly losing campaign. And I, apparently, was the campaign. Finally, she leaned over my basket, the shadow of her wings covering me for an instant, the scent of ozone, earth, and restraint filling the air.
"I shan't be long," she said, her voice low and without inflexion. "I need to sort a few things out."
<'A few things'. A phrase so brimming with possibility, a universe of euphemisms.> In my vast experience, 'a few things' has meant 'I'm going to steal bread from an orphan', 'I need to flee from tentacled intergalactic creditors', or, in the case of that life on Tatooine, 'I must go and haggle with Hutts over spice prices'.
[Inference correct with 97.4% probability. Primary objective: acquisition of a sustainable lactic source. Secondary objective: replenishment of general provisions. Operation risk analysis: moderate. Proximity to villages increases the likelihood of encounters with armed Demacian patrols with little patience for mysterious, hooded women.]
But she didn't just leave. She paused at the door, her back to me, and raised a hand. A low murmur escaped her lips, words in an ancient, guttural tongue that made the air thrum. Lines of dark-violet light bloomed on the wood of the door and its frame, thin as veins, weaving together to form the complex pattern of a circular chain. With a casual gesture, she plucked a single, small dark feather from her own wing, a tiny but meaningful sacrifice and touched it to the centre of the seal. The spell sizzled, the sound of ice touching an ember, and then it became utterly invisible. The only proof of its existence was the feeling that the cottage itself was holding its breath.
[Analysis: threshold ward activated. Functions: 1) sensory disguise against predators and humans, nullifying scent and sound emissions; 2) arcane resonance alarm linked to the bearer's signature; 3) temporary entropic snare in case of forced entry, causing disorientation and time-loss in the intruder. Potency: high. A work of art in defensive weaving. Superior to the barrier seals of the Uzumaki clan in energy efficiency.]
[The spell's efficacy is independent of the physical portal's structural integrity. Recommendation: maintain low noise profile. Any arcane fluctuation above 0.3 nano-runes may trigger her silent alarm.]
Morgana cast one last glance at me over her shoulder, her eyes lingering for a second longer than necessary, and then she was gone. The door closed without a click, but the ensuing silence was deafening. Suddenly the cottage, which had been a refuge, became a box. And every sound became a potential monster. The familiar hum of existential anxiety began to set in. Abandonment. It's always a statistical possibility.
[Proposal: catalogue auditory stimuli to establish a baseline of normalcy and mitigate anxiety responses. One: rhythmic dripping from the water barrel. Two: whisper of wind through the window crack. Three: occasional pop of embers in the fire.]
Time dragged on, thick and sticky as treacle. Then, a new sound: the scrabbling of claws on the thatched roof. The seal on the door vibrated, a low, resonant note I could only feel in my bones, like the hum of a cosmic harp string. A ripple of warning, testing the threat, identifying it as a particularly portly squirrel, and dismissing it as irrelevant.
[Over-engineering for security is a viable strategy. Recall that time with the carnivorous garden gnomes on Alfheim.]
The first sign of her return was not Morgana herself. It was an indignant sound that tore through the forest's monotony: a sharp, broken, and deeply offended 'baaaa'. Followed by another, and then a third, higher and more questioning. The seal on the door relaxed like a muscle, acknowledging its creator's approach.
The handle turned. The door swung open, not to Morgana, but to the inquisitive muzzle of a goat, followed by another, and then by a kid that seemed to be made of pure existential confusion. Behind them, Morgana appeared, a scratch on her cheek and leaves in her hair, holding a rope and looking profoundly weary of having to explain to three stubborn beasts that her cottage was not an all-you-can-eat buffet. She was also carrying a burlap sack that smelt of fresh bread and green apples.
"Problem solved," she said to the room at large, her voice an exhausted sigh, nudging the door shut with her hip.
I would have laughed if my body weren't so inept at such displays of mirth. She hadn't stolen the goats; she didn't have the adrenaline of a thief about her. She'd bought or bartered for them. Which meant she had interacted with people. Had risked exposure for... for fresh milk and apples. A tactically questionable, but logistically flawless, decision.
She improvised a pen outside with stakes and rope, the knots tight and efficient. It was what she did: she gave chaos shape with bindings. Then the ritual began anew, but with higher-quality ingredients: sterilising a pail, milking the more docile goat (while the other tried to eat the hem of her tunic), straining, warming. I could hear one of the goats outside starting a philosophical debate with a fence post, likely concerning the limits of personal freedom.
The new routine established itself, now with a soundtrack of occasional bleating. Shoulder, pats, burp, chain. Method and constancy. The afternoon turned to copper, then to grey. She washed the basin, checked the knots on the pen from the window, and only then allowed herself to release a single link of her chain from the cuirass on her back, stretching her shoulder with an almost imperceptible, yet profound, relief. And then, she lay down on her straw pallet in the corner, facing me, vigilant even in repose.
Sleep did not take her at once. She only closed her eyes, but I could feel the tension in her shoulders, the readiness of one who has lived for centuries on high alert.
A twig snapped in the woods. Morgana's eyes flew open instantly, not startled, just alert. Her wing shifted a hand's breadth over me, an instinctive, protective shadow. Her gaze swept the door, the window, my basket. Nothing. She closed her eyes again, not trusting the night, but knowing how to use it.
[Agreed. Hypervigilance pattern consistent with the protection of a valuable asset, not with imminent disposal.]
Looking at her there, a figure of contained power, who binds herself so she won't break free, yet still uses what's left to shelter another... It was new. Rare. The polar opposite of all the Grand Masters, Sorcerer Kings, and Hokages I'd ever met, whose powers were used to project their will onto the world. Her power was used to restrain herself. To connect.
My hand reached out, a clumsy, involuntary gesture of my infant body, and touched the tip of a loose feather that hung over the basket's edge. It was cool and soft at the tip, warm and alive at the base. I just lay there, holding that small piece of her.
[Request noted. Emotional data log paused. I must observe, however, that the host's physiology indicates a decrease in cortisol levels and a slight increase in oxytocin production, a neurotransmitter associated with social bonding.]
Morgana murmured something in her sleep, a name perhaps, it sounded like a broken echo, "Kayle," and in reflex, her wing dipped a little lower, the gentle draught wrapping me in her scent of ozone and earth. There was no promise. There were no words. Just the gesture. Just the staying.
The breath I'd been holding in my small, useless lungs escaped all at once. The body, which had been tense from the moment the door had closed, finally relaxed.
And, for the first time in countless lifetimes, I fell asleep before I had even started planning my escape route.