The acceleration gave Nestra vertigo. The part of her brain that dealt with speed was completely out of its depth. She just knew that it dwarfed even her flight to Switzerland when her plane had breached the stratosphere. By how much, she didn't know. Her only consolation was that if they were approaching the speed of light, then time dilation meant the trip would feel shorter for her. But who knew how Aszhii magic fucked with the rules of physics? Sereth was of no use. Slightly ahead, he flew in hypnotic patterns that made him disappear in the distance — the literal distance not the horizon — before returning in a flurry of acrobatic twists. Her screams were muffled to nonexistence or he couldn't hear her.

At least now she knew why the Aszhii had insane sight but passable hearing. Can't hear shit in the cold vacuum of space. Oh but wait.

"Hmm, Grandmother Voidgale? I'm kind of worried about time dilation. I'm not going to reappear in my world of origin seventy years later or something right?"

Another gentle laugh filled her chest with the warmth of unconditional love. A blur of images gently entered her mind. The jumble was the most basic of impressions, yet it weirdly related to concepts she understood as part of her language. It was… proto-Aszhii. Barebones concepts, tumbling together like a happy ball of modelling clay out of the grip of a toddler. What she got was still something that made her brain stop.

They were going faster than light. Much faster, in fact. And they were doing so by curving space.

"The physicists on my home planet are going to be so mad."

Grandmother Voidgale filled her mind with layered flowers folding into abstract patterns that slid over her neurons like water over the skin of a moron.

"I'm going to need a few decades of university education before I can get that."

Patience.

Fun.

Ubiquity.

Basically grandma would always be there to help her with her homework.

"So, uh, are you the first of us?"

The voice laughed again, but said no. Then Nestra had a feeling like being put on the playground because grandma had a chore to complete and why don't you play with the new toy, dearie? So Nestra started weaving around, trying to imitate Sereth. It was easy, she just had to think about moving in a direction and she could. Go to the right. Go to the left. Do a barrel roll — hey that was pretty fun! There was some void, and then some more void, and then —

A shattered planet the size of several Earths, its crust split open like a pumpkin. Magma blood frozen forever in fat dollops that formed an expanded cloud like blood splatter on a crime scene. Dead. The corpse of a giant at the hour of its death, five billion years of existence gone in an instant.

Seen for a fragment of a fragment of a second to the side and then only thanks to her B-class perception.

Then more void.

"GAH!"

Sereth came, eyes worried.

"Fucking jumpscare. What if we hit something?" Nestra pleaded. "Pretty sure that will kill me and it. At this speed I could probably blow up the sun!"

"You are not traveling yourself," Sereth told her. "You are being carried by grandmother. Relax! I swear Nestra, you are a bundle of nerves! You are safe here."

Nestra gave him her best glare of doubt, but Sereth oozed confidence.

"You are safe with the covens. Some regions are not and sometimes Aszhii fight but we almost never kill each other, and that only concerns the males anyway. You are fine, Nestra."

"Ok ok."

Maybe she was overthinking things. She had gone to District Fifteen expecting to do police work and ended up in a pitched battle against war augs. She'd gone to the Sword Kings on a diplomatic mission and fought her way out with a shotgun. Her foray into the bridge world had ended in a pitched battle and the infiltration into an extraction and she'd almost died, skewered by a spear.

But surely, surely this time it would be different. Things couldn't go tits up every time.

Nestra continued to muse dark thoughts over the next, well, she couldn't be sure, but it couldn't be more than an hour. She tried to ask Grandmother Voidgale a question about what she was and got a surprising answer: she was an Aszhii. She also asked if it happened that Aszhii portaled in so far that Voidgale couldn't find them. The answer, this time, was that there wasn't that much space left with most of the mass gone. And that was very annoying to consider. After that, Nestra stopped asking questions. Something was changing anyway. That minuscule dot of light was finally starting to grow larger, and larger, and when it was the size of a marble from her perspective, she started to decelerate. Her stomach and brain insisted she should be a very, very thin Nestracake (or crepestra) but again physics had gone to buy milk at the store so it didn't happen. Soon, her fears fell away when the distant star changed, and more could be seen. First, it wasn't one star but two, the second very small compared to the other and slightly to the side. Second, the light of the star was gray. Gray like her. It wasn't any color she'd ever seen in any astronomy documentaries. That specific shade was impossible to achieve, and what it was emitting wasn't light per se. It was pure, unbidden portal energy. The ambient radiation grew so thick that by the time it was roughly the size of the sun, Nestra felt like low air pressure on her skin. But they still kept going.

It grew again. By now, she could see black tendrils stretching over the surface in blurry lines, not on the star but in front of it. She was still slowing but it wasn't fast enough. They probably wouldn't smash into the star, so she pushed back the returning fear. Instead, she focused on the alien vista.

The size of the star defied her comprehension. It was so impossibly large that she simply didn't have the mental capacity to give even a rough estimate. Sereth was by her side now, no longer playing in space. He wore a peaceful expression, with a happy smile, and when he turned to her she saw joy too. And his affection for her.

"You're going to love it. Ah, I wish I could see your reaction."

Nestra watched the tendrils grow, mesmerized. They were not smooth but thorny, each spike the size of a continent. She was decelerating, still, and realized those she'd seen were merely the largest offshoots. In front of the star was a sparse network of interlocked growths, some of them dark and dead, separated from the rest, others a vibrant gray dotted with white. It was, she realized, a living organism. Nestra swore softly.

It had to be the largest living creature in the entire universe. Or universes, as it were. It was… she calculated. The sun was over four million kilometers in circumference — she couldn't remember the exact number. Not only was this star larger but the tendrils were even farther and they grew out in layers and offshoots. In total, the thing had to be…. Tens of millions of kilometers long. There shouldn't be a material in existence with this level of tensile strength. But here it was anyway.

Nestra had slowed down to merely starship speed by now. She was approaching one of the more exposed and lively growths. The gale pushed her towards a peculiar spot, at the base of a spike and in full view of the star. It was approaching quickly and this time, Nestra was sure she was back to distances she was familiar with, if barely. There were valleys and hills and mountains covered by small spikes that were an infinitesimal fraction of the largest ones. The white dots resolved themselves into thorns covered in lush, fluffy growths. Then she spotted a peculiar valley too flat and harmoniously shaped to be natural.

Sereth was yanked away from her. He waved her goodbye. By now she was barely at the speed of an airliner. The valley's thorns were arranged in regular and tidy arrangements. Some were hollowed out, shining with an inner light — the first splash of color she'd come across since arriving. The tree dwellings extended for the entire valley around the flat expanse. They formed a breath-taking mosaic as varied as it was carefully arranged, hints of a hundred architectural styles buried in the maze of curated growths. She was still looking around when she gently hit the ground in the center of the square.

And stopped.

There was gravity here, though it felt almost like a suggestion. Her lungs filled with air, only it was just energy so dense it acted as a replacement. But she could breathe. The surprise was not as much as seeing thousands of gray statues covered in dark garb, from hundreds of species, heads hidden under black clothes. For the first time since being here, she felt void mana. A lot of it.

Wait those aren't —

The statues moved. Their arms, tendrils, tentacles, hooks, fins, chelicerae and other various appendages moved up with perfect synchronism, and as many voices from croaks to roars and trills, sometimes light, sometimes even smells, all overloaded Nestra with a single word.

"Neeeeeee- ZHRAH!"

The statues contracted again, from unfolded to dormant.

"Neeeeeee- ZHRAH!"

Nestra was left standing there like a kid on her birthday, looking all around while people were happy for her. Those were Aszhii, female from the many mammal-equivalent she could see. Some were as small as fae, others were giant with one at least six meters tall with legs like pillars. Some were insectile, or marine. One was a pile of motes of lights dancing in a thick membrane. One was an angler-fish-like creature dancing in the strange light. All of them were pulling back in then exploding outward with all the joy and all the limbs they could muster.

"Nezhra! Nezhra! Nezhra! Hah!"

The statues dissolved into a mess of dances and jumps so fast it was impossible to grasp and yet skilled enough to avoid collisions. Nestra looked around, mouth agape like an idiot but by the time she realized it, the massive assembly was hooting and shrieking and blinking greetings.

"Hey hey!"

"Welcome!"

"Happy to see you!"

A myriad of faces came and went, greeting her with a variety of joyful expressions, or so she assumed. Somehow, she could understand all the different voices coming her way as 'Aszhii', so she got them. Facial expression was not so easy. Especially when she wasn't sure where the face was to begin with.

"A first female from a new species! And you're the first child too! How auspicious!" said a giant ant with a crown of bones.

More comments came from a menagerie of lifeforms. Nestra just smiled and said thanks.

"I hope you had a pleasant trip!"

"The Everbloom is flowering. You came just at the right time!"

"You are a tool user as well? Go see the shaper as soon as you can!"

"No hurrying her, Xylshvx. Give the young one some time to adjust."

"I love how you say thank you to everyone! You must be from a very social species! Oh, we were already told? Sorry, young one, I just came back from a long raid."

"Do you also eat your kills? Young Serethion said you did. Oh I'm so glad to find a kindred spirit!"

That one came from the merger between a tiger and a main battle tank with a family-sized mouth, and Nestra had an inkling 'cooking' wasn't part of the process.

Still, she obliged.

"Yes! Meat and plants, I eat it all."

"How ferocious! Not even the plants are spared? I love it."

The groups merged and split in discussions now and then. Nestra was expecting someone to produce food but it didn't happen. Only after watching the cosmopolitan gathering floating around did she realize that, one, the radiation was so thick it could not just be breathed, it also carried sounds, and two, the majority of the Aszhii females present were A-rank.

There was enough power in that plaza to kill a planetary empire. They could show up on the Lizard world and depopulate it pole to pole in a week tops, but they were obviously busier exchanging gossip. After a few more minutes, Nestra realized the other females were moving very deliberately. A slow flow came to greet her before returning to their conversations, but a group also stayed by her side. She looked at the one guarding her left. That one had a sharp, slightly alien face on a slender body, but she also had two extremely powerful scythe-like appendages with two smaller, more delicate arms on her chest. Three fingers on each hand. The mantis Aszhii waved a scythe. A moment later, someone grabbed Nestra from behind.

The result was the same as every time someone got the jump on her. Nestra yelped and twisted, but the mantis merely looked a bit embarrassed and no one else seemed to panic so she forced herself to calm down. A few of the surrounding older ones gave vague sounds of disapproval, but the comments lacked bite. Nestra turned to see who had grabbed her only to almost panic again. A fae noble was looking at her, long ears twitching around the dreamy abyss of her eyes. Tiny needle teeth emerged from her smile. The fae noble had two giant diaphanous wings so clear they were almost transparent. She was also extremely light but now Nestra realized she was a backpack because the noble refused to let go.

"Ah, errr, hi!"

The fae just kept staring, then she looked all around.

"Please forgive Moon Dancer, Nezhra," Mantis girl said. "Her mind is searching for itself so she is a bit… absent at the moment. You can shake her away if you want. She won't mind. Promise!"

"Ah, hm, it's fine? I think. I don't mind. It looks like she needs an anchor."

"Yes! She understands that we are welcoming you. Sticking to you just makes things easier. My name is Sorai. We are your coven now!"

"Oh, good. You picked me then?"

Nestra wasn't sure how it was supposed to go.

"Yes! We are so happy to have you. Hm. Unless you refuse."

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Sorai suddenly looked a little hesitant. One of her scythes went up to cover her mouth, which was just large enough to toss her into the uncanny valley.

"You do not have to refuse now."

Nestra turned towards a tall woman whose Skin was as much armor as it was uniform. Long hair, carefully braided, fell towards the right side of her face. She was beautiful in a severe sort of way, though it didn't feel cold so much as formal by default.

"Oh you are…"

"The same species as your brother, yes. I am Karamahel."

The woman almost saluted, but she went for a short nod instead.

"As I said, you can change covens if you wish at a later time. We often have rotations. Rotations are required as individuals grow and their preferences change."

She had a very formal way of speaking. In fact, she was almost standing at attention which would be more comical if she were not also 3 meters tall and A-class. The woman was much more lithe than the juggernaut that was Sereth, but Nestra had a feeling she was no less dangerous for it.

"Good to know though I don't want to change right now."

The other two's expressions softened, and Nestra turned her attention to the third member of the group, who had remained quiet until now. It was obviously not by choice since the creature was, essentially, a jellyfish under a shiny cap , swimming in the 'air' with four long tentacles ending in wickedly sharp pincers. Light flashed in fractal patterns throughout its main body.

Nestra blinked. She almost got it.

"Sorry, do it again? Slower?"

Greetings.

She could understand light-based communication now. To be honest it had the merit of being really fast.

"Huh. Hi, I am Nezhra. What do I call you?"

You do not have the organs to spell my name.

You may give me a nickname for the sake of convenience.

"Like… Blinky?"

The thing waved its tentacle.

That is descriptive.

That sounded like a yes. Nestra wasn't sure but it looked like most talking groups were between eight and a dozen members.

"We have one more member back in the common den," Karamahel informed her in a crisp tone. "We will go there after you are done being welcomed."

She sounded like Nestra was getting her teeth done or something. Moon Dancer hummed a strange tune as the round kept going. It took a while. She guessed there had to be around two thousand Aszhii in the plaza.

"How many of us are there?" she eventually asked around during a lull in the conversation.

"It's hard to gauge," Sorai said. "People come and go."

"There are currently slightly under four thousand females around the complex, many back for the flowering season. Others may be hunting out in the Everbloom. I estimate that there are between seven and eight thousand of us in total."

Nestra nodded. According to Sereth, there were more than a hundred male births for a female one, which placed the total Aszhii population near a million.

For a species, it wasn't much, but if one considered the raw firepower… It was lucky for the other species that the Aszhii had little interest in ruling, as a whole.

Eventually, the party wound down. Covens flew or walked away after a few last greetings. Many floated towards the spike, which was definitely continent-sized now that she had a closer look.

"Flower picking!" Moon Dancer whispered in her ear. "Soon, nuts!"

"Ooooh so that's where they came from," Nestra realized.

"Alright! We should go as well!" Sorai exclaimed.

Blinky flashed that Nestra needed to be taught… something.

"Oh, right! So you may have noticed the ambient energy, right?"

"Yes," Nestra replied in a flat tone.

"The light of the Abyssar is ours. You instinctively use it to imitate the medium you were born in. That is why our luminous friend here can float in it as if it were water."

Blinky flashed quickly, and Nestra got a fresh assault of chemical composition knowledge to inform her that Blinky normally swam in ammonium hydroxide. She wasn't sure if it really was all that important.

"You can also use it to fly! Slowly."

"Fly!" Moon Dancer repeated.

"Consider that the gravity of the Everbloom is rather low so once you think about ignoring it, you will become mostly weightless."

"Alright."

Nestra said fly in her head, which felt silly and didn't work. Now she was looking limp in front of the wired kids. Focusing, she remembered the strange sensation of Grandmother Voidgale grabbing her. It worked a little too well.

"Gah!"

"It's alright! Just do a series of straight lines. Increment, Nezhra. Increment."

Now Newton's first law was messing with her. Getting up wasn't an issue. Adjusting course was. Unless she really focused, she just kept going at the same speed in the same direction, and slowing down required her thinking about going backward but more slowly. Nestra rose over the plaza like a bumbling helium balloon while the others gracefully danced around her. The various buildings fell off to reveal the glorious light of the Abyssar and the smaller star orbiting it. They were really too fucking close for comfort.

Nestra bounced herself back towards one of the spires, following Moon Dancer. As much as she tried to find order there, a sort of structure that would show where the real center of power was, she couldn't. Each spire and dwelling rivalled the other in strangeness, a blend of the minimalist and fastuous, some curved like the claws of some massive beast, some slick like fighter jets and other bulbous and ornamented like a barocco dream complete with shiny gems and even mana lightbulbs. There was no logic there. It was certainly different from Threshold. Perhaps she was just too new to feel the flow of power, or perhaps the Aszhii were just that disorganized.

The palace they dropped in harbored a large ballroom around a grown table under a massively tall roof that led to the spire's peak. Arrangements of plates, potteries and cutleries decorated its surface, some functional and others purely decorative. A fountain gurgled peacefully in a corner, spewing dark water. Moon Dancer flew around the room, her wings dropping shiny beads that fell like stars, only to disappear before they could hit anything. The rest of the coven sat down. The three others hurried to pull foodstuff out of their dimensional pockets, and soon Nestra was offered four different varieties of tea, slices of barely cooked meat from Sorai, perfectly baked veggies from Karamahel, and a twisted knot of briny seaweed from Blinky. The seaweed was spicy with a potent mustard taste that left Nestra a bit teary.

"Ok this is strong."

Meanwhile, the girls absolutely loved the baijiu. Even Moon Dream stopped to try, leaving after a little 'eep'. She was definitely flying faster afterward.

Nestra kept waiting for them to speak but it seemed they were enjoying their time, or rather, Sorai was staring at Karamahel who mostly ignored her.

"So, should I meet the last member?" Nestra asked, deciding to break the silence.

"Well…" Sorai started.

"Perhaps we can give her some time. Sorai will explain," Karamahel started.

Sorai cast a worried glance towards the door. Nestra decided to change the topic, maybe give them some time.

"So I have a question. I'm pretty sure we just had food and drinks, but shouldn't it instantly go bad here? This is the vacuum of space saturated with void energy. Arguably everything should disintegrate on contact.

"Oh, it would if left unattended!" Sorai said.

"What my friend here is trying to say," Karamahel added, voice heavy with judgment, "is that perishable matter will stay untouched so long as you manipulate it, or it remains in your vicinity. Unattended food will disintegrate. Unattended, non-perishable matter will remain untouched so long as it is brought here by an Aszhii. If you have brought furniture, you can leave it in your den after you have selected it."

"I, uh, I see. How… does that work?"

"Metaphysical identification field," Karamahel soberly said.

It sounded like a common Aszhii concept, one Nestra was struggling to comprehend right off the bat.

"What my friend is saying," Sorai replied a little too aggressively, "is that the same power that allows you to confuse surveillance systems by informing them you do not exist there is reversed here. You are instinctively telling the Abyssar that the item exists here, and so it is allowed to exist."

Nestra pinched the bridge of her nose.

"I don't like this branch of physics."

"You'll get used to it! No rush!" Sorai said.

"Ok," Nestra said.

Maybe it was the right time to address one of the kaiju in the room.

"So, I noticed that the other covens had more members? Do you usually build one coven at a time, or…"

Moon Dancer let out a sad sigh. Sorai and Karamahel exchanged a glance. It was Blinky who 'spoke' first. Nestra got the feeling she was getting impatient.

We lost two in the last war.

Sylleh and Oolooelo.

It has been difficult since then.

Nestra tilted her head to the side.

"The last war about… a hundred cycles ago?" she said, trying to convert it into local units.

"Yes," Karamahel said. "During the final assault."

There was a pregnant pause.

"I failed to cover them."

"We failed. There were too many of them," Sorai added bitterly.

The two started to bicker, first at B-class speed and then so fast Nestra couldn't follow. Blinky gave an obliging summary.

The Chosen of the High Ones were an empire of people certain that the universe was theirs by right.

It pervaded every aspect of their society.

Aszhii born there often betrayed themselves, and died.

This warned the empire that we existed very soon.

They sent raiding parties as many worlds as they could to find and kill our children, even though they would lose the party.

This angered the covens.

"Hold on," Nestra said, the conversation having moved past before she could ask her question. Blinky flashed in frustration, before shining apologetically.

I am sorry.

I get impatient.

"I can imagine that with light speed communication, but how did they even find us?"

Overachiever loner raiding children of great families whose mothers mysteriously never had children again afterward.

"Oh. But they must have some false positives too."

The Chosen did not care. They also angered a great many people.

Fortunately for them, there were no other empires in the vicinity to give them a sizable opponent.

Unfortunately for them, they also started exterminating species we enjoyed meeting.

The wrathsong reached a crescendo. It shook my waters. One of the only times I think sound supersedes light for conveying meaning.

We gathered as one. We descended upon them like a pack of sharks. We tore them apart. Colony by colony. Army by army. There were… a great many of them, and they were persistent, but so were we, once we really started.

Our two sisters died during the initial assault on their homeworld.

Our group was focused on by one of their honor guards, even as they died. They had received the order to prioritize the females.

Nestra shuddered. It shocked her a bit, of course, but she had to admit it was probably a sound strategy. The Aszhii must have been incensed though.

"So, should I be on the lookout for them?"

There was a brief pause which, for Blinky, had to be rather long.

No.

There are no more Chosen.

We annihilated them to the last noble.

"Wow."

"There could be survivors though," Sorai said, returning to the table. "I think?"

"We left some members of the lower caste alive. And prisoner camps. Perhaps they have started to rebuild. Or perhaps the monsters killed them all," Karamahel added.

She shrugged.

"We do not care either way. Their world will recover. Their civilization will not."

"Maybe we should check on them next time?" Sorai said, a bit excitedly.

Karamahel frowned.

"What!"

"You know what."

"If you have a problem, say it!"

Karamahel's ears fluttered and then it was on again. Blinky despondently stabbed a piece of thin meat from Sorai's plate before bringing it inside of her main membrane where it was promptly digested.

"It's an old argument, I assume."

Related to the last member of the group.

Sorai's daughter.

"What?" Nestra asked. "I mean, Sereth did mention we could have children as well, I think, but Sorai has a daughter?"

Voidborn, we call them.

Grook is not doing well here, but Sorai struggles to get her out of the den.

We were hoping…

"You were hoping that as a young member of a social species, I would help," Nestra concluded. "With both the grief and… Grook."

Blinky had the decency to bob with shame. The two others stopped as well.

"Sorry. You do not have to, of course," Sorai added.

"We will facilitate your transfer to another coven if and when you want to, without restrictions," Karamahel soberly added.

She sounded like she was doing a report.

Moon Dancer floated, landing on Nestra's arm. She gave a short nod.

"Nah, I don't mind staying," Nestra replied. "Every group has issues. But don't expect me to be a miracle worker, alright?"

They gave various expressions of assent.

"I'm just surprised that children are a thing. I mean, we… do not have much of a libido, right? Unless… we grow one?"

"It depends on the individual," Karamahel said. "I, for one, have no interest whatsoever."

"But it can be so fun! I often travel to sample new species!" Sorai added.

"No one cares about your sex holidays, Sorai," Karamahel spat.

"Oh!" the mantis screamed.

Sorai emitted a sound like a furious tea kettle. There was a dull sound of impact, then a hole in the roof and distant sounds of battle. Moon Dancer sighed. Blinky was the only one who seemed relieved.

Finally.

It will get aggression out of their systems.

They are insufferable when they get nervous.

And the constant flash of nerve messages under their skin gets so tiring to perceive as well.

"Uh. Sorry."

Not like that.

To answer your question, some develop a taste for it, some do not.

It might happen to you as well, or not.

You will figure it out.

Later.

Some of our sisters have families, sometimes.

"I see. Sereth did mention that the males did, as well. He made it sound a little kinky."

"It's not the same at all!" Sorai said, suddenly back and sporting a black eye.

Karamahel was back too. Her hair was a little tousled.

"They prefer to live among a host species. We bring our offspring back here. Not that it would have mattered with Grook. Her species are loners, with the female taking care of the offspring. Mating happens only if the male manages to subdue the female in single combat. I gave it a try! Well, it turned out that Grook's father was amazing despite his smaller size. I learned new wrestling tricks I still use to this day. I was very impressed. And a little flustered."

She fanned herself with her blade.

"And one thing led to the other… and Grook was born. I brought her back soon afterward."

Karamahel rolled her eyes.

"Voidborn are not born with a mask, so they cannot survive in most host kin societies. But living here isn't good for the young ones. That's why we try to push them out in the world. Any world. For their own sake."

"Huh," Nestra replied, very eloquently.

"Grook is very shy," Sorai said with guilt dripping from every pore. "I am not sure what to do. She's not even coming now."

"I'll try and talk to her later," Nestra said. "I don't mind."

"She is younger than you, and only ascended twice, which is very slow for one of us," Sorai commented.

Karamahel glared before Nestra could feel sorry for herself.

"What my friend means is that it's slow for someone who hasn't been mana starved their entire life."

"Oh yes of course! I didn't mean anything by it!"

Nestra waved the concern away. At least that seemed like a universal gesture. Then she frowned.

"By the way, who is talking with Sereth? I would have assumed it would be one of you."

"It will always be one of the Elders, but since our coven has one, it's Moon Dancer."

Nestra turned her head to see that yes, Moon Dancer was still hanging from her arm like a rather toothy sloth.

"Hm."

"Oh, Moon Dancer is in several places at once right now. Don't worry about it."

"Okay?"

"Sereth is a good man," Karamahel said wistfully. "I am pleased he was the one we picked. Especially for you."

"You can't trust the males!" Sorai complained. "Never trust the males!"

Even the trustworthy ones will be used by their patriarchs.

"You mean, those who had many children and then have the children gather?" Nestra asked Blinky.

Yes. They want more power. They want portals whenever they want. They can never have the covens, but they can entice isolated females sometimes.

"Then we have to take measures," Karamahel said with a dangerously low tone.

"Isn't it risky?" Nestra asked. "There are a lot more of them than there are of us."

"Most males know better. They tried to control us once in living memory. It didn't go well for them," Sorai huffed.

"Moon Dancer was alive at that time," Karamahel. "It's not that we're stronger, just really hard to catch. But before the bloodshed could begin…"

Grandfather Sunwatcher intervened.

Nestra turned to Blinky.

"Grandfather Sunwatcher?"

The jellyfish pointed up. At first, Nestra thought she'd pointed at the Abyssar but no. Her tentacles were angled towards the smaller of the two stars, the one that orbited the other at a distance that would be impossible if the first sun had mass. And then she realized.

"Sunwatcher? Wait. The smaller star is an Aszhii? The star?"

"Yes! The counterpart to Grandmother Voidgale," Sorai said with excitement.

"By our estimate, they are of the sixth ascension."

"What?"

Nestra was floored. That would make them SS class? This was insane. Earth would have to revise its classification.

Also the Aszhii homeworld was never getting invaded. Ever. Forget the radiation. There was a space folding grandma ruling over the void and a star that could throw itself at anyone coming in. Crazy.

"I was surprised as well. Grandfather isn't talkative. I wouldn't try to wake him up," Sorai said.

"He slumbers deep," Moon Dancer whispered from Nestra's arm.

"Alright I will remove 'conversation with the celestial object' from my wishlist," Nestra deadpanned.

Sorai didn't get it but Karamahel smiled ever so slightly, and Blinky flashed with pleasure.

I like when the spoken message doesn't match the intent!

What a clever way to insult somebody.

"Before the hour grows too late, we should move on to see about picking and arranging your personal den," Karamahel interrupted.

"Ah. Hmm."

"If you wish, I will show you mine so you know what to expect and what to aim for, with time to gather furniture and decorations."

"Why you? My den is good too!" Sorai protested, but Karamahel had her answer ready.

"Her species and mine show similarities when it comes to comfort, according to Serethion. Nothing prevents her from visiting yours later for the sake of…"

Her eyes narrowed.

"Edification."

"A proper den must be adorned with bones! Many bones!"

"I prefer pillows myself," Nestra admitted.

But before a visit could occur, Moon Dancer looked up. There was the mana equivalent of a knock, then many Aszhii floating around and talking all at the same time. Someone shoved a kero nut in Nestra's hand.

"Take it! First of the season!"

"Already?" Sorai asked.

"We traveled widdershins beyond the spine. Some of the smallest and earliest fruits have ripened."

"It's tiny but it's good," another voice added.

The giant tiger Aszhii pushed a small bag towards Nestra's hand, but she didn't immediately grab it.

"Oh! Oh! I forgot!" Nestra screamed.

The others stopped what they were doing.

"Please don't kill my shark? My void shark? I tamed her, kind of. You can recognize her from the bite mark on her dorsal fin. It's, uh, shaped like my jaw."

There was a pause while the sisters processed her request.

"Oh," Tiger Girl said, "I like her already."

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.