Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The worst part, N thought numbly, was that he wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to V. She wouldn’t be getting back from her trip for another three days. 

He pushed open the door to the home he shared with her and J, quietly closed it behind him, then slumped back against it. He stared at the floor with hollow eyes. 

He stayed like that for a long time, long enough for J to poke her head into the living room with a frown. 

“I thought I heard you. What’s the hold-up, dork?” 

“I have your pens,” he whispered, raising the bag. 

“N?” 

“I, uh.” He looked up at her, at his second closest friend in the whole entire world, and immediately burst into tears. 

“What the hell,” she blurted. He heard a clatter as if she’d dropped something, and then she was pulling him away from the door and to the couch. She took the bag from him. 

Warnings popped up on his visor that he was going to hyperventilate himself into a soft reboot if he didn’t stop gasping for breath so quickly. He wheezed, shoulders shaking. 

Sounding slightly panicked, J said, “You’re not allowed to have a total breakdown when it’s only me here. Save that for V, she’s better at the comforting thing.”

“You’re not that bad,” he hiccuped. 

“Gee, thanks. Seriously, what’s wrong? Was it another dead animal on the side of the road?”

He shook his head, took in a long, shuddery breath, and rasped, “They picked my name for the next sacrifice.” 

J’s entire body locked up, her expression going slack with shock. Her right eye flashed a quick error symbol before it was replaced by the spinning buffering wheel. 

“Tell me you’re joking,” she demanded. 

He helplessly shook his head. 

J gaped at him for a couple seconds before collapsing beside him on the couch and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He turned into her and went limp, trembling. 

She wasn’t a very touchy-feely person with anyone, not even V. It said a lot that she was initiating a hug with him now. 

“When,” she choked, “when are they…”

“Tomorrow morning.” Take the night to say goodbye to your loved ones, they’d told him. “And V’s not…” 

She squeezed tighter. He heard her core stutter. “I’ll—I’ll talk to them. Make them wait until she gets back.” 

Gratitude swelled in his core. Even though— “You know it has to happen during the eclipse,” he whispered.

She growled. “We could hide you.” 

He didn’t respond, just buried his face against her more firmly. In the generations since humans and drones came to an understanding—an understanding that involved a yearly sacrifice of a randomly selected drone—none of the drones who tried to escape their fate succeeded. Even now, he was sure a guard or two had followed him home and would keep watch until they were to bring him to the cathedral in the human city. 

N shuddered. 

By the time J finally pulled back, holding his shoulders at arms’ length, the sun was just beginning to set. She inhaled deeply. “All right, dork. Your choice for dinner and a movie tonight.” 

It nearly made him start crying again, but he managed to scrounge up a wobbly smile for her. 

• • •

It would be a lie to say either of them slept that night. They ended up watching six movies in a row, pressed together on the couch. At some point, N retrieved his lap desk and drawing supplies and kept only half his attention on the screen. 

He carefully sketched himself and V and J, which turned into doodles of some of his fondest memories: pillow fights and the worm incident and V’s experiments with hair dye that she roped them both into and their trip to the ocean and J nervously practicing her thesis presentation for them and last year’s matching Halloween costumes and N’s own excitement when he got his job at the library and—

—and he didn’t have enough time to doodle them all. 

His drawing turned into writing. A pair of lengthy letters for V and J, goodbyes for his friends at work, a request to the animal shelter to give all his favorite dogs one last treat and ear scritch from him. And then a dozen little notes, for their neighbor who grew such beautiful flowers and the bakery that made the best brownies and the artist who always sat by the fountain to paint the daily life of town and the teacher who always indulged his curiosity and on and on he went, until the knock came at the door. 

Their living room had gone quiet over an hour ago. J hadn’t gotten up in a while, and had, at some point, started watching him write. 

They both jumped at the knock. J stared at the door, then down at the pile of paper spilling across the cushion on his other side. 

“Will you—”

“V and I will make sure they all get them.” She stood roughly, storming across the room to the little alcove of their front door. 

N finished signing his name before setting aside the last note. He didn’t try to hear what J was hissing at the guards on their stoop, just got up and went into the kitchen. His hands shook as he poured himself a glass of juice and took a blueberry muffin from the little plate beside the fruit bowl. He stood at the counter as he ate and looked out the window, light slowly filtering in as the sun rose over the trees in their backyard. The windowsill was covered edge to edge with tiny potted plants. 

He grabbed a fresh cup, filled it from the sink, and carefully watered each little flower. 

“You will not set one damn foot in our home,” he heard J snap. “He’ll come over here when he’s good and ready, and you will do him the decency of respecting that before you murder him.” 

N rinsed his dishes and left them in the sink. He paused to give one last look at the kitchen table with three seats, then walked back into the living room feeling like his knees were about to give out. 

J looked like she was mentally begging for an excuse to attack the pair of human guards. He took her hand as he came to stand beside her. She was only an inch or two taller than him, and the humans probably around half a foot taller than her, but he had no doubt she’d win. 

The guards straightened, blank-faced. They stepped back and a little bit apart from each other, creating a space he was meant to fill. 

N slipped past J to the edge of the doorframe, then turned to her. He didn’t know what to say; V had always giggled over his and J’s relationship because they were somehow both incredibly close to and oddly distant from each other. 

“I just love how it works really weirdly well for you guys,” V had told him once. “You know those pictures of birds chilling in the middle of anti-bird spikes?”

“Yeah?” 

“That’s you two. Bird and spike.” 

“If you guys ever get a dog, will you name it Biscuit for me?” 

“Yeah, N,” J said. “We can do that.” 

“Thanks.” He looked at her, and she looked back, and all the sentiments that he didn’t have the words for… he knew she saw them in his eyes. He knew she knew. 

She squeezed his hand. 

“Tell V…” he sniffled, “just tell her I love her, and that all I want is for her to be happy.” 

J nodded sharply. She hugged him again, pressing the sides of their faces together. 

The guards waited patiently in silence for them to finish. It was early yet. 

N gently pulled away. He really just wanted to get this over with. His core was throbbing painfully, anxiety a heavy weight in his chest. 

“See ya, dork,” she said as he stepped away, not releasing her hand. Her eyes were wobbly around the edges with her tears. 

“Take care of yourself, J,” he said, backing toward the guards. He didn’t let go until he couldn’t hold on any longer, their hands finally falling to their sides. 

N hugged himself around his middle as the guards, walking on either side of him, led him down the path. He looked over his shoulder one last time right before they reached the end of their front walk. J was still at the front door, hunched into herself and shaking. 

He wished he could go back to her. He wished he wasn’t leaving her to deal with this alone for the next two days, until V got home. He wished he could tell her it was all right, and mean it. 

But N had wished for a lot of things through the night, and not one of those had come true either. 

That walk down the lane and into town felt so much longer than it usually did. His every step took more effort than the last. 

Word must have gotten around. Their town of Lockhaven was small compared to the rest of the drone settlements around the human city. Most everyone knew everyone, and N had never passed up on a chance to meet someone new. 

Today, the bustle of midmorning was absent. Instead, a crowd had formed a neat aisle down the main street, and it felt like every drone in their county must be there. It was quiet, only the slightest murmur passing through the gathered drones like ripples. 

N felt the guards tense slightly, though neither spoke nor grabbed him. Perhaps they expected an attack. He doubted this was a usual occurrence in other settlements. But because of their lower population, a sacrifice from Lockhaven was rare. N himself would only be the third in all the many years since the end of the war.

He looked at them as he passed, not quite able to bring himself to smile. But he was grateful, for the support and the reminder that, if nothing else, he had lived a life very, very full of love. He would be missed. And if he knew their neighbors half as well as he thought he did, J wouldn’t end up alone until V’s return after all. 

The near-silence remained behind them long after they’d left. 

• • •

At the outskirts of Lockhaven, a car waited for them. Most drone settlements forbid them within their borders, and N had never longed for otherwise. The ride into the city was loud and bumpy on the dirt roads, and then just loud on the pavement, and he felt small in the middle of the bench seat. 

He was almost relieved when they finally stopped. 

The Celestial Cathedral was one he’d only ever seen photos of. The architecture was grand and sweeping and elaborate, all pointed arches and carved columns and flying buttresses. Its spires stretched high into the sky. Bursts of color in indistinct stained-glass windows dotted the massive building. 

Thousands of humans and drones alike gathered here to worship their goddess. N had never been one of them. 

J called it a freaky cult. Seeing the celebrations filling the streets for blocks in every direction around it, N was inclined to agree. These people were already celebrating his death. 

A large group of uniformed humans, all armed with riot shields, were waiting at the end of the grand walkway up to the cathedral’s main entrance. More lined the path, bodily holding back the crush of people. The shouting and music and distant fireworks made for an awful racket. 

“They’re going to try and touch you,” one of his original guards told him, the first words any of the humans in the car had offered him. “They’re going to be yelling at you. Ignore them.” 

“Why are they…?” N whispered, more frightened of the scene outside the car than the fate that awaited him in the cathedral. 

The guard glanced through one of the darkened windows, and a look of disgusted annoyance broke through the impassive mask. “They’re fanatics. The spectacle of all this—it vindicates them.” 

When the door opened and the guards emerged first, the shouts rose, deafening. N slipped after them, and the one who’d warned him took his arm as the rest of the humans surrounded him with their shields. N practically glued himself to the guard’s side, squeezing his eyes shut and letting himself be hustled blindly down the path to the cathedral. 

He could make out very little from individual voices, but what he did hear was… upsetting. 

It was a long path. 

When the door thud shut behind them, he was on the brink of hyperventilation. The guard released his arm but didn’t step away, and for a long moment, N leaned against them until his legs felt less wobbly. What twisted gratefulness. 

The voices were muffled but still there, so he didn’t drag his feet when he was led deeper into the building. 

With their sacrifice safely delivered to his destination, the guards’ duty was done. He got a grim smile from the kind one before they headed off with their partner. Through a window, between towering skyscrapers, N glimpsed the sun. The moon was more than halfway in front of it. 

It wouldn’t be long now. 

The robed human he was left with cast him a glance as they walked. “You know your history?” he asked. “Why this must happen?” 

N nodded, voice box stiff and quiet. 

It must happen because a very long time ago the worker drones of the world decided they didn’t want to play servant to humans anymore. And humans didn’t like that. So they fought, a lot of people died, and they probably would’ve gone on fighting until the planet was entirely desolate and dead (instead of only mostly) if an actual deity hadn’t arrived to settle things peacefully between the two species. 

The yearly sacrifice must happen during the eclipse she caused because it was the only thing she’d asked for in return. Why drones and not humans, though, no one could say.

They reached the heart of the cathedral, filled with rows and rows of pews. Thousands of small lightbulbs hung from the dark ceiling like the night sky. There must have been dozens of prisms set up somewhere, casting hundreds of tiny rainbows over every surface. He’d have admired it if this wasn’t where he would die.

Beautifully detailed stained-glass windows lined the full length of the room. He’d seen some in pictures before. Many displayed snapshots of history—the drone uprising, the humans’ retaliation, the peace that eventually followed—but above all else, they showed the Eternal One, the Merciful Goddess, the Abyssal Queen. 

The Absolute Solver. 

Her form was eldritch in most every depiction of her, not just the ones in the windows—a dozen eyes, twisting tendrils, and a long thin body with a hundred legs woven around itself into a loose, intricate knot. As large as the moon. The only color artists ever used for her was gold. 

N shrank under that many-eyed stare, feeling very watched as he was led down the endlessly long aisle. 

At the head of the room was a massive stone altar made of a series of raised circular platforms that almost looked like a round stage. High in the rafters over it was a roiling mass of shadow so dark it went beyond being black and straight to void. 

It was said that no mortal could pass into the Absolute Solver’s realm and live. 

A few dozen humans and a handful of drones were going about their business near the altar. They were all dressed in ceremonial robes, and many had fancy headpieces. N felt out of place in his t-shirt and shorts. He rubbed his arms, hardly daring to make eye contact with anyone. 

“Wait here,” the human leading him said, gesturing at a pew at the front. “The eclipse will reach totality soon.” He was given a hard look. “Don’t try anything, y’hear? It won’t end well for you.” 

N was not nearly brave enough to resist even a little, so he only nodded and sat where he was told. He stared down at his feet, focusing on not crying in front of all these strangers. 

Someone stopped in front of him. “Need anything?” 

He looked up at the drone and opened his mouth to politely decline, only to notice something behind her. His eyes hollowed. “This is recorded?” he whispered. 

Several cameras, he saw now, were poised around the altar, pointing both at it and at the pews. 

She put her hand on his knee. “For archival purposes only,” she reassured him. “It won’t be broadcast or made public.” 

“O-Oh. That’s… okay.” 

“You know, your sacrifice won’t be forgotten,” the drone told him, earnest. “The names of the chosen are engraved on a great monument. You will join the dozens—hundreds!— of others who came before you.” 

It didn’t make him feel better, but he smiled slightly in the hopes she would leave him be. Seeming pleased, she gave him a quick pat before returning to the preparations.  

For the remainder of his life, N sat alone. 

His legs were weak beneath him when he was finally summoned and instructed to take his place.

Those few steps to the top of the altar felt like a mountain he had to climb. His core raced and pounded hard enough that he imagined everyone could hear it. Glowing symbols pulsed in the stone as he shakily took a seat in the center of the platform. 

He felt out of his own body as the priests and priestesses made their speeches and called out their prayers. He felt so watched, even though most of the people in the room either had their eyes closed or were focused on their leaders.

He was just grateful he couldn’t hear the shouting outside. 

The human with the most elaborate ceremonial robes raised their arms to the dark mass above N. The rest of the lights in the room dimmed as a chant rose from the worshippers. His core sped up as he realized—this was it. He was about to die. He clenched his hands tightly in his lap, eyes welling with tears. 

One of the humans gathered around the base of the altar, all holding candles and precious artifacts, glanced at him. 

“It won’t hurt,” they whispered just loud enough for him to hear over the chanting. “It’s quick.” 

N swallowed.

And to the human’s credit, it was. There was a flash of movement overhead, he got the barest impression of a sickle-shaped claw, and just like that, between blinks, N died. 

• • •

Most of the humans in the main hall of the cathedral had bore witness to the annual sacrifice before. For some, they had been part of this process for decades. 

But none had ever seen a sacrifice go like this. 

Usually, the Absolute Solver ended the chosen drone with some level of swiftness, depending on the drone’s countenance. The frightened were killed quickly, painlessly. The angry, or those who tried to escape… those ones were often drawn out. 

Always, though, the aftermath was brutal. Claws and spear-tipped tendrils descended from Her Great Void to rip the drone apart, pulling the body piece by piece into Her realm. 

This time was different. The quiet, frightened drone met his end with the expected speed, given his cooperation. But then there was a pause, the initial claw hanging motionless in the air over his body as he collapsed. 

The humans held their breath, their hearts beating heavily. Had they messed up? Had they insulted Her Eternal Self? 

The tendrils that lowered to the body were blunt at the end. They curled gently beneath the intact sacrifice, cradling him, and pulled him whole into Her Blessed Void. 

There was a long silent stillness in the cathedral. “Is everything… all right?” someone finally dared ask in an echoing whisper. 

One of the Head Priestesses nodded slowly. “I… believe so. Our Goddess has accepted the sacrifice.” 

Even if it had gone a bit differently than ever before…

Outside, the eclipse lingered for a long moment, endless darkness swallowing their city, until the moon shifted to reveal the sun. 

Chapter Text

If asked beforehand, N would have said that he imagined death to be nothingness. That he would simply stop existing, not continue on in some afterlife or be aware in a bodiless state. 

And initially, he was right. He ceased to be. But then—a jolt, and he slipped free of the nothingness. 

In his sudden return, his mind struggled to interpret what he was experiencing. He had no body with which to feel, no eyes with which to see, no audial system with which to hear. And yet…

Words felt pressed into him, pressure as opposed to sound. It’s you, it’s you. I had not dared hope that someday, you would be given to me… 

And warmth. There was warmth. He slipped back into the blank dark. 

An indeterminable time later, N felt a dozen things slide against him. Or—through him? He would have mistook it for water but for how solid they were. 

A dropping sensation, and then, he almost had a body. It was there, but so dull and distant that it didn’t feel like it belonged to him. 

He felt caught in a dream, right at the edge of sleep that he could not wake up from.

I was ready, though, the words appeared in his thoughts, just in case. Happy smile. 

N had been sick very badly, about a year ago. He’d been numb all over, even as his body trembled from the virus attacking him. Everything had been so hazy. He came out of those long days with only blurred memories of V leaning over him, J’s worried frown, their attempts to both feed him and purge the virus from his system. 

This felt a lot like that. 

The body he almost had felt familiar in some ways and so, so different in others. A code command from beyond him trickled through it, and he began to process visuals again even though he would swear his eyes were not open. 

He got the sense that he was facing upward, as though he was lying on his back. Everything was blurry, indistinct. Writhing movement. Faint gold lights.

And there was… someone. A figure he couldn’t make out. They were beside him, with a shape like a drone’s but… wrong, somehow. 

It was so dark that the figure leaning over him seemed to glow. He felt pressure against his cheek. It didn’t feel like a hand, but it slid down to the back of his head to raise him up. He lolled, limp. His limbs felt so separate from him that he could not have moved them if he put his all into it. 

Almost there, he heard without hearing. Just this now. 

The figure leaned toward him, something in their hand. It was small, perhaps just the right size for a drone to close their hand around. It was black as void, but it too somehow had a glow about it. 

Static crept over him as the figure brought it toward him. 

A wordless moan fizzled in his throat. His vision flickered, and the most he could do was try to roll his head further away from it. 

The figure didn’t reach for him, yet something caught him and straightened his head. 

It will be over soon, he was told gently. Come back to me, N. 

His death replayed in his memory. He whimpered and closed eyes that he didn’t actually feel. 

You will never need to fear death again. 

The static worsened, and when he peeked at the figure, they held the dark sphere in front of his face. His head was lifted more, and an outside command took hold of him; he found his mouth opening without his permission. 

The figure tipped the sphere into his mouth. Helpless, he swallowed. 

The figure smiled. 

• • •

That night, impossibly, a full moon glowed brightly in the sky over the human city. 

• • •

N woke in the most comfortable bed he’d ever slept in. It was soft and perfectly squishy. Cloud-like, in a way. 

He blinked up at the ceiling, content. A few seconds passed. 

He shot up with a choked gasp, eyes wide. He died. He died. He clearly remembered dying, for as quickly as it’d happened. 

This was not what he’d expected to see afterwards! 

This being a bedroom. It was large and airy and bright. Strings of lights crisscrossed the ceiling and lined the room’s perimeter. They looked odd, and it took a moment of staring for him to realize there were no little lightbulbs. Just the twinkling lights, as if tiny stars had been strung up on shining silver chains. 

The walls reminded him slightly of the cathedral, but only in the way they were intricately carved, with columns and arches. Celestial details covered them, stars and moons and constellations. Unlike the cathedral, instead of a dark sandy color, they were white marble with deep blue veins. 

Besides the frankly enormous bed he was sitting on, there was a desk and a bookshelf and a couple chests and an entire corner filled with potted plants surrounding a comfy looking armchair. An actual pond with a softly burbling waterfall was built into the wall directly across from the bed. The room had two doors, one to the left of the pond and one to his right. 

Momentarily petrified, N spent a few minutes just looking at the strange room. Quiet, serene music filled the silence, and he couldn’t tell where it came from. 

Just sitting there wasn’t going to get him any answers. With a shaky exhale, N scooted to the edge of the bed and cautiously slipped off. There was a super soft rug covering most of the floor in the center of the room. 

He made it all of three steps before realizing something was wrong. He looked down, core in his throat. 

Those were not his arms. Not his legs. 

There was a mirror near the chest, a big floor length one. Trembling, he stumbled over to it. 

The drone reflected back at him perfectly matched his movements and certainly looked as fearful as N felt. But that was where the similarities ended. 

Even without a point of reference, he could tell he was taller. By a not-insignificant amount. His arms and legs weren’t the standard flexible segmented metal, but solid white and sturdier. Around each wrist, where the metal flared slightly, was a thick stripe of black. White glowing symbols were set in the dark bands, not unlike the accent lights on his hands. His legs sloped down right into his feet, which really didn’t look like feet anymore even though he wasn’t wearing shoes. 

In place of his t-shirt and shorts was something he initially thought was a sheet tangled over his shoulder. On closer inspection, it dawned on him that it was a toga. Of the ancient Roman variety. 

Well. He supposed his clothes probably wouldn’t have fit on this bigger body, and he was at least grateful to be wearing something. He supposed it matched the white marble and columns aesthetic… 

But the toga quickly became the last thing on his mind as he fixated on his head. His eyes weren’t blue anymore. And his hair wasn’t a warm brown. No, both were a bright white.

He gently touched his visor, watching himself with furrowed eyebrows, then brushed his fingers through his hair. It felt the same, was styled the same. It was just white as snow now.

A silver circlet was woven through the fluffy locks of his hair, chains draping around his head, decorated with more of the tiny stars and little moons in different phases and blue crystals. Right in the center of his upper visor, just below his bangs, hung a silver symbol he recalled seeing in the cathedral. A hexagon with three arrows coming out of opposite corners. One point was facing straight down, leaving the other two angled upwards. 

Feeling like he’d somehow woken up in someone else’s body, N edged toward one of the doors, finding it opened into a hallway. His strange, bare feet tapped quietly against the stone floor as he made his way down it, hugging himself around his middle. 

There were a few branching corridors, but he ignored them for the moment to head to the large room he could see at the end of the main hall. He stopped at the entrance, mouth falling open. 

It was an enormous atrium, and he had emerged on a walkway that entirely encircled it. Below was the strangest combination of nature and living room—plants and trees and ponds and a stream or two carved into the floor mingled amongst plush couches and low tables. At the center was a large circular basin that, instead of water, seemed to contain dark shadows. They rippled and shone, moving. Alive. 

Overhead, though, was what really stole his breath. Where there should have been a ceiling, perhaps a glass dome, was space. In the sense of the cosmos. 

The richest, deepest black he’d ever seen hung over the atrium, and it was full of light. Of nebula and planets and stars and astroid belts. Blues and reds and purples and greens and yellows and a hundred more colors and hues. 

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, staring up at the universe, but he was pulled back to himself by a quiet noise to his left. He startled, abruptly remembering where he was (for all that he didn’t really know where he was). 

N wasn’t sure what he expected to see when he turned toward the noise, but a relatively ordinary-looking drone wasn’t it. 

Pale yellow eyes blinked at him. The drone, with a worker’s build, also wore a toga, but her hair was blonde and fell to halfway down her back. Hanging over her shoulders were a pair of twin-tails, secured low. 

N brightened immediately, forgetting his confusion and fear to dart over to her. “Cyn!” he cried, sweeping her up in a twisting, whirling hug.  

He’d recognize her anywhere, even though they’d only known each other for a few short days years ago. She looked almost exactly the same, save for the missing oversized sweater and fluffy skirt. 

“Happy laughter,” she said, clutching his arms as he bounced them around. “You remember me!”

“Of course I do!” He giggled and wobbled to a stop, dizzy—only to realize he’d bodily picked her up, leaving her feet dangling quite a bit above the floor. “Whoops! Sorry ’bout that,” he said, setting her down. Lifting people up for hugs hadn’t exactly been a problem for him before. “I didn’t, uh…” N glanced down at his strange new height. Cyn was only as tall as the middle of his chest, though she had a habit of hunching more than the average drone. He felt vaguely sick just looking at this body that wasn’t his. 

“There is nothing to apologize for,” Cyn said. “Beaming smile. I’m so glad you’re happy to see me.” She shyly toed the ground. “I know it’s been a while. I would have understood if you had forgotten, or no longer cared so much…” 

“Never! I always hoped we’d see each other again, even if this wasn’t quite how I imagined it happening.”

He’d found her in the woods during some of his wandering. She’d been wide-eyed and nervous and all floppy-jointed. She hadn’t been able to answer any of his questions, seemingly unable to remember what had happened that led to her being lost in the woods. 

For eight days, she stayed with him while he kept a close eye out for anyone looking for her. V and J had been gone on a trip to visit J’s human friend, so they’d had the house to themselves. He’d been so worried that someone had hurt her that he never protested her refusal to let him leave her sight. Considering the memory loss and the state of ill-repair her body had been in… 

But for all his concern, it’d been a great week. She’d been so curious, so eager to explore, as if everything was new to her. He’d made no comment about her ignorance of the world. Just delighted in showing her as much as he could in those eight days. 

And then, on the last, she’d told him it was time for her to go. That she had to return to her home. 

He’d have felt a little silly for hugging her goodbye so tightly, but she returned it with equal strength. He’d known her for just over a week, yet it felt like he was losing someone he’d known all his life.

“I will never forget you,” she’d said in that oddly formal way of hers, face turned into his shoulder. “This has been… you have been wonderful. Thank you, N.”

And all too soon, she’d gone off down the path, having gently refused his offer to walk into town with her, and he never saw her again. Until now, here.

A terrible thought struck him. “Were you one of the sacrifices since we met?” he asked, eyes hollowing. It would explain how she was here, wherever here was, if this was just where sacrifices to the Absolute Solver ended up. And why she never returned for a visit despite his offer.

Cyn sort of shrank into herself, her eyes furrowing deeply. “I—no, N. I was not a chosen sacrifice.” She fiddled with the end of one of her twin-tails. “There is something I must tell you, and I ask that you let me finish before… asking questions or… passing judgement. Pleading eyes.” 

“Sure, yeah. Of course.” 

“Several years ago, I did some… I believe you call it ‘people watching.’ I simply observed different drones and humans as they went about their lives. There were questions I was asking myself, and I hoped to find an answer in my observations. You… caught my attention.” 

He slowly nodded along. 

She sighed. “That day we met… I was not lost in the forest. You did not run into me by chance. I was waiting—for you.” 

N’s thoughts slammed to a stop. He could only listen, frowning, as she continued. 

“You showed me a side to living that I had… I cannot decide if I had forgotten how to love the world or if I had never learned to start. You found so much joy in such little things. I had to know how it felt, and who better to teach me than you?

“I think I would have stayed for a lifetime, if I could have. With you and your friends in your home down the lane—you taught me that too. Home. That is what I have always lacked, and what you gave me a taste of. But just as mortals cannot survive in my realm, I could not stay long in yours.” 

His oil froze in his veins. Her sad eyes rose to his, and he saw in them that she knew he had realized she was—he gulped. 

But he had said he would let her speak. That he would wait to ask questions or pass judgement. 

When he held his silence, tenser than before but making no move to run screaming from the literal goddess who had just admitted to stalking him, she emerged somewhat from her despondent little hunch. 

“If you believe nothing else I say, please believe this,” she said, taking his hand and squeezing tight. “I played no part in you being chosen. When I left, I swore to myself that I would not take you with me. I would not rip you from your world unless you were offered to me. I held out little hope for it, but… here you are. Happy smile.” She gave a little nod, more to herself, then looked expectantly at him. 

He giggled nervously, hyperaware of her holding his hand. “That’s, uh. That’s a lot. I don’t… I don’t know where to start…”

“Take your time. Patient expression.” She looked to the side, down at the ground floor of the atrium. “Would you like to sit?”

“Sure?” 

He ended up being grateful for the chance to gather his thoughts as she led him to a set of stairs further down the walkway. Everything was all jumbled up in his head. 

“Are you—do I, I mean, should I still call you Cyn?” he asked as they reached the bottom. He got distracted, staring up at the trees from below. More strings of not-lights were strung through the branches, creating a cozy glow. 

“I have many names,” she said. “The people of your planet call me one—Absolute Solver. But I would like it very much if you continued to call me Cyn.” 

She paused before a couch, and he sat down into the plushest, softest cushions he’d ever felt in his life. 

“I take many forms as well. I adjusted this to fit in with your kind. But it is close to one of my bodies.” A blueish sort of light fizzed over her like a broken hologram, and N startled slightly as she changed. 

She was right, at least, about the difference being minimal. Instead of a worker’s, her body was like the one he’d woken up in, though he was pretty sure she was still a little shorter than him. Her hair and eyes were both colored a bright and shining gold. And she wore a circlet now too, one that was gold with amber crystals and little sun charms instead of moons. But that same three-pointed symbol rested above and between her eyes.

Cyn sat down beside him, and for a long moment, neither spoke. They were matching yet opposite, N realized. Gold and silver. 

He doubted it was a coincidence. 

Cyn pulled her legs up to sit crisscross facing him. Patting his knee, she said, “Encouraging pat. Please do not be afraid to ask me anything.” 

“I guess I just—I don’t understand. Why would you—there’s nothing special about me.” 

She tilted sideways, slumping against the back of the couch with a reminiscent smile. “It was your kindness and your joy and your curiosity. And then it was because you became my friend. I have worshipers and enemies and followers, but it has been an age since I had a friend. Perhaps there are a hundred others like you in the world, but you are the one I found. You are the one I got to know. You are the one I wanted to keep.”

“Can you explain that part next, please? The how, I mean,” he whispered, tangling his fingers together. “Because I—I died. How am I…” 

“Yes,” she said. “I killed you.” 

He winced, shrinking in on himself. 

“Apologetic expression. It was necessary,” she explained. “The living cannot survive here.” 

“But…” He helplessly gestured at himself.

“Correction. This realm is not for living mortals.” 

N was pretty sure his core fully stalled for a long beat. His thoughts went silent, but there was a ringing noise in his head. 

“Mortals?” he breathed. 

“When I revived your core in your new body, one better suited for this dimension and your new status—”

Status?  

“—you were still mortal, and therefore, dying. I combined a small piece of my… soul, you could call it, with stardust and ash from the heart of the universe to create a new soul for you.” 

“What am I?” N whispered. The beginnings of panic snaked through his veins.

Cyn beamed. “You are my brother now. A god.” 

Her right eye became that three-pointed symbol and—and something there, something in her, called out to something in him. A shiver went up his spine and his fingertips tingled with warmth and his right eye—it glitched into a matching symbol. 

Chapter Text

On the third night after the annual sacrifice, the shadows that led to the Absolute Solver’s realm from the Celestial Cathedral writhed more than normal. But as it was the middle of the night, no worshippers or staff were there to witness it. 

If someone had been there, however, they would have seen the shadows part briefly to allow a silver shape through. And then they would have watched a flailing drone plummet to the altar below with a shriek of surprise. 

He landed with a painful-sounding crash. Motionless for a moment, the drone groaned.

A few pitch black tendrils unwound from the shadows, descending in a worried manner. One patted at the drone, who patted it back. The tendrils hovered protectively as the drone picked himself up and ruffled his hair, settling his near-glowing white bangs back into place. 

“Forgot about that,” the drone said, sheepish, gesturing at the distance between the floor and the entrance to the Absolute Solver’s realm. 

A tendril gently flicked the center of his visor, just below the centerpiece of his circlet. It pulled back and moved as if it, the eye-less tendril, was giving him a once-over.

The drone held his arms out, peered up and down his own body, and even did a quick spin. “I feel fine,” he said to the tendril. “I think you were right about me, um, handling this dimension better than you because I’m from it.” 

The tendril gave a little wiggle. Perhaps it could even be called a happy wiggle. 

With a double thumbs-up, the drone set off from the altar and down the aisle between pews. “See you in a few days!” he called over his shoulder with a wave. 

The tendrils waved wildly back before returning to the mass of shadows like a couple spaghetti noodles being slurped up. 

• • •

V couldn’t stop crying. She’d been home for less than a day, and she’d spent nearly every minute since with tears in her eyes. 

She’d had all of a few blissful, ignorant minutes before everything crashed down. She’d gotten as far as putting her bags in her room before noticing J’s odd silence and stricken expression. 

And then… and then. The tears.

She’d begged J to tell her it was a cruel joke. And when J had only pressed her mouth into a tight line, V had slumped against the wall, sliding down to the floor with a wail. She’d clutched her arms hard enough to dent the segmented metal as she sobbed so hard that her body forced a reboot. 

Numbness followed—or, that wasn’t the right word for it. Emptiness. A wretched, clawing, cold emptiness consumed her. 

She would never forgive herself for not being here.

Neither of them slept, not really, and they wordlessly gave up pretending to before the sun had even risen. Breakfast that first morning was… it was so quiet and too still and there would always be an empty seat to her right now, and it set the most perfectly miserable precedent for her new forever—

A knock came from the door, and the way J flinched was heartbreaking. But she recovered quickly, and with the expression of someone at her wit’s end, she stormed down the hall. 

Not unopposed to a distraction, V followed behind J, watching as she roughly flung the front door open. 

They both paused, J’s fury catching in her throat. 

Standing on their stoop was a drone easily as tall as a human, probably close to a foot taller than either of them. Their body was strangely built, like nothing she’d ever seen before. They looked incredibly out of place, wearing a light blue toga and a gleaming silver circlet. Their creased eyes were pure white, as was their hair. 

“What the hell do you want,” J started to snap, but V barely heard her. 

Nothing about this drone was familiar, except for how everything about this drone was familiar. The little shuffle in place, feet nudging each other. The slight shy tilt of their shoulders. The squished press of their mouth. The hands clutching the front of their toga in the middle of their torso. 

“N?” V whispered, hardly daring to hope. 

J stopped to twist and stare incredulously at her. 

“Hey, V,” the drone—N, it was N, he was alive—said in N’s voice with N’s super specific tone that meant ‘I’m on the verge of tears but I’m trying to smile and I feel really bad about maybe being about to cry on you.’ “Um. Surprise?” 

J’s hand slipped limply from the door. “What—how—” 

V barreled past her and collided with N forcefully enough that he should have stumbled backward, if not completely fallen over—but this new, different N barely wavered in place. He hunched to wrap his arms around her back, sniffling tellingly. 

She didn’t care about the how or why. Just that he was there, he was hugging her, she could hear the vibrations of his core. 

“J,” N said, tipping toward desperate. A very un-J-like sob burst behind V, and then N was folding J into their huddle. 

The three of them stood there for a long while, pressed tightly into a bundle of bodies and limbs that anyone would be hard pressed to separate. V trembled. 

“I’m sorry,” N whispered. “I’m sorry you had to… I came back as soon as I could.” 

“How are you back at all?” J asked, hoarse. 

He giggled weakly. “Long story. I, uh…” 

“Were you not—” V swallowed heavily but forced herself to say it— “sacrificed?” 

“Ah. No, no, I was definitely sacrificed. That was. Not fun. But! I’m a-okay now, so we can just move on from that.” 

V didn’t imagine her nightmares would be doing any moving on anytime soon, but she looked up into his hollow eyes and nodded. 

“Get in here,” J said, pulling away and dragging them both into their home. “I need more coffee if we’re having this conversation.” 

She stormed off to the kitchen, leaving N to carefully close the front door. V laced their fingers together; she couldn’t imagine letting go of him for even a minute. 

He looked just slightly out of place as they went down the hall. He wasn’t quite in danger of hitting his head on the ceiling, but the buildings in Lockhaven were designed for drones, and adult drones had only a small margin of difference in height. N didn’t fit in that margin. 

J was roughly banging around the cabinets as N slowly took a seat at their table. V’s core skipped a beat to see him there again, in his rightful place, so soon after she’d been trying to reckon with its emptiness. 

“Talk,” J said as she glared the coffee machine down. 

N took a deep breath and began. He told them about waking up in the Absolute Solver’s realm, about his confusion, about Cyn. 

V remembered Cyn. She remembered N’s fond smile when he told them about his guest while they’d been away. She remembered how much he’d missed her, and that, even now, some of the pictures they’d drawn together were still on his bedroom wall. 

She swallowed down anger for the deception, for Cyn taking what was hers and J’s. She’d call it betrayal if Cyn had ever meant anything to V at all, but as it was, she was a goddess. And the gods always got what they wanted in the stories. 

Besides. N was alive. He was alive because a goddess had grown attached to him. He was here because that goddess was willing to share. 

“You can’t stay, can you,” she whispered. 

He shook his head, apologetic. “It’s the—” he waved his free hand at himself, at his new body— “energy, or something like that. It’s not too bad right now. Cyn said it builds until… I guess our bodies would burst? The, um, special god-stuff can’t stay contained in a physical body in this world. Something about her dimension—it’s about compatibility, I think. I have time, though. Maybe even more than Cyn would, since at least part of me comes from this world.” 

He snapped his mouth shut against his rambling, tapping the table. 

J, sat opposite from V, clutched her mug with both hands. “So you… you’re like her now.”

Voice cracking, N said, “She did say I’m a god, yeah, haha.” 

They suffered through a moment of silence before J snorted. “You?” 

V grinned weakly and squeezed N’s hand. “I think you’ll make a good deity.” 

“Him?” 

V kicked at J’s feet under the table, even as N relaxed. 

“I can always count on you to keep me humble, J,” he said, fond, as if arrogance was ever a flaw of his. “It’s not—I don’t think it really means anything. I’m still just N.” 

Just N, who had endeared himself so well to a goddess who demanded yearly sacrifices that she immortalized him as a deity in his own right. 

“Well. Try not to forget about us,” V teased, “in your godhood and fancy other-dimension cosmic palace thing.” 

It was a little too honest to land playfully. 

N looked at her, and there was something vast and colossal in the glow of his eyes—and she saw it, then. She saw what Cyn had done to him beyond the new body. Inside, he was still N, yes, and V doubted even a goddess could ever make him unrecognizable. But there was divinity in him now, and, breathless, V glimpsed it. 

“I will never forget you,” a god swore in their kitchen. He squeezed her hand, gentle, careful. Like the way he’d closed the front door and sat in his too-small chair. “And even though I can’t stay, I’ll never really leave.” He beamed and happy-squinted at her, boyish and bright as the moon. “You’re still stuck with me!” 

“Joy,” J deadpanned. But she thrust her hand out while pointedly looking in the opposite direction, and N took hold of hers too. 

V smiled. Her tears had finally dried up. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” 

Outside, the sun continued its slow path upward. In the living room, a neat pile of last words waited to be delivered. Across realms, a goddess hummed happily to herself, for she was no longer alone. And in the little kitchen of a cottage at the edge of town, a god and his most favorite people in the world decided pancakes sounded perfect for a reunion breakfast. 

• • •

The Celestial Cathedral was alive with visitors, an excited hum filling its expansive halls. The crowd was almost unbearable. History and legend played out across the walls and in precious artifacts kept behind glass. It all made for a wonderful story.

Though perhaps not a satisfying one to some.

“But what happened to V and J?” the little drone demanded. She looked between her mother and the massive stained-glass window overhead. 

In the center was their god, Total Eclipse. His gleaming white eyes were squinted in a smile, making him look shockingly real. Mortal, almost, in his irreverence. On either side, holding his hands, were the famed drones he’d called his family. They were perfectly mirrored, V and J both smiling serenely with their eyes closed. A silvery blue moon haloed Total Eclipse’s head, little stars radiating out from it. 

“‘They lived happily ever after’ isn’t good enough for you?” her mother asked, amused and indulgent. 

The little drone scoffed. “But it wouldn’t be happily ever after for Total Eclipse if they died.” 

Lifting her daughter onto her hip, the drone chuckled. “I suppose not. Well, some legends say that Absolute Solver immortalized them as constellations for her brother.” 

The little drone gave her an offended look. 

“A few accounts claim that V and J are still alive out there, wandering the world as it grew, granted eternal life by the gods.” She paused to see how well her daughter would like that explanation. 

The offense lightened as she considered it, but she still didn’t seem satisfied. 

She waited to continue as she wove through humans and drones alike, until the two of them reached the doors to the main hall. She nodded at the guards, who bowed their heads in silent greeting. It was much quieter in the cathedral’s heart. Only a select few were allowed in here, especially today. 

The simulated night sky overhead danced with stars and comets and the sun and moon, slowly traveling along different paths until they would collide above the altar to create a mini solar eclipse. 

The stained-glass windows glowed with a dozen colors, the benevolent faces of Absolute Solver and Total Eclipse watching over them. The towering mosaic behind the altar at the front of the room had always been her favorite: the beaming sibling deities, arms wrapped around each other, heads knocking together as their sun and moon halos began to eclipse behind them. 

It looked more like a picture from a family photo album than the most iconic and well-known depiction of Earth’s gods. 

But then, their story had always been about love. 

There were a few other families loitering in the pews. Though some of the children looked nervous, there was a relaxed air in the hall. There was no real order to the day’s events, no schedule to follow. Legend had it that the strict, formal ways of old had been lost after Total Eclipse’s ascension. 

She smiled at her best friend, who raised a hand in return. Her own little one was curiously examining her thumb and first two fingers. They’d already gone up, then. 

“Mama,” her daughter said, staring wide-eyed up at the windows. “Did Total Eclipse get to keep his family or not? Did he get a happy ever after?” 

There was no one else heading for the stone platform, so she knelt at the top of the aisle and set her daughter down. “Sweetheart,” she whispered, pressing their foreheads together for a moment, “why don’t you ask him yourself?” She nudged her daughter around and forward. 

Standing tall on the altar he had once been sacrificed on, Total Eclipse turned to look down at them. His white eyes squinted as he smiled, just as in the stained-glass and half the other images of him. Absolute Solver leaned around him, her gold eyes attentive. 

The little drone hesitated at the foot of the stone steps. Her mother wanted to go to her, but each child had to complete their dedication alone. Well—almost alone. 

Total Eclipse knelt and held out his hand. “Uzi, right?” he said softly. “I’ve heard lots of good things about you from your parents.” 

Uzi wavered, then quickly scrambled up the altar to take his hand. She nodded, shy, then asked, “Like what?” 

He winked as he stood, lifting her into his arms to carry her to the center of the platform. “That you’re very curious.” 

Absolute Solver swayed side to side, like her void-dark tendrils did when they descended from her shadows above. Her left eye changed to the sacred three-pointed symbol, and when Total Eclipse turned his head, Nori could see his right eye matched hers. 

The runes around the altar glowed. Nori startled at a touch to her back, but just as quickly relaxed as her husband pressed against her side, arm sliding down to her waist. 

“How does the story end?” Uzi demanded, uncaring of the blessing the gods were bestowing on her. Nori smiled to herself; she knew from experience that the warm brush of stardust in her core would distract her little menace soon enough. 

Anyone else might have been lost for context, but Total Eclipse smiled. He bumped shoulders with his sister, exchanging knowing smiles. 

“That’s the secret,” he told her. He raised his hand, sacred symbol spinning between his fingertips. Absolute Solver breathed, and the air in the hall shivered. Uzi’s right eye glitched. Faint whispers from two voices echoed out of the shadows overhead. “The story doesn’t really end.”