Are You Even Human

53. Dangerously Approaching Something Akin To Optimism

Sneaking out of the military staging grounds is a lot more difficult than sneaking in was. Agnus Dei has had time to spread whatever version of events she chooses, forever branding me as a shapeshifting mind-controlling Angel or something probably. I stick around a little bit to see if any of the backlash starts hitting my friends, but this whole staging grounds is mainly run by the Air Force rather than the Army. If they even the interdepartmental communication to sniff out my friends and family, they don't seem to be taking advantage of it.

What they take advantage of is a large number of superheroes to patrol the perimeter of the camp. Infiltration might come naturally to me, but my domain remains a dead giveaway that with superpowers is nearby. I could turn into a bird and fly over them, but I want to keep as low-profile as possible and ultimately end up sneaking through a small gap in domain coverage as a rodent, safely making my way back into the Queen's territory with (hopefully) no one the wiser.

I won't say Maria and the Queen of Legion the plan for all mobile units to retreat to a Queen of Reciprocation's domain in an emergency, but the Queen, at least, agrees it is sound. Reciprocation and Legion apparently have no particular love or dislike of one another, so fair dealings can be expected, especially if everyone shows up with gifts. The Angels of Omnipresence as Worship's council also know to convince the Council of Reciprocation to not attempt to turn Anastasia into an Angel, so hopefully there won't be any issues there. It's not a great plan. No one is really happy about it. But it's plan, and that's better than nothing.

Now, all I have to do is follow the pull.

There are hundreds of miles separating me from the east coast, but that's nothing a migratory bird can't handle in a day. Taking to the skies, I fly in a wide circle around any military units I see and then start my cruise, settling in to travel for pretty much the entire rest of the day. It's boring and stressful, but a comfortable mix of Raptor and bird brains makes it easy enough, letting me settle into my task until night falls and I decide to land somewhere to sleep. I don't have any money, of course, and it would probably be too big a risk to be seen regardless, so I just land on top of a roof, turn into a cat, and curl up to sleep until dawn. Cats, I find, are remarkably good at getting comfortable on the most uncomfortable surfaces imaginable. It makes sleeping pretty easy.

Of course, it also makes waking up a little harder. The sun is a good ways into the sky when I finally rouse myself, stretching my body and letting my fur fluff up to let out some of the heat stolen from the sun and trapped within my coat. Chiding myself while I yawn and shake feeling back into my limbs, I leap up into the air and turn back into a bird, resuming my flight.

I'm settling into more of a rhythm as I fly, guiding my wings in search of buoyant updrafts and favorable tailwinds as I make my way ever-closer to the place tugging inexorably on my domain. It's even more obvious than usual from up here how… human civilization is now. All these structures, all these roads, all this that used to be full to the brim with us, now so profoundly empty. Where in movies you'd see hundreds of cars clogging the highway all at once, you now see a few dozen on the biggest roads and barely one at a time everywhere else.

We as a species have been made into a fraction of what we once were, and while that's normal to me there are a lot of people alive today who remember what it was like at the start of the war, or even the war, when this planet was ours to control as we pleased. When over eight of us filled every corner of land from coast to coast. I guess Agnus Dei is probably one of them. I wonder if I wouldn't care about the personhood of the enemy if I had more context on what they did to us. If I truly understood the fall of the human race. Would that loss drive me? Fuel me? Blind me? Or would I still just be the local freak, the ugly little girl who never liked humans all that much in the first place because they never seemed to like me?

I never have to worry about that with aliens. They either like me or they don't, and there's absolutely no ambiguity on the manner. They make it clear with every breath. And somehow, most of them seem to like me! They think I'm interesting. They think I'm funny. They see absolutely nothing wrong with me wearing whatever body I damn well please. I just… it almost feels inevitable. I'd betrayed humanity in my heart years ago, hadn't I?

It was always a likely possibility. I'm so thankful for being given the power and the understanding to let it happen. I'm trying not to look forward to this too much, of course. I have a job to do. A task. And of course, there's always the chance that everything goes horribly wrong. Maybe the Angels of Possibility are nothing like the other aliens I've met at all. Maybe I'll just be stuck in the same old shit, and the only real difference is that this time it'll be below sea level.

Speaking of… there it is. God that is a lot of water. The great lakes are huge, but this… this is something else. Though the results of human civilization remain technically intact beneath me, the houses and buildings have gone from being largely abandoned to completely abandoned this close to the coastline. This technically isn't the territory of any given Queen yet, but with no real way to defend the coastline, we have no good defense against any Raptors that might want to crawl onto dry land in search of food beyond simply putting enough distance between us that they won't wander into any people.

I could just fly over the ocean waves until I feel my Queen beneath me, diving down to avoid potentially running into the territory of other councils, but… I'm too curious. Too excited. In the back of my mind, I'm still thinking about being in that other universe, floating weightlessly among the stars. I want to feel it again. I want to

Diving towards the water, I crash into the waves, taking the form of a half-alien shark as I get my bearings in the frigid liquid. I feel many things around me, though the deep blue waters are a lot… emptier than that other universe. There's no reefs or anything out here, just water, sand, and a flittering collection of marine life that seems inclined to avoid me. The tug on my domain directs me further out into the open waters, and deeper within them.

Flying is extremely cool, but swimming is relaxing and meditative in ways that are difficult to match that high up into the air. I don't need to worry about a bad downdraft causing me to tumble uncontrollably towards what my brain insists would be my doom; I can just leisurely plodding my way towards my destination with casual swishes of my tail.

Of course, I'm unfortunately in somewhat of a hurry, so I have to keep up the pace. I spot a school of fish as I travel, and just to see if I can, I swim towards it with my domain expanded to engulf the entire group. They try to escape, but I manage to completely encompass the lot of them, declaring them and unforming their brains and bodies all at once, vanishing them into nonexistence and filling my reserves.

Ahahaha. I never have to eat anything again! This is incredible. I wonder if I can do the same thing to the water itself? Water is an important component of a living body, after all, even if seawater specifically doesn't have a particularly healthy concentration of salt. If I just swallow it all at once, would I make an enormous cavitation bubble all around me and cause a massive implosion? …Hmm, probably not. Shifting things into my storage is far from instant. I doubt I could do it quickly enough to prevent water from filling in the space normally. But in that case… could I just start drinking the whole ocean?

Perhaps simply because the thought of that is too daunting, I fail when I try. I manage to slurp up a lot of plankton, though, which is also an impressive bump in biomass. I'm tempted to eat the plankton everywhere I go now, but that seems like it might have a slight negative impact on any ecosystems that may happen to exist out here. I don't want to be too selfish.

After a couple hours of swimming, I bump into my first domain. It feels like old photographs of long-dead people and sketches of animals just inaccurate enough to seem like creatures of fantasy without really knowing why. Silhouette. The moment after our domains touch, the water around me a rumbling heralding the movement of something massive.

Ah, that's right. Leviathans can handle water a better than they can handle the land.

I project as quickly as possible, though the skyscraper-sized serpents still rush up to surround me, two of them circling each other in a double helix with my own comparatively smaller form in the middle.

the warbling, overwhelming scent of what I assume is the local Queen demands. Okay, so the pheromone network work exactly the same underwater. Weird.

Hmm. Interesting tidbit to know about alien culture.

I continue on my way, entering the Queen of Silouette's domain. The two Leviathans escort me as I go, twirling around me in wide, lazy circles as I continue to dive deeper. The further down I go, the darker it gets, and the more the water pressure starts to crush me. The latter is easy enough to compensate for, with several examples of earthly and alien biology more suited to the depths at my disposal, and the former has long since stopped being a problem for me. I can echolocate, I can perceive electrical currents, and I can simply ignore my senses altogether and continue to swim in the direction I know is right.

Darker, darker, and darker still, the pressure of the ocean's weight seems to crush all light down to almost nothing. Flashes of it here and there are still visible, not from the surface, but from the occasional bioluminescent animal that happens to swim close after I exit Shadows Pass As Fast As Light's domain out the other side, losing my Leviathan escort. There's still quite the variety of organisms down this deep, easy to find with sound and smell when I've all but completely lost my sight. An eerie beauty pervades the life here, and I can't help but take a few detours snatching up new body plans and testing them out a bit, finding what I like and dislike about them before moving on. I don't know how long I spend collecting new templates, but I keep descending all the while, the light so dim it may as well not be there at all.

And then, quite unexpectedly, I continue to descend further and the light starts to get .

I think I'm imagining it at first. It's hard to tell if there's any real amount of light here when it's all so dim. But the deeper I go, the closer I get to my Queen, the more the light becomes inarguable. Before I know it, I can properly see again, the glow piercing the murk of the depths and revealing the countless blind organisms, each of them none the wiser to being stripped of the obscurity of the dark. With this simple change, the depths have gone from alien and lonely to amusingly clear, and things only get more amazing as I find the source.

A vast network of massive vines twists and curls in comforting patterns below me, floating gracefully in the currents of the ocean. It is a network of branching tendrils, each glowing with brilliant light and each unique in design and composition. To some extent, it reminds me of Corruptor of All Creation, the way each tendril ends in a unique design—some frilled, some flowering, some fuzzy. But whereas the Queen of Blasphemy was built so each of its many arms would profane some god or another, this Queen—my Queen—has a body of nothing but celebration. Beauty. Joy at the existence of the world, all things in it, and all possibilities it contains.

I'm here. I am where I belong.

The feeling is so foreign to me it takes me an embarrassingly long time to identify. I can also tell it's little more than base alien-brain instinct, not any believable sort of confidence in how this will go. Yet somehow, despite myself, I find my mood dangerously approaching something akin to optimism as I carefully descend, reach out, and touch the domain I know must be in front of me with a gentle greeting.

And below me, the brilliant Queen One of her massive tendrils, fully capable of locomotion underneath the water, reaches up to inspect and greet me back. I shift instinctively, some part of me wanting my body as close as it can be to something I consider when making my first impression to a being this vast and powerful. So I make a body that's largely humanoid: a basic feminine shape, attractive in the ways I never used to dream of but no longer find myself hating, but modified with all the appropriate changes for the deep. Fins in place of feet, webs between slightly-too-long fingers, gills to breathe with, a tail to swim with, teeth to hunt with, and tentacles emerging from my head simply because I love to have them. Here under the water, I make them much longer than I normally do, letting them cascade down my back to reach just below my waist. As my Queen's massive limb reaches out to me, her domain engulfing me completely in the embrace of Possibility, I reach my tentacles out to meet her in return. Gently, her limb brushes against me, and I embrace it.

the Queen greets me, her scent careful and quiet in ways no other Queen I've spoken to has been.

I answer.

the Queen responds.

I answer.

A wave of sympathy and sorrow blooms up from below me, not just the Queen's but countless other aliens that have been listening in.

I ask, holding onto The Divinity of Wonder's massive limb as she pulls me deeper into her domain. Even without being Raptor-brained, I don't feel even the slightest hint of fear. The chance of violence, aggression, or even feels so unlikely I find it actively difficult to conceive. The whole domain is abuzz with emotion: excitement, worship, sympathy, curiosity, and simple giddy joy. This is an entire miniature nation, and each member of it knows I'm here and is about it. It's overwhelming. It sets me on edge.

The Divinity of Wonder answers.

I admit.

have done," The Divinity of Wonder says.

I shudder, not knowing what to answer. I end up letting my body answer for me, allowing my brain's instinctive urge to convey my wordless confusion to come to pass. I can't say I'm super attached to the name 'Thief of Torn Wings.' It's yet another name that was given to me, a PR-driven epithet that fit the pattern of alien names well enough to take as my own. But the one name I consider to be truly my own is and that has no translation in the alien language.

Technically, I suppose, 'Julietta' has a meaning. Kind of. It comes from a long line of mutations and feminizations of the Roman god Jupiter, who is Zeus, who is a complete raging asshole. I translate the idea of Zeus into an alien name, but that fundamentally wouldn't represent the name Julietta at all. I don't think of some thunderbolt-spewing man-whore when I think of my name. The only thing my name means to me is that it's

That's the real question here. If I had to define myself not with a name, but with words, with a phrase, with what would I call myself? Or, perhaps, what name would others give me? What name would others give my dream? My goals? My desires? I don't know the answer to that question. It's a little uncomfortable to think about.

The Divinity of Wonder assures me.

Hmm? Oh. I suppose I've already made a few adjustments. My domain suffuses the tendril of the Queen I'm touching, analyzing her biology for later use and causing me to make several minor tweaks to my own form as I run over the information in the back of my mind.

I admit.

The Divinity of Wonder says.

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God. Is it really this easy? How? More sympathy flows through the water as I think those words, my thoughts once again leaking without my permission. I quickly clamp down on that, but the concern only increases.

a new voice asks. An Angel.

another Angel opines.

I want to tell them I'm fine, but… it just doesn't seem right. There's a vast gulf of difference between lying to enemy aliens for a tactical advantage in combat and lying to kind, sympathetic aliens who don't even understand lying

I ask instead.

I answer.

The horror, despair, and disbelief that rumbles through the ocean at my answer has me buffing up my musculature and growing enough blades for a fight. Damn it, why did I admit to that? I could have just played it off as a quirk or something. Yet despite my reaction, the overall feeling of the response doesn't feel accusatory or hostile. It is, first and foremost, a desperate question.

It's as if they're to be let into my every thought and feeling, the need for it almost startling me enough to comply. But I don't. These aliens seem very nice, I'll give them that. But do I actually know if they are? Of course not. If anything, all this overwhelming joy at my arrival feels like love bombing, a very common manipulation tactic. If I say or do the wrong thing, this could all change in an instant.

I answer.

an Angel laments.

another Angel asks.

I admit.

I've had that happen several different ways. I've believed in false loves and false hates. I've hated those who thought I loved them. I like to hope now that no one I think loves me actually hates me. 'People I believe love me' is already a small enough category without worrying about false positives. Yet ultimately, I can never know.

It's not actually that different with aliens. Sure, I can literally feel how much they care more or less at all times, but there's nothing that would prevent their current passion for my well-being from being an entirely temporary state of affairs. Aliens can't lie, but they can certainly

Currently they're still horrified, of course. Let them be. I have no intention of budging on this.

The Queen soon finishes pulling me into the center of her domain, in the middle of the wide tangle of tendrils that make up her form. Around us, the Angels gather, myriad in their forms. Behind them, processions of Raptors float with reverence, eager to see their newest master with their own eyes.

a serpent-like Angel introduces themselves, looking somewhat like a miniature Leviathan with jagged, crystalline scales along its back and sharp blue teeth.

a jellyfish-like Angel greets me, with a bulbous 'head' and countless thin tentacles trailing beneath them like a nightgown that hides the enormous, deadly crystal pincers behind the innocence of the dress.

a huge lobster-like Angel acknowledges me, clawed, tailed, and many-legged, though covered in tough skin instead of chitin or scales and pockmarked with bright, multi-colored eyes across its whole body.

the Queen introduces herself again.

I squirm and shift a little under all the attention, giving everyone a polite nod even though none of them are able to understand that body language anyway.

I ask.

Pathless Wanderings Gladden Futures answers, twisting their body to swim lazily towards me.

I tell them, swimming backwards a little to keep my distance. They stop approaching.

Chaos Erupts in Indifferent Blessings says, clacking one of their claws as emphasis.

I shapeshift into an almost fully human form, enduring the pressure and the water for a few solid seconds before returning to my preferred aquatic build.

A Blossom of Wilted Chances sends.

I hiss in response.

The water reeks with a sudden influx of grief.

Chaos Erupts in Indifferent Blessings comments.

I answer.

The Divinity of Wonder hums.

I say.

Chaos Erupts in Indifferent Blessings asks.

A Blossom of Wilted Chances says.

Chaos protests.

Blossom insists.

Pathless Wanderings Gladden Futures answers, though they don't dispute.

a Raptor chimes in to my surprise.

The Divinity of Wonder praises.

nearly every alien concurs.

I admit,

Hmm. The concept of 'dry land' translates a little weird, doesn't it? I guess their home universe was largely weightless. Or… soupy enough to have the same effect, maybe? Tabling that thought for later.

A Blossom of Wilted Chances says.

I ask, ready to react if it turns out I'm about to be declared a heretic.

Pathless Wanderings Gladden Futures says.

They're getting very uncomfortable now. I don't like this. I prepare to move.

A Blossom of Wilted Chances says, staring at me and radiating discomfort.

The Divinity of Wonder chides.

Chaos Erupts in Indifferent Blessings rumbles.

Yeah. You know what? Fuck it. I can just ask. They always answer when I ask.

I send through the network.

Shock. Confusion. Negation. No, they all shout in surprise. Of course I'm not. Why would I be? And you know, that's a good question.

I ask.

Pathless Wanderings Gladden Futures sends.

The Divinity of Wonder assures me.

A Blossom of Wilted Chances corrects.

I ask.

A Blossom of Wilted Chances answers.

I ask.

A Blossom of Wilted Chances answers.

The Divinity of Wonder interjects.

I ask.

A Blossom of Wilted Chances says.

Pathless Wanderings Gladden Futures jabs, to which Blossom responds by raising her (?) tendrils and bearing her bladed limbs threateningly. Although… I can tell it is just a mock threat, a performative dance between two people who know each other well enough to throw insults without consequence.

Interesting pronoun choice, though. I've probably been misleading the aliens by using the closest thing they have to a feminine descriptor when talking about Maria, because what 'she' basically means is 'current or future Queen.' Not sure about the politics and/or religion behind that, so I guess I'll just note it for later.

I say.

Chaos Erupts in Indifferent Blessings clacks their claws together loudly, and I swim another pace back. Hmm. Kind of a weird response from me, honestly. If I think I'm in danger, I should probably be moving it. I'm much stronger up close. I guess I'm almost definitely not in danger, but… I don't know. I know I'm being stupid but I'm still doing it anyway. Why wasn't I flinching this much when dealing with the worshippers of Legion? I was like eighty percent adrenaline by volume at the time, and my trip here was, frankly,

…Actually, that why?

Chaos Erupts in Indifferent Blessings asks.

I answer.

Pathless Wanderings Gladden Futures answers.

the Queen answers.

Chaos Erupts in Indifferent Blessings says.

the Queen says.

Pathless Wanderings Gladden Futures says.

I say.

A Blossom of Wilted Chances says.

I protest.

A Blossom of Wilted Chances asks.

I respond.

A Blossom of Wilted Chances affirms.

The Divinity of Wonder tells me.

I ask.

The Divinity of Wonder explains.

I say.

Pathless Wanderings Gladden Futures asks, swimming in a restless circle.

Because information is power, and the more information people have about me the more power they have over me. Sometimes, this isn't a big deal. You can use what people do and don't know to influence and control they choose to exert power over you. You can also just freely give power to people you trust and it's not a big deal. But here? In the middle of a Queen's domain, surrounded by Angels with unknown powers? Even if they genuinely want to help me, that doesn't mean I trust them with I don't trust with literally all of my thoughts. That'd just be insane.

But that's just how these aliens exist. They don't understand anything else. Explaining this is hard enough with other humans, I don't really want to try with a species that lacks the necessary cultural context to understand social manipulation in the first place. And honestly, if they understand? That might just be worse. The fact that the aliens are deathly weak to social manipulation is one of my biggest advantages against them, and they're only weak to it because they don't understand it. At least half of my victories in literal life-or-death war come from this fact. Why would I ever risk giving it up?

If these people are really as interested as they seem to be in embracing me as one of them come hell or high water, then they can get used to it. And if they as interested as they seem to be, well… that's important to know, too.

Chaos Erupts in Indifferent Blessings notes sadly.

A Blossom of Wilted Chances chimes in.

The Divinity of Wonder responds immediately, scandalized.

Pathless Wanderings Gladden Futures says with the scent equivalent of an eye-roll.

Chaos Erupts in Indifferent Blessings says.

Blossom asserts.

I say.

Chaos complains.

I answer,

The Angels and the unblessed alike respond with an emotion somewhat like mourning. I wouldn't call it a truly alien emotion, it's not something I struggle to understand, but it is something I struggle to describe. I want to say they feel sorry for me, but it doesn't feel quite right.

The Divinity of Wonder promises.

Chaos assures me.

Wanderings agrees.

Blossom agrees,

the Queen says.

It's all very kind words. But again, I don't know what to say to them, so I just stay silent. I guess if nothing else, a rest would probably do me some good.