22:28 / 24:37, Rotation 592 / 687, 231 AE, 42.211912, 40.202190, Aryss

  The Phyroan Dragonrider and Rogue Princess Vilithe Talauth-Callethe lay quietly in her cot as her reaver rumbled through the Aryssal wastes.

  It had been the most eventful rotation of her life. She had been given the blessing of her mother-in-law, the Last Rogue Queen Talisa Talauth, after killing her that is, and then proposed to the love of her life, the Rogue Prince Eidren Talauth-Callethe. Psionic Commander and Son of the First Soldier.

  The psion began to feel something was amiss with the meeting she had with her mother-in-law.

  It followed all the rules of Imprinting. The Deletion and the Update. Delete her mind, Insert her mother-in-law’s. It felt chillingly like the very first action that set all these events in motion- she would not have been sent on the ranging and likely worn down until broken with more torturous fixer’s tasks, had she not erased Kwandriss’s dreams.

  Her sister-in-law’s dreams.

  The one passed down by her own very dear Talisa, her mother-in-law- that one rotation Aryss could be a flourishing planet full of flora and fauna. That the deserts would turn green. The very same one as mentioned earlier that she had just killed and then bonded with. In that order.

  Instead, Vilithe replaced that dream of a green Aryss with her own steadfast conviction- her conviction that Aryss could never be more than a wartorn, barren desert.

  And exactly in the same way, when Auntie Talisa’s psionic fae slug form dug itself halfway into her ear, before Volent pulled it out, triggering that last failsafe of Auntie Talisa’s psionic sequencer, thus allowing her to have one last conversation before the death of her last body. It felt just like a conversation with an old friend.

  I want to marry your son. I want to start a family with him.

  Somehow became:

  I want to become the God Empress of Elvankind. To avenge elvankind.

  Strangely, the goal was the exact same as her mother-in-law’s.

  But then again, it also followed. Vilithe was a creature of logic through and through. It all made sense:

  She had only ascended to the station of Rogue Princess when she learned that dreadful secret, that elvan cocoons were wombs harvested from orcans. It was the only way to provide a safe environment for the spirit-woven embryos.

  Therefore, she could not start a family with Eidren until she took a cocoon for her own.

  The Rite of Coronation- the next step of her ascendance, to Rogue Queen, to take the mantle left by her mother-in-law, required that she break her moral code.

  You just take it.

  Theft.

  Categorical Imperative- she certainly wouldn’t want any usurper to take her own precious cocoons, should she somehow manage to claim them for her own. Especially not from her own daughters. And yet, that was the way that Auntie Talisa and Queen Mother Dannelle did it. By taking cocoons from their own mothers. Taking what was rightfully theirs. This was the unorthodox way.

  But her mothers were all dead, their cocoons already stolen.

  Rawlsian Justice, the Original Position- If she imagined herself an orcan – but they felt so unfamiliar to her, for as a Phyroan she had never once met, or seen, or even really cared much about these strange green creatures from Reath – she revolted at the idea of the most sacred organ of her body being taken away. But this was the orthodox way.

  Just take it.

  Extraction.

  But… she couldn’t do that to an innocent, young orcan gurl.

  This was an organ so sacred that it was even denied to her, a mere, lowly worker, and even still now as Princess she had to prove her own worthiness. Natural harvest of a regenerating, sustainable resource.

  Whichever way she chose, to attain what was now rightfully hers, the honor bequeathed to her by the Last Rogue Queen, the new Princess Mother of Clan Talauth, to return both her own clan and her fiancé’s clan to their glory…

  Someone had to get hurt.

  She had now come to understand that she could not remain forever innocent.

  Or else she would fail.

  Both in her own goal…

  …and in her inherited one.

  They really felt one and the same at this point.

  The entire universe was still convinced she was an enslaved vassal, of tremendous power, having survived an assault from the Rogue Queen herself, even at telepathic distance. A slave that still served the will of the Amallarkean Imperium, the Empire of the Goddess, the Traitor Empress.

  Maetra.

  Who killed her mother. Her sisters. Her clan.

  Who enslaved her, and her Eidren.

  Who harvested from the orcans freely.

  And who was the only one left who even had cocoons.

  Because she took them. She stole them.

  She stole them from Dannelle, her mother.

  She stole them from Talisa, her mother-in-law.

  She stole them from them all. All the clans.

  All of Elvankind.

  So, if there was one target for Vilithe’s wrath, by the unorthodox route…

  It was going to be Maetra Amallark.

  This was personal now. They had unfinished business.

  She’s avenging far more than just all Elvankind.

  She was avenging herself.

  And her moms! Both of them!

  It was a lot to take in for a protagonist, it was a lot of information that required digestion, thorough comprehension, perhaps a bit of recall here and there. Total recall was of course possible with psionics, but psionics could not help with interpretation. All the information, all the knowledge- it was all already there. The nature of infinity is to be unreachable unless it was always already there.

  The only question was what you chose to do with it.

  There was only one clear path left. The unorthodox way. As her mothers before her.

  She was going to deliver to the Goddess great justice, reclaim the treasures of the elvans, and make things right again.

  She had to try.

  She had to make things right again.

  To fight the good fight.

  She thought of her worker mother.

  She thought of her Queen Mother.

  She thought of her mother-in-law.

  She thought of Eidren.

  She had all the reasons to fight now.

  But, well, after killing her mother-in-law’s eight bodies just moments ago, she did not have the strength to fight.

  Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

  While she considered summoning Talisa for guidance, after the intensity of their last meeting, Vi felt maybe she should get some space from her in-laws. After all, she had witnessed her fiancé’s very birth, re-lived her torrid six luna romance in an instant, discovered his childhood, and finally realized he was kind of dumb, but that only made her love him more, and that made her mother-in-law come to love her, which made her come to love her mother-in-law, and then watched her fiancé’s heart simultaneously soar, and break, as she had to relay all that information to him, so that he could replay those events again, and again, and again, right after he had just killed his own mother.

  She clutched the Mahjong tile in her hand.

  The Red Dragon.

  The Middle Path. Between Deontology and Utilitarianism-Consequentialism.

  Eidren, her Knight in Shining Armor. Whose loyalty proves she’s…

  She’s still the Heroic Good Gurl.

  Not the Big Bad Evil Gurl. The antagonist. The villain.

  That had to be Maetra.

  But forget her, she was finally going to see Eidren!

  She was finally going to see him. Oh, how long have these lunas been. Waiting so patiently to reach her fiancé and touch him for the very first time.

  But she was alone now. She could seek his mind, but he was probably dealing with the cleanup of the Massacre of Deuteronilus Mensae.

  Patience.

  Her reaver pushed forward, and it left a wake of Aryssal dust, reaching through the airless sky, barely bound by the weak grasp of Aryss, and thus billowing into a tall column that could be seen from afar.

  Patience, Vi, she thought to herself.

  Patience is a virtue.

  Meanwhile, not so far, not anymore at least, ten rogue psions had been tracking the billowing column of Aryssal dust. They had first felt the psionic signature of a lone conduit, and they figured- ten against one? Certainly, favorable odds.

  They called themselves the Serpent Sisters of the Sefirot – Keter, Binah, Chokhmah, Gevurah, Hesed, Tiferet, Hod, Netzach, Yesod, and Malkuth – and virtuous they were not. Keter scanned the lone reaver with a pair of binoculars, their only pair.

  The Serpent Sisters of the Sefirot were a wicked Aryssal Rogue gang-cult that emerged when ten rogue psions, having had their memories flayed clean away by Clan Amallark, banded together for survival. They preyed only on other fellow rogues, for the lot were craven, and feared the might of Clan Amallark. They feasted primarily upon ambushes upon lone little elves that couldn’t defend themselves.

  Being unable to remember where they came from, where they belonged, they instead decided to forsake their clan names altogether, the ten monikers interchangeable between new members and old, for once one of the Serpent Sisters of the Sefirot perished, she would be replaced by another elvan that they would capture- broken into impressment under threat of death. This new… ‘recruit’ would then have her memories deleted by the might of the rest of the Serpent Sisters combined, so that the memories of the slain Serpent Sister could be inserted and imprinted instead. Continuity.

  These ten monikers roughly correlated to the ranking order of their organization. They had no idea of the deeper meaning of the emanations, encompassing all of reality itself, the higher mysticism of the Godlikes which first practiced the ancient and spiritual wisdom tradition of the First Monotheistic Mystery, what the Godlikes called Kabbalah, and from which begat the Mystery of the Redeemer and the Mystery of the Prophet. They just thought the Sefirot sounded cool and looked cool.

  An elvan didn’t get… ‘recruited’ to become a Serpent Sister if the elvan weren’t- what did they call it?- mekhtig [??????], powerful. Sometimes, when a Serpent Sister higher up on the hierarchy died, it would be the Serpent Sister below her who would cast aside her fragmented chain of memories to take up the mantle, bequeathing the cast-off role to the next one in line up the ladder. Sometimes, the Serpent Sister higher up on the hierarchy died by the hands of her own Serpent Sister, one looking to promote. Suffice to say, this got very confusing, very fast.

  The current Keter, Keter the Fourth, ran her current lot of Serpent Sisters even more cultishly than her predecessors- heavily cultivating her cult of personality, fashioning herself the True Adversary of the Divine God Empress, making sure that the rest of her hurs [???] gave due to their mamefaking [??????????] Unholy Anti-Goddess. She ruled through fear, this Keter, this self-styled Satan [????], and yes, Keter the Fourth absolutely did kill Keter the Third, only to take her memories, which of course, included the memory of herself killing herself. Such was the nature of promoting within the Serpent Sisters of the Sefirot. And so, she was paranoid that an upstart looking to be Keter the Fifth would betray her. She’s looking at you-

  Chokmah and Binah, her consiglieri and caporegime, respectively. Tied for number two. Because this Keter made sure to set Chokhma and Binah against each other. She could not trust them, as Keter the Third did to her own Chokmah and Binah. Otherwise, they would easily agree to a new pecking order and cut Keter’s throat in a psionically extended deep sleep, then one of them would move right on up. After all, that’s what Keter the Fourth did herself, formerly Chokmah the Sixth. Her left and right hands – and Keter was ambidextrous like most elvans, mind you – they were her chief counsel and chief of operations.

  Next up- Hesed. Hesed was internal affairs, sussing out those who harbored ill intent within the ranks. Keter the Third did not care for her Hesed, which was probably why Keter the Third wasn’t around anymore.

  And then Gevurah. Gevurah was the muscle, flaying or physically punishing those that Chesed sussed out.

  Below that was Tiferet, the cheerleader, expected to brownnose the top five, known internally as the Daat, to hope that she could steal one of the positions for herself eventually, but this had never happened- the Five Daat were too obsessed with their own power struggles to ever let a Tiferet ascend, preferring to bring in new blood over granting a Tiferet a promotion. This frustrated the Tiferets to no end, and it would always result in some sort of play to reshuffle the Unholy Order, but no Tiferet had succeeded yet- that’s why the current Tiferet was Tiferet the Seventy Third.

  After that, Netzach, the favored one. Of the lower ranked Serpent Sisters, whoever was the most valuable psion on the last raid would rotate into this spot. Of course, once the current Netzach screwed up, she was discarded, because promotion to Netzach was the main incentive for all the Serpent Sisters below her. The current Netzach was Netzach the Hundred and Fifty Ninth.

  Hod was the arms master. It was Hod’s job to make sure everyone’s gear was working correctly, and mule all the loot. Even if it wasn’t Hod’s fault, and just plain bad luck- she would be punished if a gun jammed, or breathing helm malfunctioned. Don’t be Hod. Being Hod sucked. She died almost as often as her fellow lower Sefirot. Hod also had, for some bizarre reason, been instructed by Keter the Fourth to always take point on any doorway and hold the door open for the rest of the team. And so, the current Hod was Hod the Hundred and Ninety Second.

  Yesod - If the Malkuth did not die for only one gig, they got to be the Yesod. To make room sometimes this meant that poor Netzach, even if she had not screwed up, would just be removed. It really depended on whether the current crop liked their Netzach or their Malkuth more. Yesod was the ground level before ascending upward. If they did not die. And since the Malkuth and the Yesod were always sent in first, they usually died first. They had stopped keeping track of which iteration of Yesod they were on.

  And finally, Malkuth - the noob, the fucking new gurl, the red shirt, the cannon fodder. Any fresh recruit had to be a Malkuth first. It was just a total gamble if she could make it past this point. Even though they were no longer keeping track of how many Yesods they had been through, for shits and giggles, they did keep track of how many Malkuths had been cycled- it conveniently reminded the newest Malkuth just how precarious her position was. The current Malkuth was Malkuth the Six Thousand Three Hundred and Sixty Seventh.

  They were all mounted on motorbike clones, of unknown rogue make, because they stole them all. They blasted their way towards their target reaver through the dusty Aryssal horizon, having now caught Vilithe in a dust flat.

  And that’s when Vilithe could finally scry their presence..

  “Diu la sing”, she had just had the most harrowing boss fight slash chat with an in-law in her entire life, and now she had to deal with these losers?

  Go to hell! She was so close to what she finally was waiting for a half revolution, and now she had to deal with these – she scryed harder – cultists?

  Oh, Goddess Mother-in-Law, how much weirder does one rotation get?! It hadn’t even ended yet!

  But also, Son of Masa.

  A dream passed down through Queen Exa Dark Sidarael Boucher to her short-lived alliance, the Triumvirate, through her father. Not dissimilar from the Dream of the Fremen of Arrakis.

  Not so strange at all, if one considered the implications of the Simulacrum Insertion.

  We, the Elvan Queens, we are the villains. The Big Bad Evil Gurls.

  No need to list off all her titles. Did she even deserve them?

  ‘When you grow up, if you still feel raw about it… I’ll be waiting.’

  ‘Now this is the plan: Get your ass to Reath.’

  You did scry the last recording, right?

  Talisa, whose last and final simulacrum, the ninth one, the Yeerk, whose mission was to take over another body so that Talisa could be born again, thought- you hopelessly romantic stupid gurl, will you please stay focused on what we really want!

  Sounds familiar.

  Sounds familiar. Vilithe loved Neon Genesis Evangelion.

  No true adversary at all, Maetra didn’t even register Keter’s existence. Maetra was currently preoccupied with another great adversary, that being- the Rogue Princess Vilithe Callethe.

  These were quite Infernal Affairs.

  Or if that weren’t enough, just killing them- The Departed.

  Keter the Fourth found this hilarious, even if the Hods did not. Hodor!

  Of the Kawasaki Ninja.

  Cantonese for ‘fuck them hard’. Honestly no one is sure what it’s supposed to mean. Vilithe could remember all her Cantonese her Worker Mom, Queen Mom, and older sisters had taught her, so she didn’t need to rely on crass Common Tongue cusses.

  Weren’t they already there?! What else could you call Aryss?