“What I don’t understand Vitor is why we should be concerned about our physical forms. We’re going to possess the powers of the gods themselves are we not? What point or purpose would there be in things like ‘expanding the lifting capacity of our skeletal structures by ten and a half percent’?”

“Truly Helgon? You, of all people, do not see the value of expanding the capacity of physical forms?”

“I am afraid, in this instance, I do not. Were you speaking of the sort of increased capacity an automaton is capable to achieving then, yes, of course there might be value, though even there I see that being more of a useful pursuit with the aim of distribution amongst our populaces.”

“And we will not be sharing any of these augmentations beyond this conclave.”

“I am suggesting nothing of the sort Vaingloth. Where Helgon’s experimentation is focused on creating more useful servitors…”

“It is not. I said our populations. Not slaves.”

“We shall be gods to them. What practical difference would there be?”

“Our people are one of our treasures Vitor. If you see them only as slaves then you value them far too lightly.”

“We are not discussing that again. We have already agreed, we may do as we wish with our ‘populations’ with the caveat that they are not to be gifted with any qualities which might allow them to pose a meaningful challenge to us.”

“Is that not exactly what Helgon has specifically pledged to do?”

“It is not Vitor. My people will not be able to rise up against us. Any design I implement will be denied their own divine sparks. Should I even attempt such an endeavor, the safeguards Vaingloth, Kurst, and Insikir have proposed would warn the rest of you with plenty of time for you to contest their creation.”

“Your proposal, on the other hand Vitor, we do not see a means to control as readily.”

“It will not require oversight or control if it’s distribution is limited to our ranks alone. As for Helgon’s claim that it is only a minor improvement, I direct you to Hashel’s corroborating report. The mere ‘ten percent’ improvement is on a per soul-annum basis.”

“Meaning…”

“Meaning that we will be harnessing the power of quite a few souls over quite a few years. The increase basis is nearly irrelevant compared to the maximum sustainable upgrade capacity.”

“You don’t seem to have finished the calculation there.”

“No Helgon, I did. That space is empty because there is no limit.”

– High Accessor Vitor making a case for the other to-be-Neoteric Lords to hand him the keys to their physical forms and capabilities.

You didn’t tell Malgenia that she couldn’t have something. Or that she was wrong. It was a rather fundamental lesson for Malgenia’s Deaths, so much so that it was never directly taught to us. We all absorbed it readily on our own. Or at least all of us who lasted more than a day or two in her service figured that out.

Responsibility knew that. 

She’d been one of Malgenia’s Deaths for longer than I had (by a month), so I knew she was just as terribly aware of how important it was not to disagree with our Neoteric Lord.

And yet there she stood.

Telling me “no”.

And meeting my gaze with a proud defiance which could only be answered with the sort of casual and effortless destruction none save Malgenia could bring?

I should be furious with her.

I’d made plans!

I needed her!

She was making a mess of everything! Just like she always did!

Malgenia wouldn’t have shown more the barest flicker of irritation though and so I should have had to hide my anger completely.

Except for one tiny little thing.

I couldn’t have been happier with her!

And hiding delight, it turned out, was a bit beyond me.

“I am sorry My Lady,” Responsibility said, casting her eyes downward as the happiness I felt lit Malgenia’s eyes and tugged at the corner of Malgenia’s lips.

“No you’re not,” I said, which in hindsight probably sounded a lot more threatening than I’d meant it to.

“That’s a lie,” Beauty said.

“I don’t think it is,” Inhibition said. “She finds it funny now, but at the time I believe she was too caught up in the moment to considering torturing Responsibility like that.”

“Of course I didn’t want to torture her,” I said, “she was proving she was exactly what I needed!”

“The first is not precluded by the second,” Reason said. “You two do have a rather unique relationship after all.”

I refused to grace that with a response, turning my attention to my new favorite Death.

“Which would make Clarity what then?” Beauty asked.

Turning my attention to my new second-favorite Death.

“My Lady?” Responsibility asked, probably surprised that I hadn’t already struck her down.

“Am I now?” I asked.

“Always!” she said, without thought or hesitation.

Which sucked.

That was not what I needed.

“Come with me,” I said. We had to be somewhere a lot more secure than one of my buildings in a city that I controlled if we were going to continue the conversation I needed us to have.

I turned and started walking towards the nearest spot I can think of which fit that description, Malgenia’s bedroom, hoping against hope as I did so that she would refuse me again.

Sadly, she didn’t.

She didn’t even ask where we were going, and I felt my bubbly grin drooping into a frown.

How had I gotten her to fight me in the past? 

Punching her in the face had a host of problems.

Drowning her would have faced similar ones.

Even something simple like jabbing her with a fork when she was sleeping, or throwing knives at her were definitely out of bounds (though to be fair, I’d only ever thrown knives back at her in the past, being the first to throw a knife would have been a novel tactic to employ).

No, if she was going to fight me, it needed to come from her.

Which wasn’t totally out of the question. Our confrontations had started off with her stabbing me after all. It hadn’t been a bad stabbing, just a minor puncture wound into my right lung, but it had set the tone for our relationship which followed. 

I’m pretty sure I mentioned that I loved her? That was true of all the Deaths of course. We were all united by the devotion we shared to Malgenia. However, if you place a group of children together in an environment where almost any sort of injury could be repaired via our proctors healing magics and couple that with the oversight of a Neoteric Lord who found casual bloodletting amusing at best and unnoticeable at worst, the culture produced among the Deaths proved to be rather more violent than the ones we read about in our histories.

Responsibility had been special though. She’d always taken extra care to express her displeasure with me, and I had answered in kind.

Especially when she was taking too much of Clarity’s time.

We didn’t have an official division of either our custody of Clarity or how much of her attention we were entitled to. It wasn’t the sort of thing I think either of us were capable of evaluating rationally.

“I’m not even going to tease you about that,” Beauty said. “We were all there, and I don’t think any of us did any better.”

“I don’t recall being that much in love with any one person?” Inhibition said.

“That’s because we were all in love with you, you silly goose,” Reason said.

Thinking about Clarity soured my mood even further. It wasn’t just that I missed her. I missed fighting over her too.

And yes, I know exactly how stupid that sounds.

“Wasn’t going to say a thing,” Beauty said.

“My Lady, where are we going?” Responsibility asked.

And my grin returned!

No one asked Malgenia to explain herself. Either she chose to speak to you or you didn’t need to know.

But there was my Responsibility, making the meekest of requests! She was doing so much better than anyone else would have!

“You are thinking dangerous thoughts all of a sudden,” Reason warned me, sensing the hope that had started blooming within me.

“Yep,” I said, my pulsing quickening as I stepped close to the edge of an abyss I knew it was inevitable I would one day cast myself into.

“Good,” Beauty said,

“About time,” Inhibition agreed.

It’s not often a good sign when the voices in your head give up on counseling restraint. Fortunately our gods can always provide us with the sort of wisdom that would take lifetimes to develop.

I am with you, always, Diyas said. And if you would dare the razor’s edge now then allow me to say, I am more than done with waiting too!

Manic zeal is, to be quite clear, a terrible mindset to make decisions in. To be fair to my god however, she had been waiting lifetimes for payback against the Neoterics, and to be fair to my sister Deaths, none of us were the Death of Patience nor the Death of Caution, so our susceptibility to the allure of a mad, zealful idea was limited at best.

“I would show you my Garden my Dear Responsibility,” I said, turning partially to meet her gaze.

Responsibility’s normal skin tone is a radiant light brown. Watching her go as pale as Malgenia did, I am sorry to report, merely amplify my glee.

I am a terrible person.

But then I wouldn’t be where I was if I wasn’t.

So I was glad I was terrible.

But Responsibility probably didn’t deserve that.

I’d have to let her stab me a few times more.

She deserved it and I did too.

“Y-y-yo-you–your….” That she’d lost the capacity for coherent speech wasn’t surprising. We all knew about Malgenia’s Garden. It was her personal workspace. Even her brother wouldn’t bother her in there. It was literally a holy site to her power and her power was death.

“I am sorry My Lady, truly sorry,” Responsibility said. “May I explain myself?”

“No,” I said. “Not here.”

I expected her to wilt at that.

I would have.

“No. You didn’t,” Beauty said.

Responsibility didn’t either. She drew in a calming breath, squared her shoulders, and fell into step behind me without further complaint.

I needed her to complain though. I needed her to fight and push back and to hate me. 

And she did.

She was walking into Malgenia’s garden, but that was only because I’d given her no other possibility. Her defiance was limited to choosing how she met her fate, she couldn’t change what her fate would be.

Or that was what she had to be thinking.

We couldn’t oppose Malgenia, we could only choose how whether to die loving her or to accept the resentment we felt.

That was what she’d taught us since we were capable of forming words and thoughts.

It was a lie that took a lot of work to ensure we believed it fully.

And it hadn’t quite worked on Responsibility.

Not anymore than it had worked on me.

The real trick was going to be getting her to see that.

You’d think that would be easy.

She believed I was Malgenia.

All I had to do was just tell her right? Just explain everything and she’d have to accept what I was saying. Surely!

Maybe. Or maybe that would shatter what little resiliency her psyche had.

Malgenia’s Deaths were not the most well-adjusted of individuals, and I knew Responsibility. She’d built her identity of being one of the world’s nascent demi-gods just as much as I had. Take that away and all sorts of madness could arise.

Heck she might even decide to obliterate her promised Neoteric god.

It wouldn’t be an unprecedented act after what I’d done.

I mulled over that as we walked in silence to Malgenia’s Garden and thought I’d found an answer, or at least an approach to take, as I waved aside the divine wards and led Responsibility into the abattoir that was one of Malgenia’s favorite places in the world.

All I had to do was…

“Who are you?” Responsibility demanded as the wards fell back in place, isolating us from everyone else.

In her hands killing fires had blossomed and in her eyes was the most beloved hatred I could have ever hoped to see!