“So, are we adding another being to our group?” Lia asked as I was sitting on a high branch in the darkness, simply enjoying the slight elevation and the clear view of the stars it allowed . Luna must have told her about her suggestion to take Sasha with us, maybe hoping that Lia would help in convincing to accept it, or maybe Lia had realised that the thodology Luna and I employed when dealing with Sasha was far from our usual experintal process. For one, we hadn’t tested anything truly invasive, hadn’t pushed Sasha in any serious way, hel, we had barely touched her soul at all, rely observing it due to the curious, if glacially slow, restoration process it was undergoing.
“Maybe,” I admitted, as I was still considering the idea, “The biggest problem I see is that she might slow us down, both in terms of travel speed and in terms of combat. She would be a liability if we are attacked, and that is assuming she doesn’t turn on us or take the opportunity to escape if we ever turn our back on her.”
“If she decides to escape, why not simply let her?” Lia asked in return, briefly throwing for a loop. Sohow, my mind had defaulted to the assumption that if we took Sasha with us, we would have to make sure she wouldn’t escape, but, at the end of the day, why would we care too much about that?
If she escaped, it would be annoying. Getting such an interesting specin had been quite a stroke of luck, but beyond that, why would I care? If we perford our usual experints, it was almost certain that Sasha would, by now, be fundantally altered to the point that we could only release her back into the wilds, or she would be dead. Going by past performance, being dead was the more likely option, as most of our initial experints ended with the subject’s demise while we were trying to figure out what didn’t work.
“You may have a point,” I admitted, “But that doesn’t an I’m willing to risk having Sasha try to kill us in our sleep. She’s sowhere between normal animal and sapient in intelligence, so who knows what’s going on in her head?”
“Just like you didn’t know what was going on in my head back when you put my shattered Soul back together? At least sowhat?” Lia asked, and by now, I could see where her mind was on the question of whether we should take Sasha with us or not.
“Apples and oranges,” I couldn’t stop a grin from forming on my face, “Sure, your Soul was largely shattered, just like Sasha’s was, but where Sasha’s Soul pulled itself together in so strange, natural way, yours was pulled together by myself. And, if you rember, I initially made sure that you knew to obey , that you understood I was the one keeping you together,” I paused for a mont, not completely comfortable with how I had treated my daughter in the beginning, even if she hadn’t been my daughter at that point. Hindsight was strange; I knew why I had acted in that way back then; I knew why it had been necessary. But imagining anyone treating my dear daughter Carnelia that way felt utterly wrong and made sowhat angry. Likely because the person subjected to the treatnt had changed, she had stopped being the possibly unstable vampire Carnelia and had beco my dear daughter. A curious process, though not one I truly understood.
“Mhm, you enjoyed having kneel before you, didn’t you?” the smirk on Lia’s face gave away that she was poking fun at , though I couldn’t help but flush just a little when rembering the original way in which I had fed her.
“Compared to the other options, I continue to believe it was a comparatively good one. Imagine if I had allowed you to feed in the sa way you fed of Samantha,” I retorted, getting Lia to cringe in an incredibly amusing way.
“I think I’ll take the kneeling and submission, thanks,” she admitted, shaking her head in a vain attempt to get rid of the images. Sure, the images were only as disturbing due to the way our relationship had turned out, that she saw as her mother, and I her as my daughter. Who knows what might have happened in another universe?
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“Back to Sasha,” Lia quickly changed the subject, likely still trying to get rid of the disturbing images I had put into her head. Or maybe she was still sowhat hurt from the way her relationship with Samantha had turned out, making feel bad for reminding her of it, even if she had been back with us for over two weeks. But then, given that I was still utterly consud with my relationship with Sigmir, despite it being over a year since her passing, I should have known better.
“Yeah, let’s discuss the possibility of her joining us,” I agreed, giving Lia’s shoulder a quick squeeze in support.
“Yeah, let’s,” she nodded, sounding a little bit relieved, “I’ll be honest, I see a bit of myself in her,” she then admitted, making pause for a mont and consider what she ant. And, with a bit of thought, I could see it.
Lia had been on the way to becoming a complete Shattered. We had t just in ti for to change the process and alter her to beco a Vampire. Sasha, on the other hand, had completely Shattered but, later, by so strange process we had yet to understand, turned into a Sasquatch. Sure, Sasha wasn’t the only Sasquatch, but she was the one we had right with us, so a bit of empathy between the not-quite-Shattered-turned-Vampire and the Shattered-turned-Sasquatch should be expected. As should be her desire to make Sasha into sothing beyond a sowhat simple beast, Lia could likely see her own fate in Sasha, a fate I had managed to break back then.
“I don’t think I can safely change her to beco more like you,” I admitted, only to see Lia roll her eyes.
“Mom, not everything needs to be changed with your blood. Not everything in the world needs to be dragon-blooded,” she snarked, making snort in response.
“But the world would be a much better place,” I replied, despite knowing just how insane the statent was. And how utterly false, I was well-aware that I had a few glaring deficiencies, especially concerning empathy and what most would call morals. A world filled with beings like would either turn into an utterly streamlined and strict ritocracy, or maybe magocracy, or it would beco an anarchic hell-hole until sobody managed to rise to the top and force that streamlined system into existence. Maybe Lia had a very good point.
“So, what do you have in mind?” I asked, simply ignoring my previous statent.
“I would like to see what she can beco, what I might have beco,” she admitted. Now, I felt a little strange, wondering if Lia felt resentnt over the way she had turned out. Sure, given the circumstances at the ti, her demise had been almost inevitable, but that didn’t stop the ‘what-if’ questions tumbling through one’s mind.
“Without outside interference?” I asked, wondering if I would remain limited to non-invasive experints on Sasha.
“Eh, not necessarily,” Lia shook her head, “We are interfering anyway. You interfered when you saved Sasha’s life, and taking her with us will expose her to dangers she’d normally never encounter, as well as outside influence from your re presence. The sa for Luna, little sis can’t help herself but be a beacon for Lady Hecate’s influence on the world.”
“True, she’d most likely be more powerful than any Sasquatch in their community within weeks, just due to the few beasts we encounter on our travels,” I agreed, wondering how that would turn out. My understanding was that it was incredibly difficult for a stronger group to train up a weaker mber, so how would things turn out in this case?
A curious question and one that made realise I had effectively already made my decision. Sasha would join us, unless she decided to run away the mont I opened the door to the room she remained locked into. If she tried, I would have to reassess my decision, but for now, it was quite obvious that I would learn a lot more about the world if we took her with us. Even without invasive experints, we would learn sothing.
Additionally, so careful and gradual changes to her Body, Mind and Soul would hopefully allow to learn more about all three of those.
“I guess we’ll try to take our Sasquatch for a walk tomorrow. We still have to figure out if she even wants to co with us. If we have to drag her the whole way, it would be a serious annoyance,” I decided, letting out a small sigh at the possibility that this might all fail because the Sasquatch had a mind of her own. Only ti would tell.
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