I watched the rain fall. Its pitter-patter against the dryadic shield filled me with a strange sense of melancholy, but fortunately all I needed to do was look inwards and I could feel the presence of five girls who all loved me, all connected to me through the Bond we shared.
Suddenly the sight wasn't as melancholic anymore. The sky rumbled and flashed as the late summer thunderstorm shrouded the world, and the thick canopy of the tree swayed in the wind where it reached up towards the sky beyond the shield.
"It's done on purpose, you know?"
I turned around to see Calla emerging from the thick trunk of the tree, smiling as our gazes met. The others were still downstairs, drinking ambrosia, getting ready for the day.
"What is?" I asked.
"The branches collect water from outside the shield, so that the tree doesn't have to drop its only form of protection to get water," she said.
I nodded. "What about the ground?" I asked, noticing that the grass was lush and the soil dark and fertile.
She shrugged. "The tree takes care of its domain."
There was an undercurrent of sadness beneath, which I noticed easily. Calla was looking at the horizon, watching as the faint mist of rain intensified and hid more and more of the world from view.
"You don't like the idea of having slaves, do you?" she asked me.
"Of course I don't," I said. I felt her get closer as I stared at the horizon, hidden by the rain.
Her emotions were complex and layered, as were all the emotions of my girls of course, but in that moment I felt them resonate with me as if we were one person without her needing to hop over to my mind or me to hers.
She nudged me, and I opened my status. There, I saw it.
Slaves:
B2TTn#-7 (Treemind)
The screaming proof of bad choices and mistakes of the past. "I want to try to free the tree again, with Eve's help this time."
Calla's little hand went in search for mine, and when she found it, she entwined her fingers with mine. "You're a good man, Sol."
We sat on the ground together, and then we were in the Bond-space.
Eve is already there, waiting for us like a diligent ship AI. My ship AI, the ghost living in our Bond. She jumps up and down when she sees us, happy that we are paying her another visit so soon.
"You're always with me," she explains. "But when you're here here? It's so much better. And I think I can help you!"
Her enthusiasm is infectious, and before we know it, my hauler is full of bustling activity. Zery, Vespera and Elyra have also joined us, and we have repurposed the cargo room into a sort of hacking terminal filled with computers and screens and holograms everywhere. We make the holos blue just to make sure we don't lose Eve among the mess we make of the three-dimensional space, especially given how the AI girl is full of energy, darting from one side of the room to the other, manipulating holos with her hands but also her mind, teleporting around, poking at everyone else as we work.
Each one of us is tackling the problem from a different angle. Zery and Vespera are trying brute force, with the dragon having convinced the demon to help her without much issue. Calla and Eve are trying empathy, communication and understanding between them, the System and magic itself.
It tempts Zery to join them, reminded once again of the fact that magic could also be negotiation and not just imposition of will.
"I do see merit in your approach," she says, trying to look for a way out. "However, you are already on it. I better leave it to you, while I focus on my area of expertise."
"That's right," Vespera says smugly. "We gotta turn every stone! And remember, if brute force ain't working, then you haven't used enough of it."
"That's my line," I say.
"Is it?" the demon asks, feigning ignorance.
"First rule of space warfare," I deadpan. "Are you using my own words against me?"
She makes a funny face. "Well, if you said it, mister spacer boy, it means it's a good line. Or are you claiming you say dumb things? Now, if you're saying dumb things, then perhaps you shouldn't be telling me not to try and brute force your slave problem. On the other hand, if that line is not dumb, then you should let me try to brute force the whole slave bond!"
Zery chuckles, lifting her head up from the monitor. "She got you there, mister."
"Yeah yeah," I say dismissively. "If that makes you feel better."
We share a good laugh before returning to our work. Specifically, I am working with Elyra on a very interesting approach, not to mention the most dangerous: using the machine's kill code against the slave magic. To do so, we use a kneecapped version of the code found on the computers from the battery room. We copied it over before we gave the tech to Ted, obviously scrubbed of all traces of a code too dangerous to let loose on the world.
"And if as a side effect," I muse. "We happen to kill all slavery magic in the process, I'm certainly not going to mourn it."
Elyra opens her mouth to respond, but no words come. A sudden dread grips me, and I know why. I don't feel them. The girls. They are gone.
I look down, and Elyra is physically still here. My head swivels, sweat beading my forehead, and I see the others too! They are all here, but they are frozen in time. The text on the screens is gone, replaced by flickering static, the call of random signal that carries no meaning.
My chest feels heavy. I touch Elyra's shoulder, and I feel no heat coming from her, nor does she react to me. I try to probe the bond again, but there is nothing. Nothing at all. The sudden absence makes me feel incomplete, like a part of me has been ripped out and there's only a gaping wound in its place.
Then the alarm blares. It is a shrill, ear-piercing noise, coming from the cockpit. I rush there, stumbling on legs that refuse to carry my weight, feeling the oppressive lack from a bond that does not work anymore. When I reach halfway through the ship, I look up and almost stumble in fear. There is nothing outside. No space, no stars. Just nothing.
And it's very different from the darkness of real space. This… whatever it is, it's an utter absence that threatens to destroy everything. It is the void that advances, the bleeding wound in the side of the universe, the death of all things made manifest.
I reach the consoles, and I see it. The kill code, and not the innocuous kneecapped version Elyra and I were playing with in our safe, isolated environments. This is the code in its full force, the sharp weapon of the machine gods, the eraser of civilization and magic.
I see it for what it is, now. Its complexity dances in the monitors, but at once I realize that the code is just a small part of a greater whole. If it is even possible to understand a lack, a void, an emptiness, that is. What I see through the windows and what I see on the screens are one and the same.
Still, they wouldn't have been enough for me to understand had it not been for what is happening to the bond. My girls. My anchors. Their absence makes me understand.
The realization hits me. If anyone took them away from me, then I'd become just like the void outside.
I blink and I'm back. Teleported near Elyra, a hand on her shoulder. She smiles softly and leans into my touch, patting my hand with hers in an affectionate gesture, pulling me closer to her. I sit on a chair next to hers and just breathe. It's hard to keep calm, and the girls quickly realize that something isn't right.
They all drop what they were doing and sit around me, with only Eve remaining standing in her holographic form, standing right in front of me. Ah, I see her angle here. She leans in and sits on my knees, facing me with a body that, if it weren't mostly translucent, would obscure the sight of Zery and Vespera on their chairs in front of me. But it doesn't and she knows, so she can take up real estate in front of me and almost poke me with her nose while she scrunches up her face in a childish frown.
She grabs my hands. "You have just experienced something horrible," she says.
Even as she speaks, the memory of what I just went through is fading from my mind, evaporating and only leaving behind a sense of dread and an understanding that I know has cost me a part of myself.
"Come here," I tell them, and pull them all into a hug. "I don't want to ever lose you, you hear me?"
"And you won't," Vespera says. "Just you wait until we get married and then do that ritual. What was it called again? Handmaid's glove or some shit?"
"Wandering Wife's Collar," I say.
"That's right," she says. "And you'll put a collar on all of us, Sol."
Then she gets up and sits on my lap, with Eve protesting as she's forced to relinquish one of my legs. The demon purrs in my ear. "And maybe you will even let us put a collar on you, won't you?"
It gives me goosebumps and I nod slowly, feeling the excitement come from me and her both, reflected in the others watching us like waves rippling in a pond.
"Now, Sol ours," she says, still breathing into my ear. "Tell us, what did you see in that vision the bond won't let us access?"
"I saw the void," I say. "We need to stop it."
Elyra perks up. "Did you… see what it did to magic? To the bond?"
I tell them about the dread. About the absence. And when it comes to her second question, about the bond, I tell her everything I can think of. The more I speak, the quicker the memories fade away, receding into the realm of dreams, and the only anchor that survives is my recounting of the events. Even as I say the words, they feel hollow, stripped of most of their meaning. I struggle to even imagine how it would feel to no longer have the bond that stretches between us, that touches our souls and our everything.
I look at Eve who is still right there, in front of me. Her eyes are misty, the neon lines of holograms rimmed by tears made of data bits that flow like water. "I took the edge away, Sol mine," she says.
I cup her cheeks and kiss her. "Thank you, Eve mine. You didn't have to, but I appreciate it."
"Of course," she replies, sniffling. "We are Bonded now. I am only sorry I can't do more, but—"
"You can only intercede with magic, not cheat. I know," I say. "It's more than enough, my love."
Zery gets up and sits near me. Although, she does not sit on me but rathre on the ground next to me. She's big enough that she's as tall as I am even if I am still on the chair. Her arms wrap around me and pull me and Eve into a sideways hug.
"We won't let the void take what we have away from us," she says, looking at Eve. "I'll protect you all."
"So will I, dammit!" Vespera exclaims. Near her, Elyra and Calla both have faces that are masks of determination.
Moments later, we are back in a group hug that's tighter and stronger than ever.