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Sh'ozak Ma'hk'null · 11-03-2025, 06:05 AM,

Time passed leisurely in the colony. Humans were creatures of routine, and after having set one up, their wanderings were contained within the limits of the routine, giving meaning to deviance as "experimentation" and "exploration". These were ideas well known to the Slomon K'Hara as a species, but had never been considered as a survival strategy until the arrival of humanity. A duty, necessary as a command from their creators, not necessary as a lifeblood of their continued existence. One of the pirates she had captured first had informed them of records of humanity's homeworld. A world of hate, where humanity had thrived by being the most hateful. A world of toxins, where humanity had survived by making the toxins a part of themselves. A world of violence, which humanity conquered with violence. They spread their reach far and wide with violence.

That conversation on the extent of humanity's history had ended with a concept most disheartening: The humanity that had come to conquer her home were refugees. Failures among the human race, losers of their eternal lust for war. Just across this very arm of the massive galactic spiral lay in waiting a more violent, more hateful humanity, one which Sh'ozak had come to accept that she must face someday, provided she survives the ones that had come here. Perhaps there was merit to those minds that clung closely to the belief that the Creators had engineered every test, every star, and every ruin to train them. Somehow, someway, a weaker, lesser Humanity had come, a test, a training, a distilling of thought to prepare them for the true Humanity.

All these thoughts came to surface due to an experiment she had been conducting in her temple, a literal introspection. Several times she had divided herself, acausal will against all other. Yet, as she divided herself, she found she could divide herself further. In the inner cloister, in front of her throne, four versions of herself were present. Two doll bodies, a swirling ball of smoke and energy, and, perched on the throne in both mockery and reverence, barely visible, a Progenitor Worm. All herself, a single creature, yet showing four aspects that make up herself.

In unison, they turned to regard the doorway, feeling a mind approaching. Claire, with her usual severe mistiming, had chosen to seek companionship while Sh'ozak was still divided. The door opened, and the delicate flavor of confusion washed over her divided selves, projected clearly from Claire's well-developed telepathy. The light, airy taste of confusion was quickly met with the silence of dismissal, and both were overwhelmed by the sweet flavor of obsession. One of the doll bodies responded in kind, lunging to embrace her and coiling tendrils towards the warmer spots on her body. The other doll body calmly tilted her head, yet it was the ball of smoke, temporarily coalescing into a trio of interlocked rings speckled with eyes, wings, and feathers, who spoke.

"You interrupt an experiment." Claire expressed an apology, but it was cut short by the metallic taste of pain. The doll body clinging to her had pierced her skin, disregarding anesthetics and even going so far as to drain blood from her body. It pulled away in an instant as the second doll body rapidly floated towards them with a trail of after-images, and half-heartedly attempted to spike the first with a crystalline spear.

Seeing conflict, Claire projected an emotion of worry, prompting response from the second doll body. "Behold: "Self Control", manifest in physicality. It is no true concern." Claire's next communication brought all of Sh'ozak to a brief halt, her eyes locked on the woman who had expressed an allowance, no, an invitation to be consumed. Under the dumbfounded gaze of a goddesses eyes, a well-deserved embarrassment overcame Claire, who attempted to change the subject by inquiring the nature of the experiment. The second doll body and the winged rings hesitated for a mere second, contemplating if they should explain it, letting the the impulsiveness of the first body answer.

"I'm asking myself questions." With Claire's blood circulating in the other body, it began using the carbon-based information codes to play around with its own structure. A fleshy version of the tendrils sprouted from her abdomen, dragging on the floor at first with their newfound weight before sprouting bone and tooth-like spikes and protrusions. "I like your body. I could eat you."
"But I will not." The second doll body flashed across the gap to stand between Claire and the first. Claire expressed a subtle joy in regards to being desired. A short silence, followed by a query as to where the usual snappy response to her desires was.
"Ah, I am the one who says them, but that self is the one who makes them." The doll pointed at the throne. Claire saw nothing. Instead of speaking further, the first doll lashed her tendrils across Claire, wrapping her arms and biting through her skin. She proceeded to drag her towards the throne. There sat a single sparkling purple worm, curled into a ring, humming a singular tone.

Claire questioned the creature before them. "This is the original shape of any light. This is the first form, from which all other forms stem. Over there, shaped in mist and smoke, is the shape of my mind. Aside me stands the shape of my perception. And I am the shape of my will." Further inquisition, on the necessity of these shapes. "Have you ever had mixed feelings? I do. So I must ask myself questions to find my own answers. Behold, many selves to ask questions."

There was a silent understanding, as Claire lacked speech. The idea of talking to oneself to sort emotions from logic is an idea innately understood by thinking humans, and she who does not speak thinks much. Every part of Sh'ozak was content with this. Every part but one, and tension within the room flared again. Claire, aware of the songs that each conscious mind sings, worries for this conflict in a way nearly tangible. "Acausal will leads to choices that provide nothing. Without control, I would quickly consume you for your bodies warmth, for your endorphins, and for your pheromones. A personal failure regarding the doll body, having matched it too closely to human physiology."
"As I should. You are nourishing and pleasant."

Claire offered a token of knowledge, but it was blurry, and barely known. A fact known, but not understood. "Why should I compromise?"
"As to completely consume is to lose access."
"It is decided. Investigate further." The other two made to argue, but a powerful command of silence washed over the room, a screeching clatter alike a falling metal pipe echoing in the minds of all. At last the worm had spoken.

Sometime later, two other women entered. Isadora, covered in braided silk adornments, seemed to nearly hover across the ground. "Our Lady Death. It seems you have multiplied. I bring Our Blinded Visage, and I come to clarify where her lack of tact cannot."
The voice of her smoke form spoke first: "Acceptable."

Behind Isadora came a true giantess. Each human had grown to extreme proportions due to the low gravity and genetic alterations of the fruit which they ate, yet Candela had outstripped them by far. Not only was she approaching her third meter of height, but her musculature had grown to extremes that could pull down buildings in regular human cities. As Isadora had mentioned, her brazen lack of tact made an entrance shortly after her.
"Shozzyyyyy!"
"Stop."
"But it's been so long..." Candela's puppy dog eyes were thankfully concealed behind her ornate, silver blindfold, although her pout was not. Perhaps, however, such a pleading face would have seemed out of place on the sheer titan of a woman. Claire also petitioned in Candela's favor, citing a concession being acceptable as Candela was a scholar in the subject they would be discussing.
"I deny such belittling, and your misrepresentation of time. It has been since the last full rotation of this moon. Answer the questions for which you were summoned."

"Oh yeah, the heat thing. So, female humans have a timed, staged shift in their homeostasis details. One of these stages, the one Claire was... thinking really hard about, includes a higher internal body temperature, a spike in luteinizing hormone, estrogen, follicle-stimulating hormone, and progesterone. If you want to keep her warm and full of hormones, that's probably the state you want her in."
Claire described a mocking surprise that a meathead like Candela would know so much.
"I was a nutritionist before I was a Visage, Claire." Candela began striking poses to show her muscles. "If you want maximum protein, you need meat" She tapped her head. "Eggs" She finished by patting her chest "And dairy."

Claire rolled her eyes, making a simple, pointed claim that hers were bigger. Isadora was the only one to notice the confusion on the face of both dolls representing Shozak, as well as the cloud of fog losing it's symmetrical shapes. "Ah, she makes prideful and admittedly witty boasts as to her physical proportions."
"Is this such a thing to feel pride for?"
"To many, yes. Humanity largely lacks the connection of mind, and so how one appears outwardly dictates how one is judged."

The more logical doll and the cloud resumed their forms, seeming satisfied. However, the more emotional one began staring intensely at the bodies of the three women in front of her, measuring them. She then turned her eyes to herself in comparison. While the other three were well between two and three meters, her doll only barely passed a meter and a half. Her doll bore neither musculature of Candela and Isadora, nor the more numerous adipocytes of Claire. She looked down, and did not see "dairy". Only toes. Silently, the emotional side came to a conclusion, communicated silently with the other three. The perspective abstained to vote, and the mind and ancestry agreed on the terms that it remain an experiment of discovery, and provide no further influence. Claire, with a mind to hear, noted that a decision had been made regarding her hormonal cycle, happily accepting to be of use in any way possible.

Claire and Candela continued pridefully posturing, their banter slowly dissipating the tension that Sh'ozak had formed all on her own. Isadora was nearly content to watch, but a question had plagued her mind. "Our Lady, if I may... why are you split apart?"
"Oh, to ask myself a question."
"What question may that be?"

Each of the forms froze completely. Not even the wisps of fog from the form of mind flowed. They stood in silence for seconds that seemed like minutes, until the form of emotion walked to the throne and picked up the worm in her hands, and the four bodies all walked into each other. In a blinding flash of light and the screeching sound of glass scraping against glass, before them stood again the doll body they knew, purple tendrils strewn across the floor. Their silence posed a question that even Claire did not voice in her mind, yet Sh'ozak answered all the same.

"Hm. How about that. I forgot."

The four left the inner cloister to mingle amongst the rest of the colony. And while they wandered, tranquility returned to the Temple of Merciful Death.

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