[Koi Pond]
"I'm pretty surprised to be here myself," Zee replies, a smile tugging at the edges of her mouth. It doesn't last very long. "I had hoped..."
She sniffs slightly, wiping away a tear.
"I guess no one had the guts to do what needed to be done. I would have, but... well. You know. I failed you, Kara. I failed you really, really hard. I sort of knew what was going on and I should have acted decisively. But I didn't. And I've been thinking about it for... well... a long time doesn't exactly fit. Time is weird up in Spookytown."
That's an understatement to say the least.
She squints a bit, and for a moment there's a double image of five more eyes, burning like stars with cold, muted radiance.
"God... you just got taken to pieces, didn't you? I've spent all this time putting myself back together and you... you look like something a fae half-assed together because they needed some quick props to entertain unexpected company."
That isn't very nice. Not inaccurate. But not very nice. Zee bows her head, staring at the pond.
"And it's more it than you. Of course the good parts would be the ones that get lost. In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only edge and all that," she continues. Her tone, her posture, they all point to a buildup. She's trying to push herself. A course of action. Determination. "I thought about this a long time. What I would do if I found... what's left of you. Eroded. Warped by dark emotions and dark ideas."
She raises her head, cheeks wet with tears.
"It was nice seeing you again, Kara."
What Zee does, by contrast, isn't very nice.
It isn't fair.
It isn't subtle.
In a twinkling of an eye she's gone again. In a heartbeat an empyrean beast aims to pounce on the slumbering bloodthirster from a step sideways in time. As weird as the warp is, it's still a parallel universe. As awful as daemons are, they're still the thoughts and beliefs and emotions and passions of mortals given psychic form. They are still, fundamentally, information, ideas. And to an empyrean beast, ideas are just as physical as any other thing. Teeth aim to punch into the daemon, not through his armored hide, but from the inside out, shredding through organs and muscles with wild abandon. Memetic venom will flood from those fangs should the surprise attack strike true, dissolving ideas and concepts into mere inklings and rearranging the remains as prions might chew holes through a brain. Not content to merely slay the daemon now, the venom will aggressively eat its way forward and backward in time, leaving the ruination of absolute forgetfulness in its wake. It will be devoured, all that it was, all that is, all that it ever could have been.
But.
The work isn't done.
From the soupy remains *structure* is imposed from an encyclopedic memory. How many times had she enjoyed the company of the little silver dragon who was so intent to make the world better one act of kindness at a time? Information flows through her veins like blood, and she pours out her knowledge heedless to what harm she might do to herself drawing so deeply from her well of power. This was her fault. That was her fault and she had failed. She has to at least try. Karaglen's voice. Karaglen's mannerisms. Karaglen's personality. Karaglen's memories. Karaglen's hopes and dreams and aspirations before they were all reduced to blood and ash and splintered bones. Karaglen's story before it was defiled, what it could have been, in countless untouched elsewhens.
Fungal roots bite into the earth, snaking up through trees and bushes and earth worms and at least one really unfortunate slumbering lizard. Biomass is drawn into the beast as everything else withers and dies. Inari will forgive her for the garden. Probably.
Karaglen's physical body. Her lifesong, a song remembered well. The cute little silver wyrmling from her memories, drawn from the last archived memory Zee has of her. When Kara touched her, hoping to heal, all those years ago when the Stars Were Right. A touch that brought tragedy. A tragedy Zee hopes to mend, if only a little.
She has built organisms from the ground up countless times, complete with memories and personalities to give them life and vibrancy.
But... she hasn't ever tried rebuilding a sundered friend before.
"Please work," the hulking beast whispers to the snowy white cocoon clutched protectively between clawed hooves and wings, held tight against her breast. "Please don't just die. Please don't let me fail you twice."