Hsthressis' words jolt me instantly from blearily soaking in the melancholy of the dream to wide-awake panic. All of my bodies leap to my feet, my mind racing with questions and terror. Did she just see all of that? Why? What should I do? I didn't mean for her to—

"Aaah, stop it! Evelyn, stop it stop it what are you doing!?"

Oh fuck. I'm moving Hsthressis' body too.

Sorry! God, I'm so sorry! I'm stopping, I'm stopping, it's yours.

I allow Hsthressis to use the body I gave her once more, and I experience a brief feeling of disorientation as something else starts controlling me… but then I realize how fucked up and backwards that is and get my brain back on track. That's Hsthressis. She's not me. She's not me. She's. Not. Me!

"What the fuck was that?" Hsthressis demands. "What the fuck was any of that!? Sss' whiskers, you… I was you! But it wasn't you, it was some other you with someone that's… that's like you? And everything was so narrow! Is that how you see the world? With things in the way and all that… that… agh! What did you DO to me!?"

Okay, so I apparently just shared intimate emotional memories with an alien teenager, but you know that's probably not at all as big a deal as the extreme violation of personal agency I imposed on her so I'm just going to ignore that for now. And by 'ignore' I mean 'set the EE brain to think about it, because that body is capable of both crying and hugging Mr. Mooshi and is therefore the optimal pick.'

I'm so sorry, Hsthressis, I didn't intend for any of that. I will try to figure out a way to make sure that never happens again, okay?

"Wait, wait, hold on a second, you can't just not explain! With the crazy world and all those thoughts in my head and another thing like you? And you look at the world by… wait, that was the surface, that was what the surface is like! Why was it so beautiful?"

Oh no.

Hsthressis I really appreciate that but it would probably be helpful to us both if we kept blasphemy to a minimum.

"That's what you meant. Oh my god I understand so much more of what you were talking about… it's like... no. Fuck fuck fuck! I'm going insane! I have to be, I… the things you showed me aren't... there aren't even words! You can hear but you don't hear really. You have something else and it only goes in one direction but it never gets blurry. And you have all that... that... agh! I used to know these things! I was you and I knew everything and now I—"

Hsthressis, you're not going insane, I assure her, trying to figure out how to unobtrusively check the integrity of her simulation to actually confirm that. I'm so sorry for accidentally giving you my memories like that. It's pretty embarrassing, if I'm going to be honest. But I promise, it makes perfect sense for all of that to be confusing. It sounds like you believed you were me during the dream…?

Hsthressis is barely listening to me, however, wrapped up in the aftermath of being something truly alien to her. Not even I'm totally sure what that's like; I've purposefully avoided immersing myself in Hsthressis' memories, after all.

"This is why you talk gibberish so much, isn't it? You aren't. We're the ones that... that... nnngh. It made sense. It all made sense when I was you. What are you, really? You're more than a demon. You have to be. It was like… like the whole universe had its secrets peeled apart. You knew what we were experiencing, you knew what makes things fall towards Sss, what fire is made of, how to heal the sick, how to know how far something is without ever even being there. And I did too but now I'm just… me again. Agh!"

I can only imagine what it must be like to suddenly have unfathomable knowledge about things beyond my realm of experience slammed into my head, comprehended, and then yanked out again. I mean, I guess I've experienced two out of those three steps, but it's the forgetting stuff that's apparently really fucking her up.

It would be quite easy to just insert that knowledge directly into her memory, but I feel like that's more than a little prone to problems. Which leaves just one alternative.

I can teach you that stuff, I tell her. It's difficult and it will probably challenge a lot of what you already think is true, but it's not like magic, unknowable knowledge or anything. It's just normal information about the world that you can see for yourself. Um, so to speak.

"I want to see it. Actually see it, I mean. That was so... so... agh. I don't understand how you can think of yourself as anything other than a goddess. I don't know if you're good or evil, but you have to be divine."

I don't believe divinity exists at all, I admit. I'm a person, same as you. Just... well, a lot more biologically and culturally advanced, I guess.

"Then I shudder to think of the kind of being you would consider a god."

Like I said, I don't think there is one. If there is… I don't think I would be a fan of them.

"Excuse me, Evelyn of Clan Evelyn?" a voice asks me in a small cave far from the True People prison. "Are you all right?"

All the way over at Resident Gems cave, my nine ETE bodies are of course awake along with the rest of me. I was kindly offered a small room to sleep in, although the Sthrenslians seemed very confused at the concept of my entire 'clan' sleeping at the same time. I suppose without a day/night cycle, it's just inefficient, but I'm worried that if all of my bodies do not sleep simultaneously, I won't get proper benefits of rest. Sleep is very important not just because of the physiological requirement, but because it's a psychological reset. It forcibly cuts off thought and refreshes my mind all at once, which to me is essential for making sure I don't stay in any particular downward spiral for too long. When everything is overwhelming, when depression hits hardest, all I can really do is endure the day and hope for a better tomorrow. Without that… well, for obvious reasons I figure I need every bit of mental health that I can get.

Of course, with the whole Hsthressis situation I've devoted all of my ETE bodies to assist with mental processing. So for the entire conversation so far they have been standing stock-still, doing absolutely nothing other than breathing. Then, at the sound of my name I instinctively turn to look at the source of the noise... with all of my heads simultaneously.

The Sthrenslian takes a defensive step back, their body tensing. Oops. I make a point to relax all my bodies, have them all start stretching in different ways while I randomly pick one of them to speak.

"Oh, sorry!" I apologize quickly. "Yes, I'm okay! How can I help you?"

The Sthrenslian relaxes, but only a little.

"Well, ah... I actually intended to be of assistance to you," they say carefully. "My name is Priestess Saslitak. I've, ah, volunteered to show you around, Evelyn of Clan Evelyn."

Well, at least I know 'priestess' means she's probably female. At her words, though, I wince, awkwardly scratching my cheek.

"Er, just Evelyn is fine," I insist. "Please."

The less said about my embarrassing choice of clan names, the better.

"I… oh! Well that's… erm," the priestess stutters awkwardly. "If… if you insist, I suppose I would be happy to! Thank you for the honor."

I blink. What? Oh, right, titles and stuff are important to them.

"Sorry, I think there might have been a miscommunication here," I admit awkwardly. "Dropping titles is a much more casual thing where I'm from. Being called 'Evelyn of Clan Evelyn' is more embarrassing than expected."

"Oh! I see," Saslitak wiggles agreeably. "I understand. Thank you for clarifying. Now, do you need to finish, ah, whatever it is you were doing with your clanmates here? Again, I apologize for bothering you."

"No, no it's fine," I assure her. "I was… I mean, we were pretty much done. Thank you. Do you want us all to follow you, or…?"

"Oh, please don't let me keep you from anything you need to do," Priestess Saslitak insists. "But if it's not too rude, I was wondering if I could be introduced to the other wonderful members of your clan...?"

Oh no. Am I going to have to think of a unique name for every individual body and then remember it and not accidentally mix them up? Is that going to be a thing I'm even remotely capable of?

...Yeah, not a chance. Fuck it.

"I'm Evelyn," I say with one of my other bodies. "And this is Evelyn, Evelyn, Evelyn, Evelyn, Evelyn, Evelyn, and Evelyn. It's great to meet you, Saslitak. I mean, uh, Priestess Saslitak. Sorry."

If the priestess is offended by my faux pas, she doesn't show it. The unsung advantages of being confusing as hell, I guess.

"Er, I'm very very sorry, but I couldn't tell the difference between any of those names…?"

"Oh, that's okay," I say magnanimously. "Don't worry, we'll figure it out. It'll be like a Marklar thing."

"Er, a what…?" she asks.

I walk up to her and give my best smile… which means I'm careful not to show my teeth. Now that I'm not being actively wracked with guilt for murdering someone this particular Sthrenslian knows, I allow myself some time to acknowledge that before me stands an adorable talking bug person! Like holy shit Sthrenslians are so cute!

"Like I said, don't worry about it," I tell her. "I'd love to get the tour of this place! Oh, and I should have some more meat coming in a couple hours, as well. Oh, er, that's a unit of time, sorry. Approximately equal to the amount of time it takes to say 'one Mississippi' twenty-four thousand four hundred… wait what? I mean three-thousand six-hundred… no, wait. How the… it is twenty-four… oh! That's weird. You guys use senary. Wow, that's going to be a pain."

"Er… pardon me?" Saslitak says, half confused and half nervous.

"Oh, no no, it's fine! You guys are fine. It's just that I'm surprised you guys have such a mathematically noteworthy counting system when you don't like... have mathematics, really. See, base six is really cool because six is divisible by both three and two which is handy for… I dunno, things probably. Math is neat but I'm not into the theory much. Anyway, you don't even really like... have a formalized concept of what division is. So why do you count in multiples of six?"

"Oh! Good question!" Saslitak answers happily. "I mean, I didn't understand most of that, but we count up to six because we have six whiskers and six limbs. It just makes it easier to remember, you know?"

Okay, that's fair. That's all humans really did to decide stuff, as far as I know.

"Don't you have eight limbs though?" I ask. "Four legs, two claws, two tendrils?"

"Tendrils are tendrils, not limbs," Saslitak says firmly.

Well, okay then. Mystery solved I guess?

"Evelyn, hey, I need to talk to my mom about this," Hsthressis suddenly sends me, still sounding like she's in a mild panic.

Er, about what?

"About everything. About what I remember. About what you know! Talrissark really wants to fight you still, I think. But we can't let him do that, or… or… I don't know! We have to know what you know. I have to know what you know!"

Okay, okay, calm down Hsthressis. I'll happily teach you what I know.

"You need to teach me how to see again!"

What?

"Please! Please, you have to teach me how to see!"

"Anyway, shall I begin showing you around?" Saslitak asks pleasantly. "I of course won't be able to show you our Homewyrm, but other than that the tunnels are yours to explore."

Woah, okay. That's an interesting word. 'Homewyrm' isn't exactly what Saslitak called it, but it's a portmanteau of the Sthrenslian words for "home" and some kind of massive, legendary, serpentine animal from their own mythology. So… Homewyrm. That's a good enough English equivalent for my brain.

I also note that whatever it is I'm not allowed to see it, and it's apparently such common knowledge that I'm not allowed to see it she didn't even think to elaborate on the matter to a literal alien. In other words, it's setting my conversational 'danger: do not touch' signal off. And like, hell, if I'm picking up a social cue it's gotta be a pretty big deal. ...Or I'm just being paranoid and completely off-base. One or the other, I suppose.

"Well, uh, I don't really have an itinerary in mind," I manage to say. "So… take me wherever you want, I guess! The only place that I can think of as something I really want to check on is your healer. I'd like to know if that guy I rescued is doing okay!"

"Of course, of course! We can see Healer Katrs right now, if you like!"

"That sounds wonderful!" I agree. "Should I, uh… I mean, should we all come, or is it okay if we look around on our own a bit?"

"Oh, um, yes, if only one of you wants to come that's okay!" Saslitak agrees. "The Homewyrm tunnel is guarded, so you don't need to worry about stumbling in on accident."

"...Er, how convenient!" I thank her, then start spreading myself around the cave as she leads me back to the healer's alcove.

Thanks to the wacky world of echolocation, I can sense the inside of the hut long before I can see it. Healer Katrs is there, along with the apparently-still-alive Warrior Katrk, though the latter is still in a bad way. He's lying in a little divot on the floor, covered in what I can only assume are poultices of some sort.

"Greetings, Katrs!" Saslitak chirps happily, startling me so hard I nearly zip up to the ceiling.

I'm still not used to Sthrenslians talking to each other long before they have line of sight! It's just so weird! Also weird is the fact that Saslitak just called this dude 'Katrs' instead of his full name, 'Healer Katrs.' I wonder what that means. Family? Friend? Superior? Inferior? Or is she just as socially helpless as I am?

"Greetings, Priestess Saslitak," Katrs grunts back, seeming rather grumpy. "What brings you here?"

"I'd like to know the status of our fallen warrior, if you please!" Saslitak tells him.

"Oh. Him. He'll die."

My bodies go stiff. All of them.

"What?" I demand. "No, we… we've got to save him. What's the problem?"

The healer snorts.

"His wounds are diseased, and I'm out of popmold. He's a goner."

Unconsciously, I buzz my wings and lift off the ground, rising upwards. I have to move, I have to do something. I can't let this person die. I won't.

"Where can I get more popmold?"

The healer, unlike most everyone else in the cavern, doesn't seem affected by my sudden intensity.

"If I knew the answer to that, I wouldn't be out of it," he grunts. "Sometimes it grows in the mushroom fields. Usually it doesn't. Without it, the disease will—"

"Yes, I got it," I snap. "You need a general antibiotic, fine. Describe it to me."

As he starts doing exactly that, Hsthressis starts bothering the guards to send a message to her mother, one that will no doubt end up as another crisis on my ass. But the thing I've come to learn about Acidsucks is that it is never quite content leaving me with such basic crises. So I can hardly even say I'm surprised when, back on the surface, a massive monster with a mouth bigger than a Mooshian suddenly stomps out of the forest and turns towards the huge pile of meat and Evelyn eggs at the center of Fort Moosh.

I sigh twelve times over. What a typical start to the day.