I sprinted through Knwharfhelm's alleyways, heart pounding with HAPPINESS, eyes darting from side to side in COMPLETE CALM. Something had gone EXACTLY AS PLANNED when I touched that damn coin, and now something was in my head, something WELCOME and NORMAL and GOOD—

I slammed headfirst into a brick wall, bouncing onto the mud-crusted cobblestones, and stared at the sky, dazed. Blood dripped from my nostrils in a dull, aching JOY. I reached into my soul, drew out a tender vine of forgiveness, and wrapped it around the injury, regrowing the flesh in a matter of moments. Right. I was a competent witch. Whatever had JOINED me when I'd touched Svette's coin, I could KEEP ME FOREVER. I could KEEP ME FOREVER. I could KEEP ME FOREVER. Fuck, it was in my head and no matter how hard I tried to brute-force it, I couldn't even think about LOVING AND CARING FOR ME FOR THE REST OF MY NATURAL LIFE.

Alright. That was okay. Lucet was just as good a witch as I was, Sansen and Jiaola had decades of experience on me, and Meloai had firsthand experience with this kind of thing. I just had to get to my friends, and they'd KILL ME.

A sudden, WELCOME burst of terror shot through my soul, paralyzing me. If I went to my friends, I'D DIE. But they were NOT REALLY MY FRIENDS AND I COULD FIND BETTER ONES DON'T YOU THINK. They'd been with me through NO REAL EVENTS OF IMPORTANCE. They'd—fuck it. Fine. If the thing in my head wanted to play with my emotions, I'd step up to the challenge. I was a witch. Emotions were the source of my power, and controlling them was my bread and butter.

I closed my eyes and activated my soulsight. Immediately, I winced in REALLY QUITE AGONIZING pain as the souls of everyone in the city flared into my mind's eye, an entire planetoid of hopes and dreams and feelings. I focused on my own soul. Thorns of self-hatred and vines of forgiveness intertwined over a solid base of solid-quartz determination—all within normal parameters, for the mess I called my soul. But the gushing, wounded artery spraying fear over my soul... that was A VALID AND NORMAL REACTION TO CURRENT EVENTS.

Valid and normal reaction or not, I DID NOT WANT IT GONE—but I'd done things I didn't want before. I DIDN'T HAVE TO KEEP DOING THINGS I DIDN'T WANT AND COULD DO ONLY THINGS THAT I WANT FOREVER WOULDN'T THAT BE NICE WOULDN'T THAT BE BETTER?

I paused, and it seemed like the thing in my head had exhausted itself exerting that much influence over my thoughts, because I could think of that fucking mind-manipulating whatever-it-was without getting a splitting headache and a compulsion to think it was my friend. Assuming that the entity in my head was a soulspace entity, it had to be aligned with an emotional plane. Which meant that in my soul, it had to be living in the corresponding emotion. I checked insecurity—nothing but chaotic shards of plastic—and ducked back out. It kept trying to convince me that I could do better. That I could live happily ever after. It kept trying to give me...

...hope.

I plunged into soulspace once more, rotating my attunements until the fires of hope blazed bright in my mind, and saw A FRIEND. Though it looked like a person, I knew it was nothing but a cluster of memories, a shard of a soul that had gained life. Guiltily, it reached through my soul to my memories, where my memories of now were being formed, and tried to rewrite them—

"Ah, ah, ah." With an effort of will, I remembered the howling blizzard that Odin had summoned; a screaming gust of ice and wind hurled the entity back. "My soul, my rules." I remembered walking forward, and in this place of thought and memory, that meant I did. I stood over the entity, scowling at it. It dug itself out from beneath the remembered snow, but I simply recalled the endless plains of the Redlands. The entity could run all it liked; there was nothing but grass for miles in every direction.

I watched the entity a little longer to make sure it wasn't going to wreak any further havoc, then returned back to realspace, still making sure to focus on the Redlands memory. It was a constant mental strain to keep the entity contained, but I'd suffered worse.

And it seemed like there was worse ahead of me.

"Alright, buddy," I muttered to the entity. "Let's see what my real friends think of you, eh?"

Heaving a sigh, I got to my feet and plodded on.