Possession

The next day, I decided to take Yuemith to the library. Terth's library wasn't as big as the capital's, but it was still large enough that I'd yet to finish all the books in it, despite spending a week or two each year there for the past decade. I showed him the basic layout, then buried myself in the fiction section.

"These stories," Yuemith said from beside me - despite the tour, he'd stuck next to me and was reading a fantasy about dragons and elementals becoming friends with humans, "they aren't real, are they?"

"Nope."

He closed the book and looked at me with a frown. "Why are you reading them? I can infer that humans might typically read it for entertainment, but you don't seem to do much of anything for that purpose."

I smiled slightly. He wasn't wrong. Entertainment for entertainment's sake wasn't a priority to me. "These types of books can teach you more than you'd think. By reading many different fictional stories, and looking at what they treat as 'normal' versus 'abnormal,' you can learn about common views amongst a country's populace."

Yuemith opened the book again, eyes narrowing in concentration. I wasn't sure he'd get much out of it like that, but I let him be. I intended to finish this section this week, and then I would only have one more section to read through. After that... Maybe I'd move closer to one of the other cities and start on their libraries.

As promised, I took him to a Western-style restaurant for dinner. Yue eyed the plate suspiciously. "There are a lot of plants in this," he said accusingly, as though this were some manner of attack on his being.

"Are you unable to eat vegetables?" I asked. I thought I should probably at least check first that this wasn't a matter of ability before mocking him for being picky.

Yuemith hesitated, considering, then shook his head uncertainly. "I think I can... I've never tried."

"What do you normally eat?" I asked as he gingerly stuck a carrot into his mouth and chewed.

He swallowed, nudged the carrots on the plate into one group, then tried a piece of something green. Upon swallowing that, he nudged it into a different pile. Slowly, he did this with each item in the mix of ingredients we'd been given until he had two piles. One, the carrot pile, was noticeably larger. "When I require sustenance, I typically use my shadows to absorb some creature. On rare occasions, I eat raw meat, but that's about it." He started eating the carrot pile.

I watched him for a moment, then nodded to myself and started eating my dinner.

When we'd finished, Yuemith said, "I didn't realize plants had so many different flavors." He eyed the small pile of vegetables left behind. "I don't much like some of them, but most of them are interesting. I wouldn't object to trying this place's food again tomorrow."

With Yuemith's tentative approval given, we went to the library first and then to the same restaurant the next day as well. We returned to the inn earlier than we had the day before, though, so I could take care of my obligation to the inn's proprietress. "I'm ready when you are," I told her, and she called over a party of adventurers. One of them, a swordsman, grinned at me and said, "Hey, I'm Bon. My party'll be taking care of defenses while you're performing upgrades. Do you have any additional instructions for us before we begin?"

I shook my head wordlessly.

"Great. Jack'll accompany you to protect you, just in case, and the -"

"That will be unnecessary," Yuemith interrupted.

I blinked at him. It was, of course, unnecessary, but if they wanted to do things that way, I wasn't going to argue with them. It was their job, not mine. So long as they didn't interfere with my work, I didn't care what they wanted to do.

Yuemith glared at both Bon and the mage who'd approached, presumably the aforementioned 'Jack.' Yuemith stepped closer to me. "I will act as her bodyguard. You are unnecessary.”

I blinked, surprised, then shrugged.

Bon glanced between us, then laughed uncomfortably and nodded. "Gotchya. Sorry. I didn't realize." He nodded to his party member. "Okay, Jack, you can take over for Alice. Let her know she's up on the roof instead, kay?"

Jack saluted and jogged over to the rest of the party.

That interaction aside, nothing more seemed required of me, so I walked down the stairs into the basement. I counted my steps, mentally comparing my location to the map I'd formed of the inn's layout until I was relatively close to the center of the seals. "Beginning," I said quietly. Beside me, Yuemith looked around, eyes shining in the darkness. I hadn't bothered turning on the magic-powered lamps, partially because I'd need all my magic for this, and partially because blocking my sight would be necessary anyway, so there was no point in making sure I could see.

I started the materialization. One circle at a time, including fire protection, repulsion of evil intent, atmospheric regulation, durability, purification, the basic circuits necessary to make the materialized circles etch themselves into the material of the inn, and the circuits necessary to draw a tiny fraction of the ambient magic to power the circles past their initial formation. I felt my mouth dry and sweat bead on my temples as I worked, but those were far-off, distant sensations. The majority of my mind was spread across the inn, building the circles up until they were identical, save for the minute differences needed for different locations and materials to be etched into. Eight circles total. Two couplets each to activate them. Sixteen couplets worth of power.

I took a deep breath. My body only contained fifteen couplets worth of power, so I'd have to perform the invocation portion slowly enough that I would recover more than one full couplet worth of power before I finished. I worked out the optimal speed, then began.

Ten minutes later, I collapsed to my hands and knees and gagged. Yuemith was beside me immediately. "What happened?"

I shook my head. "Nothing. Just - low - mana. Just need - to rest." Even as we remained there, my mana restored itself, and by the time I heard footsteps on the stairs, I was breathing normally again. The nausea remained, though. My body had burned through the calories I'd absorbed at dinner to fuel my mana production, and I was suffering from the sickness I experienced whenever I went too long without eating. "Can I get something to eat?" I called to whoever was on the stairs.

The inn's proprietress called back, "All done then?" She sounded slightly surprised, but I heard footsteps hurry back up the stairs and toward where the kitchen should be above us. A few minutes later, she returned and handed me a full bowl of stew. "Here you go. I'm off to let Mister Bon know his party's job is done. Is there anything else I can get for you?"

I shook my head. "This is enough. Thank you."

Once she'd gone, Yuemith sat down beside me. "You didn't tell me it would be so taxing."

"It wasn't bad. I wanted to get it all done in one go." I devoured the stew even faster than usual until my stomach felt like it would burst, then groaned and rose to my feet. "Now I just need to have a good night's sleep, and I'll be fully recovered."

Yuemith scowled, but he followed me without further complaint as I returned my bowl to the kitchen and then headed up to our shared room. Once there, I flopped into the bed without changing and promptly passed out.

In the morning, Yuemith wasn't there. I headed downstairs to find him seated at our usual spot, glaring at the adventurer party, who'd sat themselves at the next table over. "-unnecessary, so leave," he was saying as I approached.

I sat across from him and looked curiously between him and the party leader as I started eating.

The party leader beamed at me. "Miss Ciel, is it? I'm glad you seem to be alright. I had some questions about the seals you used. You see, when you finished so quickly, I thought perhaps you'd -"

"Proprietary," I said between bites, then turned slightly away to indicate I wouldn't be telling him anything more.

He bit at his lip and glanced back at his party. One of them, the mage, rose and moved to sit beside me. I scooted away and kept eating. "Look, I understand why you'd want to do it, but you can't be letting your pride and desire to look good push you to do a subpar job for someone. You'll only be setting yourself up for worse results in the long term. People won't trust you if your seals don't do what you've said they'd do."

I idly wondered whether I'd ever told anyone what the seals were meant to do. I wasn't sure how anyone could get upset that they didn't do a thing I hadn't said they'd do. Theoretically, they could do absolutely nothing, and I'd still have fulfilled the technical requirements of the contract, though I wasn't so pedantic as to point that out. I had grown somewhat better at conversation since University. I knew doing so right now wouldn't be useful. Instead, I ignored him. If he was concerned, he could check the seals. Then he'd see that they were fine. If he was inclined to doubt me, he'd probably end up doing that whether I said anything or not, so saying nothing was the most efficient course.

The mage's eye twitched. "I'm trying to help you out here. Ciel, right? I'll go with you to apologize to the proprietress, and then we'll fix them properly together."

"Please don't touch things above your skill level." I rose to bring my bowl to the kitchen. If he did end up trying to 'fix' my seals, he'd only break things, but that wasn't any of my business.

"Now hang on. I'm trying to be nice here, and you're insulting me?"

I wouldn't have answered. My obligations here were done, and I had no interest in these people. Yuemith, however, seemed annoyed. "You insulted her first by implying her seals were incorrectly done without even checking them."

"Why should I check them?" the mage snapped back. "It takes four hours at least to set up seals! Twelve for good ones!"

I stopped, surprised. People had gotten faster, it seemed. The last time I'd heard, the average time for this sort of job was a twelve-hour minimum, regardless of the type of seals being used. Had they improved the seals themselves, or were enchanters just getting better at manifesting the necessary circles? I turned around. "Can you tell me what you would have done, then?"

"I - I'm not a professional enchanter," the mage stammered, suddenly lacking confidence for some reason. "But -"

"That's fine. I only need to know what caused the change. I'll have to put more work into mine if I want to stay ahead."

He scowled and called for one of his party members to bring him a piece of paper and a pen. He sketched out an inactive circle, taking a good ten minutes doing it. Not a professional indeed. An enchanter needed to know these things off the top of their head. Once he'd looked it over and nodded to himself, presenting the paper to me with an irritatingly smug smirk, I snatched it from his hands and examined it.

"This is awful," I declared almost immediately.

"What? Now who's insulting someone without even -"

"This only provides light fire resistance and sturdiness. It's inefficient, so it will take three couplets' worth of power, one more than mine, despite doing far less, and the bounded field created will be unstable. Of course, if you use only five circles, that will fix the stability issue, and it will reduce the mana consumption, fixing that issue as well, so if you're of the school of thought that numerology is unimportant, I can understand your intention there. Personally, I believe in using eight circles for structural fields, but studies have indeed been inconclusive as to whether it makes a difference, so that's simply me being overly careful. Still, the fact remains that your circle does less than mine without even having the good grace to use less mana in the process, and if it takes you four hours to produce five of this circle, I fear for the state of our country. Even the seals already in place when I arrived did more than this, so I sincerely hope that this isn't the reason average enchanting times have fallen." I threw the paper back onto the table, thoroughly disappointed.

The mage stared at me, jaw hanging open slackly.

Glancing between us, his leader tried to interject. "All of... that aside, you still only took one hour. We assumed something had gone wrong, and you'd have to try again, so to hear that you'd supposedly completed your work was..."

"Nothing went wrong. This inn is as well protected as any building in the city, and probably more so than most. The owner wasn't concerned, was she? I guarantee she knows the average times. Rather than butting in, you should investigate properly before spouting off assumptions." I wondered if he'd be willing to pay me for the lesson, but it would probably just irritate him if I mentioned it, so I headed upstairs.

Behind me, I heard laughter start up as the inn's other patrons resumed their conversations, the show over with.

Yuemith followed me into our room and closed the door behind him. He glared at the closed door first and then at me. "You weren't going to correct them initially. Why?"

"Why should I have? I don't know them, nor do I care about their opinions."

"What if they spread those wrong opinions to others? What if they'd done as they threatened and tried to 'fix' your seals? What if you weren't able to perform your trade in this city any longer?"

Had I let him read too many stories in which everyone randomly turns on the main character for no apparent reason? I was frankly baffled as to where he'd gotten the idea that I needed to worry about such a thing. "Even if that happened, it wouldn't be the end of the world. I come here because it's more convenient for me to get some items from the city, but it isn't necessary. At the absolute worst, I would simply remain at my cottage and never approach civilization again, which would be no great hardship. I suppose I would miss reading others' books but..."

Yuemith stared at me as I spoke and, when I finished, sighed heavily. "I suppose I had forgotten that you are an anomaly." He shook his head. "In learning more about normal humans, I've lost some of my understanding of you."

"Even I'll get hurt if you keep calling me abnormal," I said lightly, even though I wasn't sure that was true. Had I ever met someone who treated me like a normal person? Maybe my parents had, but I didn't even know what they looked like, let alone what their personalities had been like.

Yuemith shot me a skeptical look and, seeing that I was ready, opened the door for me. "I read that opening and closing doors is a man's job," he said as we walked down the stairs. "What is the correlation between being male and doors? The books didn't explain that."

"I suppose it's a matter of it being something relatively simple that a man can do to show that he respects women?" I guessed. "But I honestly have no idea. It's not something I'm experienced with, so maybe it's just because of that, but I think probably this is one of those weird customs that just kind of crops up over time and people do it because it's a custom and not because they have any idea why they're doing it."

Yuemith paused, then pointedly refused to touch the door to the inn. I rolled my eyes and opened it myself. "Personally, I think it's just kind of polite for the person closest to the door in the first place to do the opening and holding, but maybe that's just me." I let the door swing shut behind me, forcing Yuemith to open it for himself.

Before we made it more than a few steps, the door swung back open, and the party leader appeared alongside the mage. "Miss Ciel! We wanted to apologize for earlier. You're right. We should have just asked first instead of assuming. When we spoke with the owner, she said you were some kind of special genius enchanter. Sorry."

The mage frowned, but he bowed his head. "Sorry," he repeated.

I nodded and kept walking.

We'd planned to spend a week in Terth, and it was our last day there when I asked Yuemith, "Do you want to stay here?" I hadn't found anyone I thought he'd be willing to follow. The people here were all very normal. That might be useful for gauging what that meant for humanity as a whole, but I wasn't sure that a normal person could handle an immortal giant cat-wolf beast with a strange tendency to abuse their power over shadows. In that case, I might be better served by taking him to the capital. At the very least, there were plenty of mages there because of the University, and mages were oddballs anyway. Surely one of them would prove useful.

"I already told you, Ciel, that I'll be observing humanity at your side. What you choose to show me of it is up to you."

I scowled at him. I'd really prefer if he could not follow me. "How long do you plan on this taking?" I asked. Maybe he just needed another week or two, and he'd be done. If that were the case, then it'd be silly for me to spend that time travelling to the capital. I could just go back home and wait for him to finish.

"That depends, but I doubt the Demon Lord would accept my conclusion if it took any less than a year."

"A - a - a year?!" I staggered and collapsed against the bookshelves. We were in the library, as usual. "A year?!"

"At the very least," Yuemith confirmed. His lips twitched with apparent humor. There was no way he didn't know the amount of damage he was doing to my mental state. "The Demon Lord enjoys Her experiment with humanity, and it would take serious consideration on my part before She would accept a decision to eliminate that experiment."

I swallowed hard. "What if you decide not to destroy us? Surely you wouldn't need to justify that to the Demon Lord, so it could be finished faster."

Yuemith smiled. "Ciel, you are forgetting that my initial decision was already completed. I decided to eliminate humanity. When I petitioned the Demon Lord for permission, she required that I observe and offer sufficient evidence for my decision before I would be allowed to follow through with my decision. In other words, this is not a matter of deciding whether I should kill all of you or not."

I finished for him, understanding what he was saying to me. "It's about how long it takes before you're willing to concede defeat." Depending on how stubborn Yuemith was, it might well take even longer before he'd be willing to admit to being wrong or overly hasty in his thinking. So long as he still wanted to kill all of us, he would remain here with me, unless he found evidence that would convince the Demon Lord he was correct. I considered that. If that were the case, the best thing for humanity might be for me to bring him home with me and stay with him for the rest of eternity. It wouldn't do a thing to change his mind, but any reasonable commander (and the Demon Lord sounded reasonable, so far) would point out the flaw in his data collection.

For humanity's sake, it'd be best if I spent the rest of my life alone with Yuemith in the middle of nowhere.

Frustration bubbled up in my throat. I didn't even like humanity. Why should I have to do this for them? "We're going to visit the capital next, then," I decided. I would continue to try to find someone I could foist Yuemith off onto. If he ended humanity, that was up to him. I absolutely wasn't giving up my privacy for the rest of my life to prevent it.

Yuemith returned to his book with that stupid smile still on his lips. I glanced at the title. "Why do you know how to read anyway?" I wondered.

"That's a secret," Yuemith said. He glanced at me and openly laughed at the irritation on my face before resuming reading.

I glared at him. He was reading a romance book, the most common type of fiction available here. It was part of a longer series, and I remembered reading it several years ago. "They never get together," I said. "The author never finished the series because, he said, he wasn't comfortable making the main character choose one of the girls, but he thought it would be too unrealistic to expect readers to accept a harem ending."

The smile faded. "Has anyone ever told you that it's rude to spoil the ending to a book, or is human culture different?"

"About as rude as inviting yourself to follow someone around without their permission," I said brightly and returned to reading.

Yuemith sighed and replaced the book on the shelf. He wandered away without comment, and I heard him a while later return with another book. It was, again, a romance novel, but this one was a one-off rather than a series. I let it be. Minor irritation was one thing, but I'd ultimately saved him from something far more irritating. By the twelfth book, the reader was mostly just invested in finding out the end, and discovering that none existed was borderline traumatic.

That evening, we returned to the inn for our last night. In the morning, we would begin the long journey to the capital. "Don't humans typically ride some manner of transport for this type of journey?" Yuemith asked as we ate dinner.

I nodded. "Usually, yes, but it costs money, it isn't that much faster than just walking, and it means spending a lot of time around other people. If it were safer for us, I would put up with it, but... You're in no danger, and I have confidence in my ability to protect myself as well."

"What if I decide not to wield my full power? Perhaps I wish to experience a more authentic human life." Yuemith's tone was teasing. I considered restricting the books I allowed him access to.

I picked at my food. My body was at its most annoying time of the month; I felt full and mildly bloated. I didn't really want to eat anything. I was glad I'd been able to take care of the inn's seals already, because I knew from experience that my mana levels would be erratic right now. It was an all-around awful time of the month for a mage with low reserves, because even small changes in available mana made for large percentage differences. Lisa could gain or lose a couplet's worth of mana without even noticing it, but I only had fifteen to work with. One fifteenth of my total mana was a lot.

"Would you rather stay another night?" Yuemith asked softly.

I blinked, torn from my thoughts, and looked at him in confusion.

"You seem unwell. It is only reasonable to delay departure if one member of the party is ill."

I looked back down at my plate and set down my fork. "Sorry. I'm not sick. Do dark beasts have menstrual cycles?" At his baffled look, I added, "It's just a monthly health issue that most women endure. It would be a waste to spend a few days every single month resting."

"A monthly health issue? Explain."

I glanced around. "This isn't the place," I said and led him up to our room. Then I sat on my bed and pointedly looked at the other bed until he reluctantly settled down on it. "This is a somewhat uncomfortable topic, so... I'll tell you, but then I'd rather not speak about it again unless you have specific questions. Human women's bodies build up supplies for carrying a potential child to term. If we then do not get pregnant, our bodies remove those supplies and flush them out through... well... the vagina. The contents are a fair amount of blood and tissue, and it takes a few days to a week, depending on the woman. It happens every month or so, and it's typically a very regular occurrence. Beyond that, the cycle includes alterations in mood, physical comfort, and mana levels among other things, and these changes can be more or less pronounced for each woman but are typically constant for any specific individual."

Yuemith's eyes had gone very wide, like a startled deer. "Does it hurt?"

"It can. Some women get agonizing pain, and others experience none. I'm somewhat in the middle. It's sorely uncomfortable, but it isn't outside the realm of what I can endure."

Yuemith still looked disturbed. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do female bodies do that? To the best of my knowledge, it's not something any dark beast has to put up with, even among those species that reproduce sexually."

I shrugged. "I have no idea. It isn't common among animals or anything either, but I couldn't tell you why it happens to humans. There are some weird religious accusations here and there, but it's mostly treated as a weird and disgusting thing that everyone should pretend doesn't happen unless forced to do otherwise. I won't say that's a healthy way of treating an uncomfortable subject, but that's the state of things."

Yuemith looked greatly disturbed, which more or less matched up with how I remembered one of the older boys at the orphanage looking when he learned about it. "What are you meant to do about it, then?" Yuemith finally asked. "You can't intend to walk about bleeding everywhere, can you?"

I grimaced. "There are spells that can be used to prevent issues. They're... uncomfortable would be putting it lightly, but they are effective, so you needn't worry about that." I sighed. "I asked a doctor to perform surgery on me to put an end to it, but despite my steadfast lack of partner, they insist that I'm far too young to make such a decision. If only I were capable of performing surgery upon myself... but I'm something of a baby about pain."

Yuemith shuddered and slept by himself that night. I missed the warmth, but I found it amusing enough not to tease him about it in the morning. It wasn't like I was contagious... Oh. Just before we left the room, I realized what I should have thought of far sooner. "Your body is female."

Yuemith glowered at me. "I had noticed, yes." He poked gingerly at his stomach. "I do not believe it will attempt to replicate reproductive processes, but I am not completely certain that it will not." He crossed his arms and looked away. "I've grown used to this body, so I would prefer to keep it, but if that begins to happen, I will return to my normal body and find some other human to imitate instead."

"You can't just replace the female parts with male parts?" I asked, somewhat alarmed. I had also grown used to his appearance. I didn't want to suddenly have a brand new person I had to adjust to spending time around, even if the soul inside remained the same.

"No."

"Very well," I said, since there wasn't much I could do about it. I would just have to hope that Lisa's body didn't decide to menstruate on him. Perhaps I could adjust his transformation spell to make him look like Lisa to me, even when he was using a different human's appearance.

It took us very little time to check out of the inn and head to the western gate. We'd travel on the main road to the first village and then stay overnight there. It would probably take us close to the entire day, but I didn't remember the first village being that far. The next village after that would take us three days to reach, though. The land between Terth and the capital was mostly plains: flat and covered in grass and little else.

"Is all human territory like this?" Yuemith asked as we walked. "So.... flat?" Even an hour after leaving, Terth remained large behind us, easily visible without effort on our part.

I shook my head. Even assuming he was including the mountain I lived on as part of the dark beasts' territory - which was a fair enough way to think of it, since it was a mountain range that barely began before reaching a dead line - human territory was vast enough to include several different types of land. "Terth and the capital are relatively close to each other, though, so this is mostly what we'll see while getting there. Even then, it's almost a month to reach there."

"A month." Yuemith's gaze moved to the sky. "I will miss my home by the time this is over," he murmured with a sigh.

We trudged on in silence for a while. As we walked, a caravan passed us. "Hey, you girls need a ride?" the leader called as they passed.

Yuemith glanced curiously at me, and I shook my head. I didn't want anything to do with others. That would only make things more stressful.

As the caravan disappeared into the distance, the cloud of dust they created finally fading once we stopped to eat lunch, Yuemith asked, "Are you truly fine with this? Being isolated?"

"Yes." I grimaced and doubled over as a cramp hit. I forced myself to keep eating. I'd need the strength, even if I felt queasy to the extreme.

Yuemith looked skeptical, but he eventually sighed and finished eating, then lifted the packs I'd been carrying with a grunt. He shifted them several times, testing the weight, then held out a hand. "I will carry the weight for part of the time," he declared as he pulled me to my feet. Without waiting for a response, he turned and began walking, slower than usual.

I pursed my lips and forced myself to walk at my normal pace. As I walked, I cast the first application of the spell to catch and store the blood. To anyone claiming intelligent design, I'd love to force them to experience a menstrual cycle and then tell me they think anyone with anything approaching intelligence created human bodies.

"So stubborn," Yuemith muttered under his breath.

Well, yeah. I was that. It was a common complaint at the orphanage, and I doubted that anyone had ever thought differently about me after knowing me for longer than a few days.

That night, we set up camp a little differently. I used pre-prepared seals rather than engraving my own, and I used seals for everything. Yuemith absorbed that and wordlessly produced fire and water when necessary rather than waiting for me to use seals to do so. "How badly is your mana production affected?" he asked softly.

"Not terribly, but the fluctuations are so sudden that they can cause backlash while creating a circle. It's generally better not to risk it if I can avoid it. Within a day or two, that will settle down, for the most part." I laughed at his disgruntlement. "Much of being human is about finding difficult situations and dealing with them in some manner. A person who lies down and lets a problem block their progress is bound to have a disappointing life. Aren't there any downsides to being a dark beast?"

Yuemith blinked and faced the fire as he considered the question. He still hadn't answered me by the time I lay down and fell asleep, and when I woke up the next morning, he had breakfast ready for me. I didn't think he'd slept at all, even though he looked perfectly refreshed. Only once we started walking again did he say, slowly, "There are few things I would classify as difficulties, but..." He shook his head, and no amount of prodding convinced him to finish his sentence. I let the topic go eventually, instead letting my eyes drift closed in a kind of walking meditation.

"Humans sleep every night," Yuemith said suddenly as I went to bed that night.

"Yes?" I asked. "Typically, anyway. I've pulled all-nighters on occasion, and some people work the night shift, but in general... do you not?"

"The stronger dark beasts tend to be nocturnal, though there are a few outliers," Yuemith said absently. "It's very strange for me to be awake during the day and not at night. Occasionally would be one thing, but... What do you do when the days grow short? Do you sleep more? What about when the days grow long? Do you sleep less?"

I shook my head. "Maybe a little more or less, but I'd say the relative amounts remain stable. In the place I grew up, the sisters sent us to bed during daylight in the bright months, and in the dark months, they'd keep us up late." I laughed softly. "They tried to trick us into thinking it was a special treat to be allowed to stay up late, but that only worked on the very youngest children."

"Sisters? You had siblings?"

"No." I answered immediately and sharply, then winced and nodded my head in quiet apology. "I was raised in an orphanage. The sisters were the religious women who ran the day-to-day operations of the church the orphanage was based in. Once a month or so, the priest in charge of our area would visit and say hi to all of us." Say hi had been his way of putting it. He'd smile broadly at us and then enter the quiet confessional of his office. Each child had to meet with him at least once a year, and some children were summoned for longer than others. When we entered, he'd say, 'I'm here to say hi and make sure you're all living righteous lives full of health and happiness.'

We weren't, and he wasn't.

Often, as we walked, Yuemith looked up at the sky and stared at it for a long time. "Did you know there's a moon there in the day?" he asked once.

I looked up and squinted hard against the bright light of the sun. I couldn't see anything like a moon. "Where?"

"It's invisible, but I can sense it. I always know where all three moons are."

My eyes widened. "Three?" A vague memory niggled at me. "Professor Liden."

"Who?"

"One of my professors had a theory that there should be a third moon. Some magic makes use of the moons, and it's generally considered unstable magic because the results aren't consistent in the way other magic's results are. But if there's an invisible moon, then..." I started plotting out a means of fixing the standard circles. Then I paused and asked, "Do dark beasts have lunar magic?"

Yuemith raised an eyebrow.

Oh. My breath caught. Yuemith was the lord of shadows to humans, but... "That's the magic you specialize in, isn't it?" The realization sent me barreling down another train of thought. Lunar magic had been devised in the first place based on some of the unique magics used by dark beasts, and people had concluded that it was so unstable because it was meant to be unique to dark beasts. However, since dark beasts' understanding of magic was instinctual, of course, it would automatically account for a third moon, whether they knew it was there consciously or not. And a dark beast who specialized in lunar magic would naturally become attuned enough to the moon's presence to sense even an invisible one, just as a fire mage could sense sources of heat and a water mage could sense sources of water. "I see, so perhaps your circuits are..." Some of the unusual aspects I'd been unable to translate in Yuemith's circuits might be related to the moon. What if dark beasts were, in general, more in tune with the moon? There'd been theories that most magic fell under the categories of elemental, lunar, and solar, but there were many flaws with that logic. It was undeniable, though, that there were aspects of non-elemental and non-lunar circles that were indecipherable. Perhaps it was leftover from another cycle in which humanity realized the third moon existed, and perhaps...

"Could there be countless suns?" I wondered vaguely.

Yuemith made a startled sound, deep in his throat. At my questioning glance, he looked away. "I can't believe you came to that conclusion based on nothing more than the knowledge that there's a moon you can't see," he muttered. "Hiacine told me once that every star in the sky is actually its own sun, though most of them are so far away as to have a negligible effect on our world."

"But negligible isn't the same as no effect," I breathed. The small oddities people had noticed in what would have been 'solar magic,' the same things that prevented people from saying such a thing existed.... They made sense if the stars were all suns. "And there are probably even more moons, aren't there? If every star is a sun, there are probably countless planets in the universe, and thus there must be countless moons, as well, and while they probably have even less impact on us than the suns, they might have some, which explains... a lot." I shook my head in awe. "Do you think Hiacine would be willing to talk to me?" I asked impulsively.

Immediately, though, Yuemith's expression soured. "No. Request denied. I forbid it."

"What? Why? He might have so much information that humanity's forgotten!" Information that, because they'd forgotten, I hadn't had access to until now.

Yuemith glared at me and walked faster. "I will not be letting you, of all people, speak with him. What do you intend to do if he attempts to burn you to ashes instead of speaking to you?"

"You seemed fine with my plan to murder him. Why do you suddenly think I'd be incapable of protecting myself?"

"Because that was hypothetical! You aren't going near him, and that's final."

"How do you plan on stopping me?" It wasn't the smartest thing I could have said, I'll admit, but... well... I was annoyed, and my mouth gets the better of me sometimes.

Immediately, Yuemith dissolved into shadow and invaded my body. Unlike the first time, he didn't leave me with the ability to use my voice. His shadow filled me until my body froze from the coldness of it, and then it pressed out in a way that burned, and I found myself nothing more than a passenger in my own body as it lifted the pack he'd been carrying and continued walking down the road. I tried to scream, but I couldn't make my vocal cords do what I wanted. I tried to move my hands, but nothing. I couldn’t even make myself blink. I was nothing more than my brain, disconnected from the body associated with it. If ever proof that the soul resided in the brain had been necessary, I now had it, as even control of my heart had been removed. It beat oddly slowly, providing what I slowly realized was a consciously calculated amount of blood to the body.

Even while I was terrified and furious, I was also impressed. The differences in my body's behavior alerted me to just how much of Yuemith's body's behavior he consciously controlled. I wondered whether dark beasts even had involuntary muscles. I couldn't imagine having to intentionally tell my intestines to contract and release. Also interesting, if annoying, was the fact that my spells held up. Clearly, the brain and soul were wholly responsible for mana, even if it was spread throughout the body, because otherwise the few spells I had active would have fallen upon his takeover of my body.

Yuemith remained in control for the rest of the day. It was only after he'd made me eat and lie down that he exited and reformed Lisa's body. He formed it facing the fire, away from me, so I couldn't see the expression on his face. I rolled over to face away from him and considered my options. For the time being, escape wasn't an option. I would have to devise a means of preventing him from doing that before I could even make the attempt. I hadn't wanted to think too hard on it while he remained in my body in case he was capable of reading my thoughts.

It had been a very lonely day, a thought I tried hard not to think. Loneliness wasn't something I felt. I didn't like people.

It was still lonely, though.

In the morning, I ate breakfast and started walking without speaking to him. It wasn't some sort of silent treatment as punishment, or anything like that. I just didn't know how to talk to someone who'd violated me like that. It wasn't until late evening that I was finally able to ask, voice scratchy with my efforts not to cry throughout the day, "Are you able to inhabit someone's body without controlling them?"

Yuemith's form tensed. He didn't look at me when he replied, "Yes."

"Do dark beasts have involuntary muscles?"

Yuemith's tension increased, and this time he gave me a small frown. "Yes."

"How were you able to control mine so easily if you aren't used to doing it consciously?"

By now, Yuemith was openly staring at me. "I've taken over others' bodies many times in the past. Even if I wasn't initially used to human bodies, I've gained enough experience using this woman's form to understand the basics."

That really was impressive. "Were you able to hear my thoughts while you were possessing me?"

"What am I, a ghost?"

I stared at him until he sighed and said, "No. I cannot interpret your thoughts, though I can use some of the bodily reactions to make guesses about your emotions. Why are you asking me all these questions?"

"Because I thought of them." I meant to ask another question, but when I saw Yuemith's expression, I thought better of it. I waited expectantly.

Yuemith worked his jaw, clenching and unclenching it like I'd seen guys do when they were particularly aggravated. It was a strange thing to see Lisa doing. Finally, he shook his head. "I apologize. I should not have done that."

I nodded. "Are you able to possess anyone, or are there limits? Can you possess more than one person at a time? If so, how many? If not, why?"

By the time night fell, Yuemith looked thoroughly exhausted by my questions, but he'd obliged me and answered every last one of them, no matter how annoyed he sounded. As far as unpleasant experiences went, this one had been quite rewarding. I fell asleep dreaming of the magic spells I could design with the knowledge, while Yuemith sat and watched the fire.

In the morning, Yuemith held up his hand when I went to ask him another question. "I have a question for you: is this how you planned to treat Hiacine?"

I blinked. Oh. I'd been a bit annoying, hadn't I? "You wanted to spare him this?" I guessed.

"What? No, I -" he started, but I had already moved on.

"I'm sorry. I can understand that you wouldn't want to put your friend out like that," I said, even though I understood no such thing. People were more likely to give you what you wanted if you acted like you sympathized with them, though. I'd learned that at University, even if I tended to be bad at the execution. "I promise that I will limit myself to... umm.... twenty questions per week... so I hope you'll reconsider."

Yuemith stared at me for a long time, but he didn't say no, so I took that as confirmation that I was allowed to start planning out the questions I would ask.