"She didn't say anything about what she wants us to do next, did she?" Senya asked. Though he still had some coin from Stemale, Aeis had its own stamped currency, forcing him to go without eating- or just swipe an apple when no one was looking. Aster objected on principle alone. Ikina didn't seem to be punishing them, no matter what they had warned her.

"I don't think so. She didn't even talk with us that long." Wren was also enjoying some stolen fruit. This country was nice and temperate, and the day was sunny. They all sat on the edge of a fountain, the kind engineered to have a little geyser in the middle.

The rough trauma of the last few weeks seemed to have been put on hold for this rather nice day- but maybe , actually, they'd never return to it. Maybe, if they were lucky, they could all go on in a silent agreement to never bring up how Wren used to feel about Senya or whatever unemotional crises Aster was facing. If the gods- or better yet, the stars- favored them properly, maybe they could just get back to questing. Hunting wolves and saving the world in proper exaltation.

"We head south now." Aster said. "Maybe I'll do it."

"Huh?" Wren turned his head sharply.

"I don't want to leave you or anything. Might be impossible to find you again. But it's the most practical choice. I know you guys can't die either, but I'm on the next level of immortality. I can walk nonstop across the country, and I'm sure it won't be too hard for me to find my way to Ae-ah." Aster didn't want to make eye contact with either of the boys as she spoke.

"I think that's a good idea." Wren said immediately. Senya seemed ready to object, and he caught Wren's gaze with an open mouth. "I'm not going to lie. It's just more practical. And maybe that's something we should be."

A hot breeze traveled across the grey square. The drab architecture was forgivable in the Eighth City when the climate was this pleasant. "Yeah." Senya concluded.

They waited a few moments.

"So what was up with that statue?" Wren said. "Eii was making some very menacing remarks back there. At least they felt menacing. I didn't really get what they actually meant."

"Aliens?" Senya tried, and he shrugged.

"It's something about Ikina." Aster was still staring straight ahead through the town square. "I'm pretty sure Eii is older than them. And there's some big secret that we'll probably be informed about against our will relating to that."

"Hey Aster." Wren said after another windy pause. "What should we do while you're gone?"

"I'd might take me... a week to get there. I mean. Do whatever you want with the time."

"I don't really want you to go." Senya said like he was announcing it."

"Yeah." Aster turned to look at him. "Thanks." She almost blushed while she did it. She knew she didn't really like him, and she doubted that as long as all this crazy stuff was going on in her life, she wasn't going to be able to properly crush on anyone. And maybe when she was done with this, she'd still be messed up inside- unable to understand love and uninterested in seeking it. Or maybe she'd always been like this. She didn't mind either way, honestly.

She thought Senya was beautiful. Wren did too. But they both knew him too well now to really obsess over it.

"But you'll be ok." Wren smiled, and about gestured into the air. "Can't die. Can't anything. So we don't have to feel so solemn. We'll all be fine."

Aster bit her lips, sucking on the chewed up skin. She considered being solemn. She thought about being quiet. And she forced herself to smile. It wasn't like the smile was fake- it was just an effort large enough to warrant a 'forced'. She hadn't been unhappy. She was simply bad at smiling.

Wren put his arm around her and shook her shoulders. It felt like a weird move to do, but overall Aster didn't exactly mind. She tried to do the same with Senya, and though again it just felt weird, it's not like anyone took the time to complain.

There was a time where they sat there, arms around each others shoulders, and sort of smiled, sort of laughed. It didn't last long, but it was a moment. When they stopped, it was awkward and silent. But that was the sort of moment you were bound to forget when you got older, the negative and short kind that follows the good.

"We'll be fine." Senya said in agreement. Aster looked at him and thought about kissing him. It wasn't the first time, and just like the others, she decided it wasn't at all worth the hassle.

"Yeah." Aster said. Next to her, Wren was also thinking of Senya. Not much about him though. And certainly not of kissing him.

"Can I just say?" Wren said, suddenly shy. "It feels wrong to say these things out loud, but I mean, why is it so weird to- Uh." He sighed. "We ought to be friends by now."

"Sure." Aster said, smiling again and shifting her sitting position so her legs could properly dangle off the fountain's edge.

"It's been long enough." Senya was grinning. Were these people, these maniac rich kids, his friends now? He couldn't bother to disagree. No matter how much truth was in it, it certainly was a nice idea to have.

They waited on the fountain's edge for another long moment. It wasn't silent. But their words weren't worth remembering, idle chitchat that meant absolutely nothing but stood for a rather lot of things.

Aster decided she ought to leave in an hour, and that hour came quickly. And since she had already decided it, there was little she could do to protest leaving. If she didn't go now, she'd probably find a way to never go. Or at least, waste a good amount of time before finally departing.

She left. And in doing so, she began to walk.

The Aeian countryside was really very green, but Aster had turned off most of her thoughts by the next day. She could barely think about anything. Even her basic senses of sight and sound were warped, ignored by her brain and entirely wiped the moment something changed.

She was in a state of mind she had never been in before, and it would have scared her if she was able to feel fear. But this altered consciousness she found herself in didn't let her feel concern. It only held her mind in stasis and reminded her subconscious that everything was always going to be fine.

She didn't stop walking, a whole day now, and it was like she didn't have legs. There was no sensation of weight, just the knowledge that she had it. There was no movement of muscles and bone. Just the reminder that they existed.

Her mind saw and heard, but it did not think in anything more than a glorified list of cardinal directions and a simple endgame goal.

Aeis was a long and large country of little interest sight wise. But its advantage lay in its location, a sunny grassland that had been urged away from desert by careful irrigation. Aeis was a country of science and the sky god, a position solidified by the odd sorts or artifacts they kept finding as they dug canals through their lands and the Eastern Waste.

People in Aeis were curious about Aster, but her mind was too far gone to talk back to them. When it rained, and someone called her in from the cold, she only moved forward, skin drier than salt. When the wind blew her hair against her face, she closed her eyes and kept moving. The world became bigger the longer she walked, her senses began to dull as a new one took shape in her mind: a collective sense of time. What things were and when they were. And Aster slowly began to know how large her world was, and when it would end.

But she had to stop when her feet reached the ocean's shore, and in that moment, everything was forgotten again.

She blinked. There was still a sound in her mind, but it was retching free as the wind and the waves become much more real.

She looked out at the southern sea. Its existence was. She blinked again. Did she even need to blink anymore?

It had been a month.

She looked out at the sea. She knew Silan was there. She turned back to the land- and again, she could feel Laila's influence. It was heavy and seemed to smack her in the face like a galestorm. She wasn't certain what had happened to her, but she knew Ikina was coming before they appeared on the beach beside her. There was simply a feeling deep in her mind of a pulling and an essence of energy, and she knew it to be Ikina.

They lacked an apparent sex today. She almost wanted to place their body as male, but there was something soft about their features and odd about thier eyes. They were weak, clear-eyed and glassy skinned. Not holding up to their facetious humanity.

"Stemale's gone." They said, standing beside her and watching the sea. "Your mother is dead."

Aster was quiet. "But they worshipped the land."

"Yes. I'll take you to Aelen."

"What's changed in me?" Aster sighed.

They looked her over, eyes widening as if that would help in determining an answer. "Not much."

"I don't like any of this." Aster said, not even glumly. She just said it, shaking her head. "I hate this."

"You were meant for this. I'm sorry for this to happen to you. I know it is awful. But it is what you were always meant for."

"I thought it was my normality that made me so special. I thought this was the opposite of destiny."

Ikina ignored her. "What would you have preferred to do, instead of this?"

"I don't know. I guess I wanted to graduate high school. Maybe go into computer programming."

"But why learn to program computers when you can learn to program life?"

Aster thought for a moment. "I'd rather learn to program computers."

Ikina was very silent for a moment. There was an absence of sound like they were breathing in. "I would have liked to be a doctor. But we were both meant to be something more. Do you believe in destiny, Aster?"

She shook her head. "Only if it's the name of some god I've yet to meet."

"I'm sure it is. But you know it's a concept, an idea solidified only by the people who believe in it. But the people who believe in fate and destiny are also the people who run universes. And so, it is your fate to be like this."

Aster sighed. "What are the odds."

"None at all. You're not normal. You're so far from it that- We always meant for you to do this. It was planned."

"What do you mean?"

"It was planned. You're not normal- you're fated. There are powers out there beyond me and beyond Eii that decide these matters of the stars. You've never been normal. You are the only one on this planet with this divine potential. Eii can still take away what she's given you- but you'll always be meant for more."

"But what are you trying to say with this? Is there something you want me to understand here?"

"Even if Eii never gave you that shot, gave you these gifts, you'd still have become something inhuman. It's what you are. And I have known it since you were born- why else have Laila save your life? Your friends, they're almost the same as you. Why else would I ensure you met them? Why else would I keep them alive?"

Aster was quiet.

Ikina looked at her, and leaned over, fingers lightly touching her hair like they meant to comfort her but couldn't go through with the action. "Fate is real, and it has never been mine to control, Aster." Their voice was weak, so extremely weak that Aster might have reeled back in shock if she had been capable of the emotion anymore.

With a very long movement, Ikina grabbed Aster's hand and took a step forward, bringing her and the world forward as everything blurred into a rainbow of colors and time- and then everything stopped, and Aster was at the base of a mountain and Ikina was flying through the sky like a shadow of a bird.