It was a difficult thing—to explain to someone that they had died. Alarion talked around it longer than he should have, circling the truth like a wary animal. It was a conversation he did not want to have, but the topic was unavoidable.

Sierra took it rather well, all things considered.

"I think I am going to be sick."

"Understandable," he told her.

"How long?"

"Nearly two years," Alarion said. "We fought and-"

"I remember," she snapped. "But I could not have… I am here. Look at me, I am right here!"

"You are. But she is not." His voice was solemn and regretful as he sat in the dirt next to her chair. "Tell me about the last things you remember."

"We were fighting and I… then I was somewhere else. Somewhere dark. You were hurt!"

The boil. He had seen her there after all. "After that?"

"Just flashes. Hundreds of little moments. All of them involving you," she said. "How did this happen?"

Alarion had a good idea, and he was not surprised at the notification that awaited him when he checked his Status.

Level Up! Congratulations, your Unraveller Class has advanced to Level 42! STR +65. AGI +70. VIT +65. INT +80. PER +85. WIL +75. LUK +84.

Skill Grade Up! Kel-Taran Meditation [Exceptional] -> Lifegiving Meditation [Rare].

Skill level increased. Lifegiving Meditation is now Level 1. INT +5. WIL +5.

Lifegiving Meditation [Exceptional]

Description: Though the Kel-Taran monks acknowledge many paths to enlightenment, none is more a staple of their philosophy than Lifegiving Meditation. The first skill of its kind, Lifegiving Meditation focuses on the manifestation, materialization, and enhancement of independent, sentient Thoughtborn.

Requirements: Manifest a Thoughtborn entity.

Type: Active

Effects: While actively meditating, the user regenerates all resources at an increased rate of up to 150% + 5% per level of this skill. In addition, this skill greatly enhances the manifestation of new Thoughtborn entities, as well as attempts to materialize or enhance those entities.

Growths: INT +5. WIL +5.

"I was careless," Alarion said.

It was an understatement. The warnings had all been there, from his frequent sightings of Sierra to those written in [Selica Gareris' Meditations on Meditation], the Imbue item that had given Alarion access to [Kel-Taran Meditation]. He was not the first Awakened to will a Thoughtborn into existence out of grief, and there was a whole chapter in Garreris' instructions on the dangers of meditating in an agitated state. He'd thought he'd been careful. And he had been wrong.

The True Heart had laid the kindling, but Alarion had fed the flame with weeks of practice and meditation. Now he faced a conundrum.

This new Sierra was still in her infancy, little more than a spectre that only he could see. With his help, she would grow in power and stability, drawing on his immense Aptitude as she developed. Given time, she could become powerful indeed. And dangerous.

ZEKE had warned him of the risks involved in manifesting a Thoughtborn, back when he had been intending to create a familiar of his own. The creation process needed to be purposeful and directed, with core values and ethics instilled and reinforced at every stage. Failure to do so would result in conflict; a disobedient familiar at best, or a homicidal monster at worst. It was a task that required dedication and precision; once manifested, the Thoughtborn's psyche could no longer be molded or revised.

Alarion's creation was wild and unshackled, sculpted from grief, nostalgia, and adoration. Given her origin, she had every right to hate Alarion. To want him dead.

It certainly showed in her expression.

"Careless, he says," she spat. "Do you think before you do anything?"

Alarion flinched away from the rebuke, saying nothing in response. He tried to think of a reply, but once she began to cry, he knew that there were no words that would help.

It was funny, in a sad sort of way. The True Heart had given him a glimpse of what he had desired. Closure, absolution. But reality was not so clean. She was the victim. He'd killed her. Why would she care about his feelings?

They sat in silence for several minutes, neither sure what to say. The last rays of sunshine crept along the floor, their warmth tinted orange by the dusty sky above. It was getting cold, but neither of them made any move for comfort.

At some point, Sierra stopped breathing. She wasn't holding her breath; she had simply stopped pretending she needed to. She held up her hand, turning it this way and that, studying it as though seeing it for the first time.

Whatever she was searching for, it proved to be too much for her. Sobs wracked her body once more as she curled in upon herself.

That was too much for him. He didn't speak; he just moved closer and reached out a hand. She flinched at his touch, and he began to pull away until her fingers caught his.

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She hadn't reached for him by choice, but on desperate human instinct. Adrift in a storm, she needed something to hold on to, and he was all she had. Her knuckles whitened around his fingers, squeezing until it hurt. He didn't complain, or even question how it was possible.

"I cannot forgive you," she said after an eternity.

"I know."

"And I am stuck with you if I want to live."

"Mm," he confirmed. "Do you?"

"I do not want to die," she answered with a notable distinction. "And I do not want to be here anymore. Can we go?"

"Of course," he said, already rising. "Where do you want to go?"

"I am hungry."

---

Watching Sierra devour a plate of assorted breads, fruits, and cheeses was a profoundly odd experience.

She couldn't eat the food with her ethereal form—no more than she could touch it—but somehow that hadn't stopped her. Alarion watched in morbid fascination as she plucked a piece of cheese from the bowl in front of her and brought it to her lips. It disappeared in a couple of bites, and it stayed gone until he looked away.

But sure enough, the next time he looked at the bowl, there it was, completely untouched.

"Do you even taste that?" he asked.

"I am not eating that fast!" she protested.

"What?" Alarion's brows knit together in confusion. "No, I meant-"

"Oh." She frowned as she belatedly understood his question. She reached out and took another morsel from the bowl before she answered. "I do. It is delicious. That is strange, right?"

"Very."

"Will it always be like this?" she asked, undeterred from her gluttony by the existential crisis.

"No. The creation of a Thoughtborn follows a set pattern. Manifestation, where you are. Then materialization, followed by Actualization."

"Which is when I become a real girl?"

"And I stop getting odd looks from the waitress," Alarion agreed, earning a snort of amusement from Sierra.

The long walk back to Ashad-Vitri had helped to ease the worst of the tension between them. She was angry and in pain, yes, but like the Sierra he remembered, she compartmentalized, burying the core of herself behind a mask of practicality.

"How long will that take?"

"I have no idea," he answered. "ZEKE might know."

"He survived?"

"Sort of." Sierra glared at him for context as he scooped up a hunk of bread from his own tray. "He was damaged and is not really himself. You two have a lot in common, actually."

"Where is…" She frowned as she looked at his wrist. "You put him in Alex's bracelet, and you left it in your room. How do I know that?"

"Because you know what I know," he told her. "Or you know what I knew when you fully manifested. I think we diverge from here."

"So, if I focus…" Her voice trailed off again as she concentrated. A thin smile crept onto her lips as she found what she was looking for. "You did have a crush on me."

"On her," he corrected. He'd avoided the topic for fear of upsetting her further, but the longer he waited, the more dangerous it would be. "You are not Sierra."

Sierra scowled, her lips pulling tight as if she'd just bitten into something bitter. "Then what am I? Because I look like me, I sound like me, I feel like me."

"Do you remember being you?" Alarion asked, his tone carefully neutral. "Without me."

"I-" Her mouth opened, but the rest of the thought never came. Her gaze went distant, sliding somewhere past him, past the table, past the warm lamplight of the little café.

She frowned. Tried again.

"I was…" Another pause, this time with a flicker of panic moving behind her eyes.

"What did your father look like?" Alarion pressed. The question felt cruel, and it was, but it was not without purpose. "Or your mother?"

There was a reason that the creation of doppelgangers, as such Thoughtborn were called, was taboo. Why it was criminal under Vitrian law, and why Meditations on Meditation had an entire chapter warning against it. Not only was the practice ethically dubious, but the outcomes were universally disastrous. Some doppelgangers turned inward, spiraling into narcissism or depression. Others became dangerously obsessed with people or objects from their former life, or learned the truth and became violent. All eventually suffered total pattern collapse.

The problem lay in their creation.

The woman sitting across from him was not Sierra; it was his memories of her, his feelings of her.

His memories. His feelings.

She only knew what he knew; she only remembered what he remembered. She was far more a reflection of him than she was of Sierra, despite wearing her face and mannerisms, and resolving that conflict now was vital for her sanity.

It would be easier for her than most. She had memories of her death; she knew she was Thoughtborn. The worst of her kind were created, often with good intentions, by heartbroken parents or desperate lovers, without any of that knowledge. They thought they were human, that they were the original, and the conflict between those beliefs and their underlying psyche and memories eventually drove them mad.

The only way to save a doppelganger was to free it of that burden—strip away the dissonance in favor of independence. But even knowing that, it was difficult to watch.

"I cannot remember his face," Sierra whispered at last. "Or his voice. Or my house. It is all just… why did you do this to me?"

"I never meant to."

"I should have-" her face contorted in rage, and she threw her bowl at him. Her aim was true, but the 'attack' passed harmlessly through him. "She should have killed you when she had the chance."

"Probably."

She glared at him for a few seconds more, then she shoved her chair back hard enough to make the legs screech against the floorboards. She stormed toward the exit and walked straight through the body of a man who was entering in her haste to leave.

Alarion didn't follow her. She needed space; as much as she could get from him. As a burgeoning manifestation, she remained firmly tethered and limited by their sympathetic bond. She couldn't travel more than half a mile from him.

Though that didn't stop her from trying.

He could feel a tug of sympathy, like a cold chill down his spine, as she reached the edge of her tether and pushed beyond it. The air around him thickened, as though a heavy fog had descended, making every movement away from her just a little bit harder. He knew it would be ten times as bad for her, and it was a testament to her anger that she kept going. The colors around him began to drain, the voices of his fellow patrons growing muffled and indistinct as she drew the link taut.

She lasted longer than he would have thought, but even that was barely a minute. His symptoms abated, then renewed as she tried again, and again. Three failures were enough for her to abandon the ordeal, but it took another two hours for them to reunite.

Alarion found her waiting for him outside, curled up against the side of the café with her knees to her chest, her face buried into her arms. He'd been watching her through his [Unraveller's Sight] for the last quarter hour. She'd approached the door half a dozen times and walked away just as many before giving up entirely.

"Can I help?" he asked as he took a seat beside her.

"No," she whimpered into her arms. "Nothing can make this better."

A few platitudes welled up in Alarion's chest, but he smothered them down quickly. Her world had been shattered, a feeling he was intimately familiar with. Telling her that 'it would be okay' would just be insulting.

He did, however, have one thing that had carried him through.

"You are loved, Sierra. With no expectations. No obligations. No conditions. No matter what happens, I will make you whole."

Her body shook next to him, wracked with sobs for what felt like hours. Somewhere in her sorrow, she fell against him for comfort, and when it was finally over, she looked up at him through bloodshot, tear-filled eyes.

"Not Sierra," she told him firmly.

"Okay," he said without hesitation. "What do you want to be called?"

"Nessa. My name is Nessa."

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