Mama Carnage was a champion cackler, like a cartoon witch. She had an unruly mess of white hair, dark skin that had gone past olive to have a noticeable greenish-yellow tone, and bright golden eyes with vertical slits. She wore a slightly wrinkled green dress with an oversized chainmail shirt on top, and had a habit of making items appear or disappear around her. She would pick up a pen and scribble something on a scrap of paper, then the pen would vanish. A moment later she'd be gesturing wildly while talking about a fight someone was in and a hammer would suddenly be in her hand.

And yet, despite the cackling and the strange look and the unhinged use of some kind of teleportation, she seemed very sensible. She'd been chatting with us for a few minutes, just basic pleasantries, but the whole time people had been handing her documents or asking whispered questions - she was running a complicated business while talking to us and, apparently, building a model of an airship.

"Sounds like you're basically wanting to pretend to be mercenaries, like it's some sort of game or a play you can put on. Is that right? Folks who don't need the money, just wanting to act like you're a rough and dangerous vagabond doing whatever work you can get?"

The words sounded like she was insulting us, but the tone was casual and friendly so I decided to go with it. "Yeah, that's about right. But to be fair, we only have money because of the lost Duminere job which did involve a lot of... excitement. And since then we've done a surprising amount more, so we're not some spoiled rich kids."

She cackled again. "Good, good. And good that you didn't take too much offense to the implication. So why do you want it? Why not just go travel on your own?"

I shrugged. "Honestly, it's kinda like you said. I read a lot of books about people going on adventures, and while I've had some of my own at this point they kinda sucked. People died, or we were being hunted, or... it was shitty, and I'm hoping to see what it's like to do some easier jobs."

"Easier, but not too easy. Right?" She winked.

"Yeah, you get me. Something interesting, but not where I'm constantly about to get murdered. Oh, I should warn you about Tindelus, the unhinged hive mind construct from Brinkmar."

The model airship appeared in her hands again, and she made a small adjustment before it was replaced with a strange cylindrical object. "This is a voice recorder, dictate anything vital into it by holding your thumb here. If you hold down this other spot for a few seconds it'll delete, for if you fart and get embarrassed or something."

I took the little stone rod. "I would never deprive you of my flatulence."

That got a cackle. "When you're done, just hand it to whoever is at the desk over there. Okay let's see. Sige vouches for you, I already have some complaints from the people you got in a fight with but they sound more like accidental endorsements to me - once I take the conflicting stories into account. And maybe most importantly, I'm aware you set aside money for Aestrid even though we both know she's not coming to collect it. So you can take care of yourself, you can refrain from killing someone who pisses you off, and you respect the people you work with. That's half the battle right there. You're willing to swear the company oath?"

We read over a copy, and it was pretty reasonable. The first part was just good business - don't betray the clients, don't steal jobs and funnel them to another company, stuff like that. Then came the bits about what jobs we wouldn't do, which didn't concern itself with what was legal but instead called out specific categories of crimes such as kidnapping. Finally, there was a very interesting clause that seemed to be requiring everyone to follow a moral code, with some tenets of the code being written by the individual.

"Overall I like it, but... you have people write their own rules to follow?"

She nodded as she sorted through some paperwork. "I do. There are rules for writing rules, of course, to make sure that nobody vows something dangerous. You'll have folks that think they can declare that they'll punish thieves or some nonsense, and then find themselves feeling compelled to turn in some poor orphan kid that palmed a piece of fruit. Who does that help? Codes are tricky things. You have to commit, you can't always be making excuses not to follow what you've said is so important. But on the other hand, once your code tells you to do something that hurts people for no other reason than that you have to stick to a rule... well, now you're just being an asshole."

She gestured to me with a pipe that was suddenly in her hand, already lit. "Sahrger have a code, most of the time. Never breaking a deal, tracking and balancing out social interactions so they don't owe anyone anything, that sort of stuff. It's all very utilitarian, which isn't always a bad thing - not my style, but a determined utilitarian can do a lot of good work in the world. I understand you weren't raised by them, so I expect your specific rules are a bit different, but I'm guessing utilitarian ideals appeal to you. Focus on the results, not the intentions. So what if you helped someone because you wanted a reward? You helped them, right?"

I hesitated, and she leaned back and just watched me think. "I... do think that way, but I also... I try to imagine what someone specific I knew would do, and do that even if I don't really want to. And... more often than not, it does turn out to be beneficial anyway which gets on my nerves sometimes. Like I'm trying to prove him wrong, or something."

"Ah! Yes, good idea! Pick something external, a person you respect, and bring your mental image of them into it. Hard to write an oath around, especially if they're still alive and can surprise you, but great for an everyday supplement in decision-making." Mama Carnage turned to Errod. "What about you, kid? You've been quiet."

"I came mostly to talk about this, actually. I wanted to be a knight of Brinkmar, like my great grandfather. But... we made it to Brinkmar, and not only do I still not know what - if anything - they really stood for, I think it was more complicated than I had suspected. And in the meantime, we... do you know the Knights of the Storm?"

She groaned and rolled her eyes so hard I was worried she'd injure them. "Most of their problem is cultural rather than a binding oath, but in a way that's worse - it means any two knights could potentially declare each other heretics. They all think they're the most important person in the world because they have a quest and a purpose, but frankly I think protecting some artifacts in an old fortress is less impressive than helping a stranger or encouraging someone to try their best."

She took a puff on the pipe, which was back, and then swapped it out for the model airship again. "No, I think your average person in some small village out in the wilderness does more good by being honest and helping their community than that whole pile of stuck-up soldiers.I hope you're not planning on modeling your own life after theirs, kid. They come through here sometimes, and it's always a headache."

Errod nodded. "They... are eager for violence, and it seems clear that they are overly confident in themselves. I want to live for something, I want to have a code I dedicate myself to, but the world feels too complicated for that. I've been helping my sisters, but it always feels like just reacting in the moment. I want... a larger purpose... but I don't want it to stand in the way of getting things done the right way on a smaller, everyday level."

The office was quieting down for the moment, and a calm settled over things. "You're in a tough spot, kid. You're a little too smart for this 'live by a code' stuff, and you're right on that line where you have to either find a code that really means something to you or get jaded and decide all codes are moskar plop. This one here, she's easier. She sees the benefit of having rules, and she's willing to have them, but she doesn't need them to serve some higher purpose.

She allowed her hands to actually be empty for a bit, and leaned forward to whisper conspiratorially - not in a way that would actually keep anyone from hearing. "The secret is, while I approve of oaths and don't like utilitarianism, I also think the oaths themselves are utilitarian. They're a tool. That's it. They keep you pointed the right way, hopefully, but they don't make you a good person or guarantee you'll do good things. Don't read too much into it. Have you heard of the xalq'menfetti? It's an old thing, translates to something like 'the good of the people', or 'the community interest'."

The model airship was back, along with a tiny scalpel to carve detail into the side. "It's a simple but powerful oath, meant for leaders to swear. The gist is that they'll act in the genuine interest of the people they rule over, avoid corruption, strive for justice to be served, and value the health and happiness of people everywhere. There are a few different versions, of course, but they all work basically the same way. Every so often, people petition leaders everywhere to take the oath so that their people can know that they're in good hands."

I felt like I knew what was coming, but maybe it was just lingering annoyance at stuff on Earth. Overall people had been pretty fair with me here, and most communities did seem to take care of their people. "Are you going to tell me that nobody ever takes the oath?"

She cackled again. "Damn close. Some of the leaders of cities in the Free States, one of the big three in the Coastal Alliance, and occasionally an unpopular royal in Erathik - but never the Primarch, so it doesn't matter much. They have their excuses, of course, but it's all last week's bathwater. They're scared of being forced to be good. But for you, kid? It might be what you need. You're not in charge of anyone, so most wouldn't apply, but a slightly modified version..."

They started talking details, but I was already thinking about my own ideals - what ideals I had. Did it make sense to worry about what Bill would do, when I didn't even really remember him? Shifting my focus to Ematse, I paced down the hallways of my memory palace opening doors until I found something that felt right...

It was a hot day, like most of the year in Phoenix, and the shitty box fans were just circulating body odor rather than making anything cooler. Supposedly there was also an air conditioner, but it tripped the breaker every ten minutes and someone had decided to just give up on it.

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I was in a big cafeteria attached to a church, wearing disposable plastic gloves that - unlike rubber gloves - had wide open cuffs which allowed bits of food in to pool at my fingertips. I was gripping my ladle tightly, frustrated that the flimsy utensil wouldn't be nearly enough to knock anyone unconscious.

It wasn't just the heat, or that I didn't want to be there at all, it was that while most people took their food silently or even smiled and thanked me there were a significant number that just bitched at me about the free food. They didn't like soup. There wasn't any pepper out at the tables. It was too salty. It looked like vomit.

It did look a little like vomit, maybe, but honestly that was true of a lot of soups. This one had more vegetables and less meat than I liked, but it wasn't even just canned stuff. It had big chunks of potato, and shredded chicken, and some cream or something mixed in. And what did they expect? They thought they were going to get a menu and be able to make special requests at a soup line?

The next guy in line got to me, and Bill handed him a bowl of the soup as I ladled more into one of the empties. The next person would give them bread, and then the next one would give them a little plate with a slightly questionable square of cake. The man looked down at the bowl and sneered. "I want a different one. Where's the fucking meat?"

"That's what your girlfriend said," I muttered.

"What did you say, you little brat?"

I dropped the ladle into the stock pot. "Oh come on, you should just be glad I implied you had a girlfriend and didn't even say she was your mom or something." He erupted, and Bill apologized as he pulled me away. I yelled back over my shoulder, "tell you what, you can have a full refund on your meal!"

Bill got me out the side door, and sighed. "Calliope..."

"What? You're going to apologize to that asshole and then lecture me? I'm bored as shit, I could be doing anything I want but you dragged my ass here to feed the dregs of society and listen to them whine and moan about it like ungrateful pricks!"

He grinned. "Ah, I see. They've offended your principles as someone that is always refined and grateful. Should I be expecting you to shower me with compliments some time soon?"

"Hey, I never asked you to bring me to your house. That's some weird fucking guilt complex thing you've got, you took that responsibility on yourself."

Bill nodded, still grinning like he'd caught me. "You're totally correct. I didn't agree to be your kinship placement so that you would owe me, or praise me, or anything like that. I made a choice to do something because I thought it was the right thing to do, and I'm going to keep doing it regardless of whether or not you're nice to me."

Wait.

Ah, fuck. He'd turned it back around to be about the soup kitchen. "It's not the same," I grumbled, but I was having trouble articulating why. "Anyway, I'm hot and I feel gross and this sucks. You can't expect me to be nice to the meatless wonder in there when it feels hotter and wetter than it would if I just climbed into the soup."

Bill's smile slipped a little. "It really is unpleasant. Someone is on the way to fix the air conditioner, but it won't be done any time soon and even if it was there's no way it would catch up before we were gone anyway. Look. I don't want to reward bad behavior, but I honestly expected you to blow up half an hour ago. So. Take ten dollars, go to the Circle K across the street, and get yourself a slushy and a snack. But once the slushy is either gone or melted, you're coming back in to help. Deal?"

I snatched the money out of his hand. "Deal."

Now, I might have stopped to follow the implications through and asked Bill if he was ever mad at me when I was an ungrateful shit the way I was at the people in the soup kitchen. But at the time... partly it seemed like I was oblivious and assured of my own perfection, but also there was this hint of a remembered feeling... this thought that if I stopped to question my actions and behavior I'd have a whole lot to question, and that eventually I might have to ask if my mom was right about me being a monster.

I did my best to jump forward past the boring bits, looking for something else interesting at the soup kitchen. I felt like there was something there I needed to see, and couldn't find it. Each skip took me to another week, and I watched as Bill slowly chipped away at me, gently reminding me that it didn't actually cost me anything to cut people some slack especially when they had a lot going wrong in their lives. As he found opportunities to compliment me, tricking me into kind of enjoying myself - though it also helped that once the air conditioner was fixed I could daydream my way through it.

"What was it this time?" Bill asked, as we drove back to his house in his antique car.

Gazing out the window, I only hesitated a moment before telling him. "I was hiding out as a cook at a work outpost on some distant continent where out-of-luck people came to work crappy jobs in the trash mines, excavating scraps of lost technology."

"Ah. And why did you need to be in hiding? Were you in charge of a failed coup? Stole the crown jewels?"

"No, I was actually an accomplished chef that was called on to serve the rich and powerful, but I ended up poisoning a whole party full of aristocrats because they were plotting to sacrifice everyone in the city as part of a dark ritual. The work camp was perfect, because even when someone who knew me stopped by they decided they had to be mistaken after tasting the food - they didn't believe someone as talented as me could bear to deliberately make my cooking taste so bad."

He was about to reply, but instead suddenly slammed the brakes and threw an arm across the bench seat as if to keep me from flying through the windshield - though of course he always made sure I put my seatbelt on. In front of us, a little kid had stopped in the middle of the street like a deer in headlights, their basketball rolling away. If Bill's reflexes had been worse, that kid would have been dead for sure.

Oh.

Wait.

No, I didn't want to remember that.

The scene reversed, and it was me running into the street. I was five, and chasing a fleeing kitten, and a car was coming right for me - as I noticed it there was a trill of excitement inside me, something far away glowing with hope, but then my eyes narrowed and I gestured sharply at the car. Probability squirmed around me like a bucket of snakes, and it abruptly swerved directly into a street light - I couldn't see inside, but there was a dark spray of blood across the inside of the windshield. I looked around for the kitten, unconcerned, and then turned towards my house again - mom was there, staring at me with wide eyes.

"My kitty got away," I said, wiping my hands on my shirt. They had blood on them, blood and fur to match the tiny pawprints leading from my room. I could feel the memory following my thoughts and trying to go back to what I'd been doing in there, why the cat had run away, where the blood was from, but I clamped down on things and kept my focus where it was. In my memory palace, something rattled in the drawer of my desk like it was trying to escape, and I remembered what I'd stored there. The trauma of being powerless as I was tortured.

Just before I fled the memory, I could feel that distant speck of hope gutter out and be replaced with horror - and hatred. Yeah, that seemed right. I knew what it had to be, who would be glad if I'd been hit by a car. And she'd referenced the memory before, so I knew it had made an impression on her. If she'd been hating me since I was five, it was really a wonder that I'd convinced her to let me keep using her face even in the short term. I felt justified; hadn't I gotten so much better, over time? Hadn't I apologized even though it wasn't my fault?

But if our roles had been reversed...

I thought about Bill, about the time he'd put into slowly coaxing me along until I wasn't a total piece of shit. About how he'd accepted that I was, in a lot of ways, always going to be a little selfish and lacking in empathy. And then I got to work. It didn't take long, and just required me to re-arrange a few things and flex my control of Ematse. When everything was ready, I sent a tentative ping down the line and waited. She showed up after about ten minutes, looking annoyed as always.

"What is it now?"

"I'm sorry. Again. I... there's a part of me that's not sorry, but I'm starting to think that's normal too; that maybe I'm not that much worse than other people, because a lot of people are awful and don't even think about it. But I also don't want to pat myself on the back and decide I don't need to apologize and try to do the right thing, because... well, then I'm just going to keep getting worse. I started going down that path, the other time around. I think I just jumped into the middle of this conversation without explaining, didn't I?

"I was looking at some memories, the ones that were taken from me. Bill, to the extent that I remember him, was a really good guy. And Errod is having a meeting with someone and talking to them about... moral codes, and stuff like that. And I wanted to think about that, and about Bill, in case I had anything to add - since I don't really tend towards that stuff on my own. And while I was doing that, I saw the thing you'd talked about with... uh, with the cat, and the car.

"I don't know why I didn't remember that. It wasn't part of the erased memories I don't think, it was just... I think to the person I was back then it genuinely wasn't that important, and by the time it would have been I probably wanted to forget. It's... still not something I want to think about too much, to be honest. But it reminded me of when you'd mentioned it, and I wanted to... uh. Fuck, this is awkward. Look, I... I remade your bedroom. The very earliest memory I could find of it, before I fucked it up. I've made it a permanent part of my memory palace, in place of the later version, and then I moved the doors around. I'm not going to go in there anymore, not unless you're back home and we've broken this connection. It's yours, a permanent - private - room in my domain. If you want it."

While I'd talked, the plastered-on look of boredom and annoyance faded and was replaced with an almost stunned expression. Slowly she walked over to the door and opened it, and then collapsed into a heap at the sight of her old room. She was bawling, and I didn't know what to do. I wasn't good at comforting people, and I was probably the last person she wanted comforting her anyway, but I didn't know what the other options were. Stand there watching? That felt shitty. Just walk away while she was crying? Also kind of a dick move.

As I hovered, trying to decide, she turned her head slightly and spoke to me in almost a whisper. "I missed so much. Missed my chance to be normal. Do you mourn it too? Do you wish you had been raised by your people? Do you hate me for killing your parents? I worried you would kill my mother every time I caught glimpses of her. She was always so angry, so disgusted. I worried that you would make her trip and fall, or crash her car, or choke on her food. It would have been so easy for you, and if you could sense what I had done maybe you would have felt justified."

I leaned against the wall next to her, and let myself slide down to the floor so we were at the same level. "I've asked myself that a few times lately - the part about growing up in Xeyul, I mean. It would have been easier, but I would have been... I would have been what mom thought I was. Sorry, I mean... not mom, but..."

She waved a hand at me dismissively. "I understand."

"Anyway, the more I look at my memories the more I think I hated being like that. I wasn't happy until I started putting effort into being a better person, not really. Some of that was probably stuff from you slipping through our connection, your disgust at me making me hate myself and your empathy making me feel guilty and who knows what else. But I think, maybe, Sahrger just aren't that happy.

"I could be wrong, but I think probably their lives are hard and shitty from always keeping an eye on each other, never having real trust or love or... I don't know. So I'm sorry I took your place, but I'm not sorry I didn't grow up there. My childhood sucked, but it was better than yours and better than a lot of people's and... and it meant I'm not a total monster."

She stood, and pulled me to my feet. We stayed like that for a second, her hand still in mine, and then she suddenly pulled it away as if she'd just noticed it. "You are not a monster. We... we are more alike than I would have wanted to admit. Neither of us are perfect, but... thank you."

She went into the restored bedroom and closed the door. I hurried away, so I wouldn't hear her crying.

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