Chapter 67: Chapter 68: One Final Tale of Machrae Diir

We all knew something was up in the moment, on a bright, blustery triple-star day with the rose pink and blue and gold all shining on high, when I passed Kairliina scampering up the street near Desdemona's Paradigm.

And I noticed that its scent was quite, well... different.

I'm accustomed to its usual--or what I realized, given the unexpected but potent wave of arousal that slammed into me the moment I caught this altered scent, I had mistaken for her usual. I and everyone else in Machrae Diir, it seemed.

Wood smoke, clove oil, sometimes notes of lavender and ozone as the mood took her. The fire of the camp, the sword's defender against rust, a witch's incense, and the reek of nuclear fire.

Today she smelled like a highly estrogenous fish.

So  I stopped, turning, startled at this revelation. Any student of the deep power would know that if Kairliina's previous scent was less arousing, it was because it was further from her truest self. An outer succubus lives to spread its lust, after all.

I tilted my head towards her and asked, "Kai, what's going on?"

She stood, staring, eyes wide and shining, its tail frisking--as long and serpentine as ever, now capped at the end by a great shark's-tail fin with a scythe blade in its outer arc--and then all the newly-grown gills on its neck flexed with her voice.

"MARRL!~"

That karlaw was all the answer I got before she sprinted off. Low to the ground. Bubbling with excitement. Nobody saw or heard a peep from it for several days.

And then? Then she was spotted walking, with a prancing step, at the bottom of a great trench-in-progress. It held its hands out to either side before her, parting the landscape of Machrae Diir on a course from the coastline just south of the peninsula of Thlact Angaelkar, meeting the northwestern end of the Rift of Recompense, and passing on right to the Mutagenic Exclusion Zone.

Once there, she breached straight into the basin where the Azure Diamond Sarcophagus lurks, and the very instant the trench-walls settled, she teleported away.

I don't think anyone was surprised when the vast ocean in the west of Machrae Diir came pouring down that trench.

By the time the waters settled, misting the air with the scent of brine, only the upper half of the Sarcophagus stood above water. The sloping roof and railway-spike tower of opaque blue diamond, the upper buttresses of the tiered sides. Into this Kairliina drifted, mostly submerged, her ten-horned head drawing tiny swirling wakes behind it.

"Alright, you." A sister succubus has some special privileges, such as grabbing Kairliina by the back of its neck and tugging her out of the water. "Really, what's this about?" I held her by the back of her neck like a ridiculous demonic kitten, my free hand on my hip, and leaned in nose-to-nose with it.

"Hmmmm..." her tail lashed. It grinned, all those long, wicked, metalloid fangs, the opalescent black glistens of her pseudopodous endo-flesh squelching faintly behind her four-way mouth's seams. "The Maj-friend is very eager to know?" She wriggled free. "Very well. Is time!" This. This bizarre short-stack shark-raptor cosmic horror slime-slut thing. This was the true Kairliina, Lady of Machrae Diir?

It was the cutest thing I'd ever seen in my life.

"This timeline's ending," Kairliina said, a little sadly. "It would love to stay longer, but..." It shrugs, twirling around to face the Sarcophagus in its new-made lake. "The zipper-in comes soon. Fusion with another timeline." Her tail frisks, eyes narrowing in thought. "Kairliina knows she isn't the first to wield the deep power, yes?" It grins back at me. "Though, she's quite sure she is the best." A giggle. A shake of its head. "Timelines can split, yes. However, overlooked point: they can also merge together again. Needs a cosmic force, though. Something more real than baseline reality."

"An adept of the deep power," I supply.

It nods. "Is a form of fusion, yes? Kairliina wants to be herself, all of itself, all in one great big happy slutty singularity!" The outer succubus raises her hands to the sky. "All Kairliinas want this. Is felt. We pull towards each other. Moving towards fusion. Each its own timeline."

"Hm." I fold my arms. "What happens to Machrae Diir, then?"

Kairliina shrugs. "Depends. Parts that don't belong to Kairliina anymore will merge timelines without changing. Just universes connecting. Parts that still do, and people who want to, who have selves to fuse with?" It nods again. "These will do as this Kairliina does. Blend into the seam of realities as Machrae Diir warps across. Forget some things, maybe, or stow others in dreaming reaches of their minds."

My brow furrows. I reach with my psyche. Seeking.

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No other Maroj answers me.

"Hm." I shift, a paw tapping the lakeside ground. On the far side of the Sarcophagus, a skyscraper-sized lattice of shining osmium arcs and spikes and frames groans as it topples into the water. "There's no... me... waiting for me to fuse with. So... I'll retain everything?"

Kairliina nods. "Yes. But, barring unspeakable power--more power even than this one has, at least for now--can't be sure when you'll appear. Probably long after me, when..." it quirks its lips. "Machrae Diirish things start to manifest in the timeline we merge to."

"I see." I take a seat.

"Is where she believes the kernel of truth in the heroic myth cycle is, yes?" Kairliina asks, sitting beside me in turn. The sky begins slowly to darken, and stars to stream faster and faster overhead as all the dimension thrums and rumbles.

"Different incarnations of the same person," I muse, "the continuum of their deep power scattered across timelines, each slowly blousing into the others. Yes..." I squeeze my chin. "Yes, that does make sense!" I grin, poking her shoulder. "It's cute when it's clever."

Kairliina's wings snap out and enfold her behind bulwarks of midnight star-fields. "Stop," it mumbles. "Illegal. Breaking the laws of this land."

"Be gay, do crime," I answer.

Kairliina groans, hiding deeper. "Maj-friend assails her. Is cruelful-wicked!"

And I laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

Finally, her lips puffing up, Kairliina peers out from behind its right-hand wing, and then begins to laugh too.

Torrents of radiant mist stream across the mountains and plains. Streaming from the spatial abyss past the borders of Machrae Diir.

"Soon," Kairliina sighs, wiping its eyes. "Soon." Its head turns. "Will miss this timeline. Was always going to be a clusterfuck, of course. Started with this fool-one working itself to death in a fit of penitent over-explanation after she did something dumb. 2021, it was."

Her shining black lips curve into a fond smile. "Still. Will miss it. But..." she looks to me. Smiles. "Will get to meet you all over again. Give you a better start this time." It pokes my shoulder. "Can make sure no one recruits grieving, reincarnated ex-villainess straight into the Immortals."

What can I do but return her smile? "I'd like that."

The seam splits open across the horizon. Machrae Diir does not unravel, but bends, stretches, blurs and discolors to meet it: a titanic cobalt shear cut laterally across the sky.

Kairliina unwinds, spiraling towards it.

"See you on the other side, Maj," it whispers. "When the foundation finishes shaking apart. When the collar comes down... yes. That will be the time. When all demons run free."

She blows me a last kiss. "Miidyaerita kastejul."

I return it. "Miidyaerita kastejul, Kairliina."

The seam rushes closer, and–

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