This delusion, zie claims a name. Ruin. No known pronouns. Bane of Misery’s life. Absolute bane. Showed up bright and inescapable a couple of weeks ago, all beautiful and haloed, claiming a grand destiny for her, just like her dead mother promised. Break into the local defensive base, zie said. Steal a sparrowhawk unit and take off with it, zie said. Fight the Heretics lurking over the nowhere nothing mining colony you call home, zie said. It is what the Larex Forge calls you to. And because Misery’s stupid, because she’s got void where a brain should be, because it was her birthday and also Mother’s death anniversary and she was completely smashed on dirty salves, because she was still pissed at her older brother for some bullshit he said, because of all that Misery said fuck it and did as Ruin suggested. Even though she knew better. Even though she should have recognized Ruin for the delusion zie is. Even though she knew the consequences of not resisting the voidsickness that generated the delusion.

She did it anyway, and so here she is, a prisoner halfway across the galaxy on the Capital at the center of it all, trapped with an advanced outgrowth of the voidmadness she was born with. Took twenty years to show up, but she’s finally full-on hallucinating the way Mother used to, arguing with shades like old family members. Good job, Misery. Everything going cherries and honey.

Ruin slants hir head in curiosity. “You wanted off Rootsdown. You wanted to leave home for shinier pastures. I did that for you. Did I not?”

“If I wanted to be imprisoned on the Imperial Capital, I would have found better ways,” Misery snaps. She can’t hear the holystone through all this nagging. Can’t believe she sat through thousands of hours of sermon and not one second of it covered getting a faux-aspect of the universal force to shut the fuck up.

“Tell me again,” says Ruin, clearly with the least inclination in the void to shut the fuck up. “What good would escaping this room do? Where do you imagine you will go?”

“Somewhere not here,” Misery says, and stills herself because a thread has come loose in the holystone, brushing against her senses like a questing finger. She can deal with Ruin later—freedom awaits. Breath held, she tugs upon the offered filament. Shuts her eyes, shuts out the rest of the universe. Her existence is stone and stone only. Beneath her, the essence of the strange mineral slowly unravels, loosening its grip on the divine gift that separates it from mere rock. The holystone melts, and Misery melts along with it, her body turning to jelly, bones and skin and all. She has no body; that brick of flesh right now has no owner. She is the stone, and the stone is she.