209

Chapter Text

"... I lost."

"Indeed you did."

"And now I'm here."

"Indeed you are."

"Is this another test? A curse? Doomed to spend eternity in this place at the behest of yet another god?" Salem asked, sitting down by the fire and glaring at the woman before her- a metallic woman made of smooth, metal plates and threaded through with twining branches, a mix of silver and gold and red and green that was all too reminiscent of a certain pair of girls who had driven Salem to her ultimate defeat and downfall. "What is the point of all of this anyway?"

The mechanical woman simply shook her head, sitting down across from Salem and giving her a soft, gentle, motherly smile. "There is no curse. This is no test… this is… as they would call it… therapy."

She paused, examining the plates and vines of her body, running her hands along the perfectly melded seams and joints before leveling her attention upon Salem once again. "What you get out of this is entirely up to your own desires and needs. There are many paths before you, but you will only be able to take one at the moment. You have spent your whole life wishing for death, for something other than the cold bleakness of your living torture. I sit here with you offering you choices. All of them you see arrayed here around you, in the form of many weapons."

The mechanical woman- the Mechanic, spread her arms wide, and the entire area lit up with a crackle of flames and the scent of roses and spring, an innumerable amount of glass cases forming out of the crystalline ground and arraying themselves around Salem in a dizzying set of choices- weapons by the hundreds, thousands, and…

She simply stared, uncomprehending of what she was looking at. Lifetimes? Souls? Something completely different, paths that she could walk and see through as someone- some thing else?

She didn't know.

She…

She looked down at herself. At the dress that she had worn on that fateful day when she had begged the gods to give her the love of her life back. At her pale, human skin- no longer a ghastly chalk white but a simple human pale with soft pink nails and a healthy tinge of tan and red. She…

Salem saw her own reflection in the ground below, and she nearly wept.

Human again.

Weak. Fragile. Mortal.

A stupid girl whose hubris and idiocy had led to a chain of events far out of her control, so far beyond the pale and beyond the edges of sanity and morality that she had taken the very same destructive, self aggrandizing nature of the gods and made it her own. She hated the gods, and… she had become just like them, in all of her long, many years of life.

She hated it. Hated herself. 

"... Where is he? Where… where is Ozma?" she asked quietly, folding her hands in her lap and staring down at them, unable to tear her gaze away from her regained humanity as she spoke. "... Will I be kept away from him forever too? As the gods had intended to do to me before-?"

"No. I will not stop you from seeing Ozma again when you emerge from the branches above. He will be there, new and changed just as you will be- however… only time will tell if you are meant to be together again. That is a choice you will have to make together- if you choose to remember your past when you finish your ascension," the Mechanic answered, striding over to Salem and gently tucking a strand of hair behind Salem's ear- as though she was a mother and Salem was her child. "The role of ascension is not punishment nor reward. It is simply a fact of life- the Afterans, they do not grow and change like humans do, and so Ascension helps them renew their sense of purpose, find new purpose, and even completely change themselves to their liking should they not want to be what they are anymore. For humans… it is all that and more. After all- humans find their own purpose in life, and are not created with one as such. If you move forward… perhaps you will find someone who is not just agreeable to become… but someone who is… enough."

"... Someone who is enough, hm…?" Salem muttered, continuing to look down at her hands and frowning as she tried to imagine just who she would be without that burning rage that had kept her going for untold millennia. Without her goal of destroying Remnant… without her goal of dying… who or what would she become? Would she even be recognizable in the end? What kind of being would she be in the future? What purpose did she want to choose for herself? What purpose could she have, when she'd spent so long doing nothing but breaking everything and blaming everything on others? 

When had she lost her mind and thought that destroying the world in response to her grief over losing the love of her life was the best course of action? She'd loved Ozma so dearly for so long, had wanted nothing but to be at his side, to live happily, to see him smile and create a strong, happy family and a home full of the sound of laughter and many little footsteps.

…

And now she couldn't have that. Not anymore.

Not as she was.

"The Brothers have not treated you well, nor has time, nor your own mind, nor you yourself," the Mechanic murmured softly, smiling ever so softly as she held out a spark of light to Salem- as if offering it to her. To hold. To take. To bring to her heart. "Perhaps it is time for a change? To be kind instead of cruel, to set aside the grudges and the hatred from the past, and let yourself love again?"

"... I… don't think I want to be me anymore," Salem answered, shaking her head. "I can't be who I was before. A-and I don't know who I want to be, either. I think… I think I need to start anew, as someone- something unburdened by everything. Something with a new purpose. A new life. Something small. Something that won't hurt anyone ever again."

"Very well then. I suppose… this will be the one that suits you best," the Mechanic nodded and placed that spark of light- different now, but somehow so similar- to Salem's heart. "If there is one thing you remember after all of this- you may come to me anytime you wish, for a new body, a new heart, a new purpose. And in return for all of that… just live."

Salem… nodded. She smiled… and she let the light take her away.

In an open, calm meadow far away from the great, godly tree, a little mouse opened its eyes, golden fur shimmering in the light of morning. Cerulean irises gazed upon the world with wide wonder- and a little brown mouse with the most gorgeous chestnut eyes sat up across the little clearing in the grass away from her.

The other little mouse stared, and the golden mouse stared back.

And, as if guided by a hand unseen, a little prompt pushing forward from the world itself… the first words that little golden mouse ever spoke were-

"Hello! What… are you?"

And in response, the brown mouse seemed to smile as it answered.

"A friend."