Part one hundred forty two — Everybody Wake Up

　Eris woke first among the fallen, blinking against a light that took her a genuinely embarrassing number of seconds to realize she could actually see properly.

Wait.

Wait, I can see.

　She sat up too fast, the world swimming briefly before settling into focus――actual focus, actual color, actual shapes that weren't the aura-shaped approximation she'd trained herself to live with.

　"My eyes," she said, out loud, disbelieving, one hand pressed to her own face like she needed physical proof this wasn't some kind of trick.

　"Blue and red," Kai said.

　She turned toward the voice, and there he was――standing over her, entirely calm despite everything that had just apparently happened to all of them, watching her with an expression she'd never once seen on him before, gentle and amused and something else underneath it she didn't have a word for yet.

　She didn't think.

　She just moved, throwing herself at him without warning, and he caught her easily, laughing――actually laughing, warm and real――as the rest of the room slowly, groggily started waking up around them.

　Ace was next, blinking his way back into consciousness with considerably less dignity than he'd probably have preferred, immediately registering something different about himself before he'd even fully processed the room.

I feel... considerably more than I used to feel, he said through the link, testing something internally with obvious fascination. This is new. This is genuinely new.

Welcome to the club, Kai said, dry. Apparently we're all something new now.

　Elaine woke third, sat up with her usual composed efficiency, and immediately, instinctively, reached for her own magic to test it――and went very still at whatever she found waiting there.

　"That's――" she started, staring at her own hands. "That's considerably more than Authority of Genesis used to give me."

　"Everybody got an upgrade, apparently," Kai said, still faintly overwhelmed himself. "Guess that's what happens when your whole household evolves alongside you without being properly consulted about it first."

　Ivy and Enzo woke together, both immediately, instinctively assessing their own new cores with the exact same focused precision, before both looking up at Kai with something between awe and genuine, unguarded affection.

　"You're glowing," Ivy said, matter-of-fact.

　"I'm what?"

　"Glowing," she repeated. "Faintly. It's actually rather distracting."

　"I don't think I can just turn that off," Kai said, mildly alarmed.

　<"You can,"> Anti-Subconsciousness――Null-Subconsciousness now, though the shift in name hadn't fully settled into Kai's own habits yet――offered, brief as ever. <"Focus on suppressing the aura's visible output.">

　Kai tried it, and the faint glow dimmed considerably, though Ivy still watched him with the specific fondness of someone who'd genuinely enjoyed the previous few seconds of teasing him about it.

　"Show-off," Eris said, still not letting go of him.

　"I didn't ask for this," Kai said. "Any of it. I just woke up like this."

　"Sure," Eris said, unconvinced, grinning.

　Nyxara, watching the whole reunion unfold with obvious, genuine delight, finally spoke up.

　"As entertaining as this all is, I believe there's the small matter of your actual appearance to properly address."

　Kai looked down at himself for what felt like the first time――the white hair with its streak of red, the black-and-white cloak, the faint shimmer of wings folded against his back that he hadn't consciously noticed until she pointed toward them.

　"I have wings," he said, disbelieving.

　"You have wings," Nyxara confirmed. "And horns. And considerably sharper nails than you started this week with."

　He tried, instinctively, to will the wings away, and found――to his own genuine surprise――that they simply folded into nothing, invisible, along with the small horns and the sharpened nails, until he looked, for all appearances, exactly like the boy who'd walked into that fight a week earlier.

　"Handy," he said.

　"Very," Nyxara agreed. "Wouldn't want you frightening every merchant who wanders through Horizoncrest's gates from now on."

　Ace, once the initial shock of everyone's evolution had settled somewhat, made his priorities immediately, unmistakably clear.

I require food, he announced through the link, with total sincerity. An entire week unconscious is an unacceptable gap in my culinary schedule.

　"You've been asleep, not fasting on purpose," Kai said. "Your schedule's fine."

My schedule is severely compromised, Ace insisted, already heading toward the door with considerably more energy than someone who'd just undergone an entire species-level transformation had any right to display. I demand compensation. Preferably in the form of something involving that Ambrosabeast recipe you've been neglecting to make properly for months.

　"You're demanding food from me. Right now. After everything that just happened."

Priorities, Ace said, entirely unbothered.

　Eris, still not far from Kai's side, laughed properly for the first time since waking.

　"He's not wrong, honestly. I could genuinely eat an entire kingdom's worth of food right now."

　"Please don't phrase it that way," Elaine said, dry. "Given recent events."

　The whole household ended up crowded into Horizoncrest's largest kitchen within the hour, an impromptu, chaotic celebration meal assembling itself out of whatever ingredients were closest to hand――nobody particularly organized about it, everybody simply relieved enough to be alive and together that proper planning felt entirely beside the point.

　"You cook considerably better now," Enzo observed, watching Kai work through what had once been a genuinely embarrassing skill.

　"Do I?" Kai asked, surprised, tasting his own attempt with cautious optimism.

　"You do," Ivy confirmed. "Something about the evolution, presumably. Your senses seem considerably more refined across the board."

　"Finally," Eris said. "After all these years of watching you nearly set things on fire."

　"That happened exactly twice," Kai said.

　"It happened considerably more than twice," Elaine corrected, entirely without mercy.

　Ace, several helpings into his own recovery meal, offered his usual unsolicited critique with total confidence.

　"Acceptable. Not your finest work, but acceptable, given the circumstances."

　"You're not even chewing properly," Kai said. "How can you even judge the flavor at that speed?"

I contain multitudes, Ace said, and the entire table groaned in unison, the old joke landing exactly as poorly and exactly as perfectly as it always did between them.

　Nyxara, seated among them with genuine, uncomplicated pleasure, watched the whole scene unfold with something warm behind her usual amusement.

This is what I actually came here for, half the time, she thought privately, watching the family bicker and laugh around a table that had nearly, so narrowly, not had this exact scene happen at all.

　She said nothing about Vorath's visit that night.

　Some things, she'd decided, could wait a little longer before disturbing an evening this genuinely, hard-earned good.