Echelons of Nekhii

Soul

What should have been a quick errand to the Driftdowns was cut short by a malfunctioning sentinel. Nekhii always carried her grimoire, of course, but she didn’t even have time to draw it before the automaton shot her from behind. The laser pierced her lungs and she immediately collapsed.

She didn’t want to die. She had a daughter to go home to. She had a wife— surely Carmein would come in through the dome any day now if only Nekhii could hold on—

Through her tunneling vision Nekhii could see the sentinel collapse, bisected. A hunter came running up to her, swearing up a storm. “No, no, I was too late!” he exclaimed. “Hold on, okay? I’ll get you to someone who can…”

There wasn’t time. Nekhii could feel the life slipping away from her. She hacked up blood, then went still.

She felt a hand brush through her hair just above one of her horns.

Body

Everything went white. So this was what it felt like to return to the aetherial sea? Nekhii felt like she was floating. Then her feet touched the ground, and her body felt every bit as corporeal as it ever had.

She opened her eyes. She was still standing on the road that led to the Driftdowns. The sky above roiled with levin. The Shetona hunter stood before her, strangely monochrome in appearance but with relief marking every ilm of his face.

“Thank the gods I made it in time,” he breathed.

Nekhii’s hand flew up to touch the side of her head. She gripped the small round device and froze in shock. “No,” she breathed. “You didn’t—”

“Don’t worry, I have a few more souls saved up. I’m just glad—”

She ripped off the regulator and threw it to the ground at her feet. “How could you?! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!”

He knelt and snatched his regulator back up. “I’m terribly sorry for saving your life!” he snapped. “I’ve seen you around before, don’t you have a daughter? Did you want her to become an orphan?!”

His angry tone contradicted his soulless appearance. He lacked the colored aura that all ensouled beings, whether man or beast, possessed. Except— She looked down at her own hand and let out a horrified whimper. Her own aura was gone. She had no soul? Regulators couldn’t resurrect someone without putting a soul in them, so how—

She collapsed to her knees as the realization hit her. Her soul-sight came from Hythlodaeus. Her soul-sight, her Echo, her Blessing of Light…

Her soulbond.

She wasn’t Nekhii anymore. She was just some random soul with the memories of a dead woman imprinted on it.

The hunter helped her to her feet and escorted her back to the outskirts. She was so unresponsive that he must have thought something was wrong; he left her in the care of the village chirurgeon, a woman named Wahtiwa.

“You seem physically well,” Wahtiwa remarked. “Do you feel any ill effects after your resurrection?”

“I…” Instead of meeting her gaze, Nekhii’s eyes lingered on the chirurgeon’s regulator. The sight of the things had repulsed her before—no, had repulsed the old Nekhii, the one who could see the souls held within them. This Nekhii, or whoever she was, saw only a blank white shell.

Not to mention Wahtiwa herself, like the hunter before, like Nekhii herself or any of the dozen-or-so people they had passed on their way through town to here—Nekhii knew they had souls, but being unable to see them made her feel like she was looking at sentinels or mammets.

How was she going to be able to look Nergui in the eyes? Her own daughter would look like a soulless abomination to Nekhii’s eyes.

And worse, she wasn’t her daughter’s mother anymore.

“Nekhii?” Wahtiwa’s brows furrowed in concern. “Are you able to focus?”

“Y-yes, sorry.” Nekhii looked down at her lap. How could she explain this? To anyone? “I’m just… in shock, I suppose. I’ve never died before.” She laughed weakly.

Wahtiwa asked her a few more questions and gave her a good looking-over, but was eventually convinced that Nekhii was well enough to let go.

Memory

In the privacy of her own home, the woman with Nekhii’s memories sank down onto the sofa, pulled off her glasses, and rubbed her hands over her face.

She didn’t know how long she sat like that before the door opened again. She jerked in surprise.

Oh, fuck.

Nergui stepped inside and pushed down the hood of her cloak. “Mama, I’m—” She paused. “Is something wrong?”

Nekhii stared for a moment. Nergui never put her hood down in front of strangers. Most people weren’t outright rude about her mixture of Miqo’te and Au Ra features, but enough were that she was insecure about it. But then. She didn’t know that her own mother was a stranger now, did she?