Ch.5K: "Lost Souls" / Kell at Fairy Spring

[Legendary Sidekick]

Spoiler: theme song: Become a Robot

None to pleased about your predicament, you storm off to the Fairy Springs. It seems Kell-Pi has friends there, judging by the way fairies come out to greet you. As it happens, their little faces are familiar to you…

Shelly and Steph simply say hello in unison, though you're not sure what to make of Shelly's look of concern until Debbie asks, "Why do you look so upset?" (Apparently, your metal face still presents emotion.) "And where's Penni? Did something happen to her?"

Cathy shushes her friend, then says, "Don't mind her. Why don't you tell us what's going on, Kell-Pi? Is it about the secret mission we're not supposed to know about?"

 

[tbgg]

Kell attempts to takea deep breath, but since Kell-Pi's body does not need to breathe, she finds herself unable to. Groaning in frustration, she finally says, "Although what you see before you is the body of Kell-Pi, what is now contained inside this body is not the consciousness of Kell-Pi, but rather that of Kelleia, the silver-haired nymph most of you know as Kell. I was forced into this form without being asked if I wanted to make the switch, and I stormed out of Plambot Mansion when it was made clear to me that the change was not an accident, but rather an intentional act." She debates whether to explain about her history of always feeling manipulated by Aphrodite, but decides not to for the moment. She isn't in the mood.

"As for Penni, she was with Heph when I left."


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[Legendary Sidekick]

Debbie says, "Oh. Well, I guess she needs rest. We were hoping she'd say goodbye before taking off to Helios."

Cathy says, "Hey. Wait. I remember you, Kell. So is this whole... switch thing... part of the secret mission?"

Steph asks, "It's safe to talk now, right?"

Shelly adds, "We would never bring this up while the sun's up."

The fairies are apparently so excited about the secret mission, they don't seem to realize that by not being the real Kell-Pi, you don't automatically know what Kell-Pi knows just because you're in her body.

 

[tbgg]

Kell glances around, checking on the time of day. In her anger at her circumstances, she didn't even pay attention to that when she stormed out of the mansion.

"I know next to nothing of the secret mission. Heph mentioned it, and offered me the chance to go, but this was barely 10 minutes after I awoke to find myself in this body. As though being forced into a new body whose limits and abilities I know nothing about is no different than changing my clothes!" She rolls her eyes in exasperation.

'Helios...Helios...would this be a mission to Apollo? Or would it be a fake mission intended to mislead Apollo if he were to find out about it?'




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[Legendary Sidekick]

Chatty Cathy asks, "So what did Heph tell you about the mission? Surely he told you it's for Leto?"

Debbie Downer says, "Her name's Sigrlinn now. Remember?"

Cathy shrugs, "Leto, Sigrlinn... either way Helios is searching for her."

 

[tbgg]

Kell replies, "He told me nothing except his maidens were gearing up for a mission and I could go along, too, if I wanted. That's literally all I heard about the mission. We've known for a while now that Helios is after Sigrlinn. Let's just say we found ways of avoiding his notice."

She hopes the fairies will leave the subject alone after this. If they don't, she supposes she can just keep walking. She wants to talk to someone about how hurt she's feeling, and she isn't sure these fairies can help with that. She's finding that Cathy and Debbie's talkativeness is grating on her nerves, but it occurs to her that Shelly might be good to talk to.

'She's quiet,' Kell ponders to herself. 'I like that about her.'

So she walks up to the two honeymooning fairies and says, "If it's not too much of an imposition, I was wondering if I might speak privately with Shelly for a little while. I promise to take good care of her, if she's willing."

'Or as good as I can in a body I'm unfamiliar with, anyway,' she thinks ruefully to herself.


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[Legendary Sidekick]

Shelly seems to want permission from Steph, who shrugs.

When Shelly and Kell find a place to talk alone, she says, "I've never seen you like this before, Kell-Pi. Oh, probably because… well… what do you want to tell me?"

The fairy is visibly nervous. She looks back in Steph's general direction, then up at you, hovering at a safe distance.

 

[tbgg]

Kell pauses, and then says with a sad smile, "I'm *not* Kell-Pi, remember? I know that you're here on your honeymoon, and the last thing I want to do is to impose on you during such a special time. It's not so much that I have a thing to tell you, it's more that I badly need to have a conversation with someone who will actually listen to me for a little while. If that feels like more than you want to take on while on your honeymoon or is beyond your comfort level or capability in any way, then just say so and I'll happily let you go back to Steph with no hard feelings on my part. I can just keep walking and hopefully I'll find someone else. I chose you to ask because I've noticed you're quiet, and I was hoping that might mean you're a good listener. But the choice is really up to you. What do you say?"

She decides to take the fairy's nervousness as evidence of a timid nature for now. She hopes that there's nothing she's said or done that the tiny winged woman will feel alarmed by.


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[Legendary Sidekick]

"Um…" The fairy says, "okay."

She finds a tree branch where she can sit comfortably and listen.

 

[tbgg]

Kell isn't feeling terribly confident about her choice of a confidant based on the fairy's response thus far, but having drug the tiny woman away from her spouse, she figures she might as well give it a shot.

"I'm a nymph when I'm in my proper body, and I don't know if you know this or not, but nymphs hatch from eggs, and there's not really a mother nymph around because we look like 16-year-old human girls when we hatch. No one really knows where nymph eggs come from, but they wind up on the hatching grounds at Aphrodite's villa in Nyse. If Aphrodite deems a nymph 'special', she takes her in at the villa for 6 years of training, most of it about how to use our charisma, how to attract a man, how to make the most of our appearance. I was one of those nymphs deemed 'special' enough to be taken in at the villa, and from pretty early on, Aphrodite would make decisions about things that affected me without consulting me beforehand or even talking to me about it afterward. As one example, we were supposed to be given a say in the classes we took. I badly wanted to take a classical literature class, which was listed on the list of electives. I didn't get in. I thought maybe there was a big demand for it, so I asked one of the girls who did get in. She said there were only 5 students, and the teacher was disappointed there weren't more. So I went in and asked the teacher, and she said my name had been on the list, but then she was told Aphrodite herself requested I be removed from the class. I went in and waited for 4 hours outside of Aphrodite's office before I could get in to see her and she only shrugged and said I didn't need anything so dry and boring. I told her that to me literature was neither dry or boring, and I asked to be added back to the class. She said I didn't know what I needed and to not worry about it. "

"There would be multiple issues like that every year. If I asked for clothing in one style, other nymphs would get more or less what they asked for, but mine would always be fancier or more stylish when all I wanted was plain. If I asked for something in blue, she would get it for me in red or green. If I tried asking for it in yellow hoping I could use reverse psychology to get blue, she'd give it to me in gold. And if I traded what I got with someone else for something more like what I wanted, she would call me into her office and lecture me, saying I was ungrateful for trading what I had received away. I told her if she'd try giving me what I asked for some of the time, she'd find I was less likely to trade, but she'd go on about how I didn't know what I really wanted. I think I would have run away by the second year if it weren't for this woman I met named Niobe. Niobe wasn't at all like Aphrodite, and she became like a mother to me. If I asked Niobe for something, she would get me what I asked for, or if she couldn't, she would give me both an explanation for why I didn't get the requested item and whatever the substitute was, she nearly always took my tastes into account. Aphrodite hardly ever took my tastes into account, and she was always forcing me into doing stuff where I couldn't back out without seeming like the bad guy. Niobe died at the end of my 5th year at the villa, and I felt so alone, I ran away from the villa partway through my 6th year. I couldn't take any more of the way Aphrodite always ignored my tastes and was always trying to force me to do what she wanted."

"I had a talk with her a few days ago in Nyse, and I *thought* we had a clearing of the air. I thought she understood how much I hate being manipulated and not being consulted about things that affect me and that that she wasn't going to do that anymore."

"Then this whole switching consciousnesses with Kell-Pi came up. I'll grant you I don't know the whole story on that. It seemed like Heph and Kell-Pi did most of the work involved in the switching, but I can't believe Aphrodite didn't know about it. And once again, a decision was made that affects me more than anyone else, but I was not consulted or given a chance to say yes or no to the change. It was just shoved down my throat without my permission or consent, and I feel so angry and hurt I can't stand it. I told Heph that as long as he and Aphrodite saw me as only a puppet to be pushed around and manipulated at will whenever they felt like it, they would never have a relationship with me. And then I left the Mansion. I just can't take it any more." Although Kell is not particularly well acquainted with her new form, she does sense the glow near Kell-Pi's eyes dimming.

"Did any of that even make sense? Would it bother you if someone else constantly..." She nearly asks Shelly if it would bother her to have someone else constantly make decisions for her about things that affect her without consulting her, but the fairy's constant deference to Steph makes Kell reconsider the wisdom of asking this particular fairy that particular question. "...ignored your tastes and feelings?"

Kell looks hopelessly at the tiny fairy.


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[Legendary Sidekick]

Shelly listens intently, then thinks for a moment.

"Why?" she whispers. "I mean... having Kell-Pi's body is an extreme change, far beyond colors of dresses. Do you know why?"

 

[tbgg]

Kell frowns, then asks Shelly, "Are you asking me why they put me into Kell-Pi's body?"


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[Legendary Sidekick]

"Just thinking aloud," she says. "Steps picks out clothes for me, and I'm fine with it. I like the choices she makes... and I hate picking out outfits. But if she put me in Penni's body, that would be very weird." She shakes her head. "Why did they...?"

She blushes a bit and looks at you. "You don't have to answer that."

 

[tbgg]

Kell assures Shelly, "It's a perfectly reasonable question. And I don't have the entire answer, but I do know this much: I came close to dying because Sigrlinn and I got caught in a forest fire in Sardis Forest. I don't think I was burned because we made it to a nearby lake, and after I woke up in Kell-Pi's body, my body didn't look burned, that I could tell. Right before I woke up, I remember Kell-Pi saying I had a tiny chance of waking up that day, but like a 60% chance of surviving if she used a solution she came up with, and that she thought I would consider that 'good'. I remember thinking that it would really depend on what the solution was whether I would call it good or not. So I have to assume they did it to save my life."

"But what bothers me is that they didn't try to get Helix, my blue-green unicorn, to try to communicate with me. He and I can speak by thought, or at least, we can in my nymph body. I had a hard time remembering things before I woke up, but once I heard someone, I would remember some things about them, and I know I heard Helix at least once, but before I could try to talk to him myself, well, that was the point I nearly died."

She gives Shelly an earnest look. "Does that help any?"


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[Legendary Sidekick]

Shelly says, "So you were dying? Or your body is? Are you going to have your body back? And Kell-Pi..."

She pauses.

"Sorry. I just want to be a good listener, but everything you tell me raises questions. I don't have the answers, but if I were you, I'd want my own body back."

Thinking a bit more, she adds, "If you died, you could never have your body back. You're very lucky and very unlucky at the same time. I think."

 

[tbgg]

Kell nods to Shelly, saying, "I know there are a lot of questions. Yes, I think my nymph body might be dying. I think Kell-Pi meant that doing this switch gives my nymph body a 60% chance of surviving, but I'm not sure because she didn't say what the chance of my nymph body surviving was if we didn't switch bodies, only that my chance of waking up *today* in my nymph body was less than 1%. And she said nothing at all about why my waking up *today* instead of whenever my nymph body heals naturally might be important. And if my nymph body dies with Kell-Pi in it, I don't know if she would die or I would. It may be she didn't know, either."

"And that's how I feel, too. I want MY body back. I mean no offense to Kell-Pi's body in saying that, I'm just familiar with my nymph body. I know what I can expect from it. And I feel really, really betrayed that they sprung this 'solution' on me without letting me have a say in what happened to me. I feel like all I am to them is a piece on a game board to be manipulated at their whim. If that's all I am to them, I'd rather die in my own body and be done with their abuse of power." As much as she'd miss getting closer to Vin, she feels confident that in time he'd find someone new to love. It might even be a better option for him to have someone who ages at the same rate he does.

She feels her face start to crumple up, but is unsure whether Kell-Pi's body is capable of shedding tears.


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[Legendary Sidekick]

"Well... while you're welcome to spend the night in the place Kell-Pi usually stays, if you want your body back, then you need to be where your body is. Don't you?"

 

[tbgg]

"I do," Kell acknowledges. "I told them I'd only go back to the Mansion to be transferred back into my body. But I don't know how quickly I can be transferred back. I was assuming Aphrodite would send me a message by animal or Heph would send one of his maidens to let me know when it was time."

"Where does Kell-Pi usually stay, anyhow? I wonder if she left any notes or a journal or anything with any answers about the body switch that I don't currently have?"


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[Legendary Sidekick]

You are shown a cave which almost appears to be a throne room. There are books, but when you look at them you can see these are works of fiction and poetry. The symbol "Pi" is on each cover along with a small number to the upper right (positioned like an exponent).

There are several tiny chairs, benches and sofas on the reading table.

The bed that can accommodate you has a tiny bed next to it. Both look equally uncomfortable, which wouldn't be an issue if you're made of metal.

 

[tbgg]

Kell looks at each and every book, checking for evidence of something handwritten inside and also to gauge whether Kell-Pi wrote any of the books. She also holds up each book spine up and shakes it, as though trying to dislodge any loose sheets of paper or parchment inside.

Finally she looks around the room for where Kell-Pi might have rested. Are there any maiden-sized chairs or beds, or a place for her metal body to recharge? If she finds anything, she searches it for notes or a journal or really, anything of interest.


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