Rebirth and Second Chances

Chapter 112: Solution

"Are you suggesting we close and kill the Sithern ourselves? A gentler, kinder type of euthanasia?" I asked shocked. Even the thought of killing the Sithern causing sweat to break out across my body, drops of perspiration collecting to run down my back. Cold chills were joined by shudders of revulsion. The thought of killing the Sithern was so repugnant that I was forced to tighten my stomach muscles in order to gain control of my gag reflex and refrain from vomiting.

"Close, yes. Kill, no," Duchess Wynn clarified interrupting the spiraling panic I had become immersed in. "As part of claiming the Sithern, you will be prompted as to placement. You can keep the Sithern here or chose to move it. If you decide to move it, it and the denizens that have spawned will be placed in stasis, a 'kernel' waiting for you to choose a new location and plant it."

"Wasn't this Sithern created by you?" I asked. "Why would you be willing to give possession to me? If I refuse the claim, can you still re-gain control?"

"That is no longer possible. When you made changes, when you added the Winter domain, you severed my connections.

"You would not have been able to make changes if the Sithern were fully formed. Because it was still capable of evolving, the changes you introduced allowed the Sithern to take that last leap into awareness and fully awaken.

"When I cast the spell that gave rise to the Sithern, I was focused only on safety and hiding. My Rank was not high enough to engender a fully functional space. It was only because I was the highest Ranked Sidhe in the Dungeon that I was able to form a pseudo-Sithern. That and because no other Sithern existed on the planet.

"CERN might have been a dungeon instance, but it was built on the bedrock of the reality of this world. As it was, it required some legalese and twisting of System resources to actualize and give birth to a Sithern that was not corrupted or insane because of location and the inability to harvest Sidhe magic and influence. Or communicate with other Sitherns.

"Cut off from Talahm and the Tuatha de Danaan Pantheon, it is very likely that madness is inevitable even without the intervention of local Gods. Your intervention has saved and awoken the full potential, and intelligence that I had planted. It is why the Sithern responded so adroitly to your thoughts, desires, and actions.

"Between the two of us, we have given birth to a fully formed entity that if nurtured can evolve to any Sidhe Sithern capital."

"The Sithern has self-awareness and identity, as part of its intelligence?" I asked.

"Yes. Limited in scope. More instinctive, reactionary to external and internal forces. The Sithern is a concept, a merging of ideas and expectations that it acquires from those that claim it, and that it claims. But like any newborn, that identity and intelligence are not fully formed at birth, it grows the more it is able to interact with the people that reside inside. It is just potential at the moment.

"Your actions, those people you allow to access the Sithern, to make their homes here, will influence how it grows, and what it learns. It is the reason the Seelie and Unseelie Sitherns are so drastically different," Wynne warned.

"The Seelie Sithern is all bright lights and shiny illusions, masking and hiding the ugly nature of the Seelie Royals behind false whispers and elements of light. The Unseelie, more honest in their actions, have embraced shadow and darkness, but refuse to hide those actions. Their Sithern is splashed with the vestiges of blood and viscous fluids. A people who are proud of their ability to torture and endure torture and not afraid to admit it.

"The Sitherns have grown to reflect their benefactors. Countless eons, a multitude of people that have driven deep channels and entrenched habits into the very bedrock and essence that the Sithern controls, has formed Sitherns that reflect the personalities and characteristics of those that have claimed those dimensional spaces.

"Blood calls to blood is a truism for a reason. You shed blood, crafted an altar of respect and worship for the Tuatha de Danaan Pantheon, and restored the balance of nature to the Sithern be including the Winter domain.

"Your blood was shed to create balance. Stronger than the magics, the desperation that forced my hand, when I made the attempt to summon and construct a Sithern that could protect the Sidhe from a Dungeon where weapons of iron are commonplace. Your blood has breathed true life into the Sithern and awakened the potential that was waiting just beneath the surface. And now that potential can be shaped.

"Claim the Sithern, choose the option and settings that allow you to move location and placement. Encapsulate it and the denizens that have chosen to remain into a kernel, a seed of rebirth and renewal, and hold it safe until you have claimed land on Talahm where you can restore functionality. Only then, plant the waiting seed of possibilities and make the Sithern your Capital when you do," she suggested.

"It would be too monstrous not to accept the gift the Sithern is offering you. Too cruel to abandon it or kill it."