"This is a test," you say to your mother, your antennae twisting and untwisting nervously. She arches an antennae. A pause, and then, "Why do you think that?" "Because..." You consider the intent way she has her raptorials held, the determination she reeks of. Would she be asking you this if she didn't want to do something already? "You said you're testing my judgment as a vesperbane. Well, you're testing it against something, right? Seeing if I live up to standards the stewartry would hold me up to?" And if this was a test, the correct response couldn't be pointing that out. Had you already lost? She sighs low. "No, Eifre." Her antennae uncurl and splay outward, as if she could smell the correct way to phrase her next words. "This is a failing of your training, I suppose. Tests and standards to hew to, histories and logics to memorize. Being a vesperbane is nothing like that." "What is it like, then?" Tlista's head leans back, her gaze rising toward ceiling, perhaps seeing beyond. "I'll say this: when, if, you're faced with a situation with a correct answer, you aren't going to need training to see that. And I'll say this --- call it a hint if you like ---: we are not in one of those situations." This calms your twisting antennae a little bit, but uncertainty does not leave your face, and you don't venture a response. "Dear, we are each born with but a little piece of reason," your mother says warmly. "You're old enough to use yours. I want to hear what it has to say." With that, your legs slack a little bit, and you ease up. Your antennae tap each other as you begin thinking. A binary choice, a dilemma. Take the potion to the witch, or look into her basement. "I am as interested in the fruits of your reasoning as the growth itself. Think aloud for me." "Okay. I think we have two choices: save Maune, or see what in her basement." "Save the witch?" That trips your sprinting thoughts. "Wha?" "I know you haven't forgotten everything Maune's said." Mother curls up one of her maxillary palps into a knowing smile like you've missed something. And it only takes you a few moments to recall. "My daughter said you think there is a way to save you." "Two ways... But I have a preference.". "What did she mean by that? Two ways?" You can see her palps twitching against her pars stridens. She pauses, a considered silence. Cede another hint, or keep the test results pure? She lets out a breath, and finally says, "The witch of the ambrosia woods. Consider why she might have that name." A pause, then, "The weevils are fond of her. I doubt they'd let her die this easily. Maune would rather not resort to their methods, which could be for a variety of reasons." Tlista stops there, and you're sure it's deliberate. "So, rather than saving her, we'd really be saving her from some unknown but maybe not good saving by the ambrosia weevils?" Tlista notably does not nod, but watches. You weigh the options. "Maune is in pain, and will be until we go and bring the potion to her. She asked us to do this, and is expecting us to be doing it and nothing else. And yet, she's a defect. It's deeply wrong to assist defects. It's counter to the Dream, and vesperbanes are supposed to uphold the dream!" You stop to draw in a breath. Your mother nods. "So, what would a vesperbane do? We've managed to infiltrate the lair of a defect! We can report this, there's even vesperbanes in the area we can report to," you say, and Tlista cringes. "A vesperbane would gather all the information they could, which would entail looking into the basement. But, dealing with a defect, why wouldn't they place traps? Oh no, I don't know anything about disarming traps, not even spotting them." Your pitch rises on that last sentence. You bite a palp, and after a moment Tlista places a foretarsus on your head, scratching you between your ocelli. "You can continue, it's okay." "Well, you told those vesperbanes that you were looking after the ambrosia witch. And, um, you and Maune seem to know each other? And she seems... kinda nice? It makes me wonder if we shouldn't be treating her necessarily as an enemy defect." All defects are enemies, genius. Tlista looks down, thought playing out in flexes of her antennae and in the twitches of her maxillae. "I... knew her, before she went missing. We completed a few missions together as fiends, and created a few novel endowments. She was, is, a genius. You can tell by how young she is. I don't even remember if she's made imago yet. If so, just barely? Even now, she reminds me of..." Tlista stops herself, shakes her head, and finally lifts her gaze back up. "We were never close; I was an imago while she was still a nymph. But I respected her intelligence, and she was... helpful, in my poisons research. I gave her direction occasionally, insights or questions that guided her own studies. I... wonder, sometimes if she would have gone defect if we'd never known each other." She shakes her head again, and this time resumes in cadence. "I keep meandering. I hope that answers your questions, dear." You nod. And it feels like you've outlined the extent of the issues, those points in favor of each, and those not. Standing here, peering up at your mother, it's hard not to recall those vanishingly few times she had the time and energy to teach you something. It was basically cooking, whittling away at the stalks of plants, crushing chitin leftover from meals into fine powders, or boiling foul and acrid liquids. Sometimes your mother would name the things you've made; vinegar, spices, obscure soaps. And it's metaphors, informed by that practice, that your mother returns to again and again. Whittling away, grinding down, and boiling away. Reducing, simplifying and distilling ideas down to their core. When it came down to it, there were two options you have. Bring the potion and do what Maune has asked you to do out of compassion, respecting what she's asked you not to do and disregarding what that nagging vesperbane voice inside you insists. Or: Look in her basement, out of suspicion and duty. It's hard to keep ignoring a thought that you keep thinking around, unwilling to face. That Tlista's dilemma, and the insistent pull the second option has on you, isn't just curiosity. "What if..." You're hesitant to say it. "What if Maune has something bad down there? Something... sinister?" Could she? She seemed so nice. "Of course. I'm considering the same thing." There was a breeziness to her tone. You could read why. This was the premise of the conversation, didn't you realize? You twine your antennae together. You couldn't deny, either, that there was a part of you that wasn't much concerned that there might be something sinister, or that Maune would suffer for your choice. As much as you were, or wanted to be, a vesperbane, you were also wanted to be a scholar. Driven by deepest curiosity, it itched that there might be anything in that basement, and no matter what it was sure to be interesting. There was pleasure in knowing, and there was pleasure in sharing. Why hide something, why bar someone from learning? "She said we wouldn't understand everything we'd see." You tried not to take that as an offense to your faculties of understanding. "She's also a defect," Tlista says in a tone of reminder. A few moments filled with thought. "I'm at a loss," you complain to your mother. "If there's nothing bad in the basement, we should just take the potion to Maune. But if there is something dreadful down there, we shouldn't be helping the defect." You throw up your raptorials. "But the only way to find out which is to go down there! It's such a tangle." "Could I make an observation?" You'd welcome any hint. "Yes, please!" "If you really thought there was a chance there was nothing, or something obviously innocent below, you wouldn't be so conflicted about the choice. It would be a simple matter to glance in and determine such. You're afraid. It's not a choice between acting immediately or learning more, you see it instead as a choice between acting as you'd like, in ignorance, or learning something you expect to make you not like the first choice. This isn't a binary, and yet you see it as one." "When you put it that way..." Your maxillae draw in tight. "It doesn't seem like much of a choice at all, does it? It's obvious how a hero would act. "If I may make another observation?" You just stare flatly at her. She laughs once in her thorax, and then, "You're still seeing it as a binary." "How?" "There are two of us, Eifre. We don't have to act unilaterally." "So you mean for one of us to go into the basement while the other delivers the potion?" "I mean for me to go downstairs --- you said yourself there might be traps --- while you deliver the potion. How does that sound, Eifre?" "It sounds..." you start. "Like exactly what I said it was! This was a test, and that's the right answer!" "Not at all. If you trust Maune, I will accompany you. And if you really want to descend with me..." Tlista takes a deep breath, and then looks you up and down, and then looks you in the eye, "If that's what you really want, I will allow it. The choice remains yours, and we are presented no correct answers." Just as you're about to say something, there comes from behind a hard bonk right against your head. You turn just slightly, and the offender comes into your periphery. The crow familiar, Reva. You aren't even surprised the thing knew exactly how to stay inside a mantis's blindspot. Turning further, you swat a raptorial at the crow. It dodges fluidly, flying up to your face and pecking right above your mandibles. "Ow, what the why!" "Blood," the crow squawks harshly high. You feel something pressed into your other raptorial \-- it's the thick red potion, your mother is giving it to you. "Your choice," she repeats. The bird pecks you again, in the same spot, and you feel it piercing sharply into your chitin. Your choice, and