I was right. Umbra is very ready for a break.
In more ways than one.
She has me on the war room's table again, and is making me hers in every possible sense. To my complete shock and thrilling pleasure, Penny is watching with intrigue from right up close. Though she wants no involvement, apparently she's interested in observing. She's holding my head in her lap playing with my hair while Umbra obliterates me. It's one of the greatest things I've ever experienced.
When Umbra is finally done with me, she licks at my entire body before standing up with a sigh. "Hahh… So much tension within me, now released. And what a beautiful sight you are as a result of my handiwork…"
"Handiwork," I wheeze, still flooded with pleasure. "That's… one way… to put it."
"I'm amazed," Penny mumbles. "The size difference…"
"How dearly she loves being crushed beneath me," Umbra purrs with a laugh, kissing my stomach then my lips. Placing a hand over my body like usual to feel my ecstasy, she takes a deep breath and lets it out. "Better. Much better. What was it you wished to speak about, Penny?"
"Oh. Are we… Right now?"
"Yes. Don't mind her."
"Um. Okay." Penny straightens up, adjusting my head in her lap. "I want to contribute to your cause. I want to join your intelligence division. As a tactician, or a researcher, or… Whatever you need me to be. Please? Crim-Crim said I could…"
"Did she?" Umbra chuckles and presses down on me a little. "I wasn't aware my Crimsy decided such things. Hmm. I'll consider it. But first, I've a number of questions for you. First and foremost… Why do you care?"
"Hm? Why do… I don't understand the question."
"You wish to contribute to my cause. Why do you care to do so?"
"Oh. Because of what Crim-Crim said."
"My Crimsy can sometimes be a chatterbox. She says many things. Which things in particular swayed you?"
They're talking over me like I'm not here. I quite like that.
Penny recites each and every word of my blasphemous tirade, then concludes with, "Nobody has hurt me quite like they have Crim-Crim, but my life in the Heavens was agony of a different shade. The draconids who birthed, hatched, and raised me did so with malice, using psychological and physical torture to break me down so I would fit into the predefined cultural expectations of a child living in a dignified aristocratic family. And yet those expectations under which I suffered were levied by those in power. By Aurora."
"Hm." Umbra tilts forward over me. "Vengeance?"
"Justice," Penny declares, not budging an inch. "For Crim-Crim. For Zip. For me. For everyone who wasn't seen as good enough."
Umbra taps a claw on the table next to my head. "Very well. I believe you're earnest in supporting my cause. My next question for you is this. Why you?"
"I'm smart."
"Are you?"
"Yes."
"Elaborate."
"Note that Crim-Crim did not speak a word of what I'm about to say, and in your library, I have been isolated from any offhand mention of it as well. These past few weeks, you've had the intelligence division searching for the possible location of a divine sword, which is somewhere in the Heavens. Should I guess which sword specifically?"
Umbra lets the grim silence hang. A frigid shadow has passed over her, and her claws dig in and take the table a little. "Crimson?"
My blood goes cold. "I swear, Umbsy, I swear, I didn't–"
"Divine beings can only be affected by divine entities," Penny thankfully explains. "However, for reasons unbeknownst to me, it seems you believe yourself unfit for the task of defeating Aurora, you've chosen not to use any of the divine weapons that are already in your possession or on Avi, such as the Solar Shield and Sunbeam, and it's my inference that you won't be getting any other divine beings involved. With those three facts in mind, the direction of your focus becomes plainly obvious. A divine weapon, which you currently do not possess and cannot retrieve, can only be in the Heavens. It's that simple, Miss Umbra."
She's warming back up some. "I suppose it is. And? Why do you think it's a sword?"
"Crim-Crim was reading a book about ancient swords. I read the title."
Umbra dryly chuckles, plucking me off the table and holding me to her chest. "Ah. How cruel, a betrayal of the most foul. Crimsy, my little rose. How could you?"
I cling to her, trembling. "I–I'm… I'm sorry…"
"I'm only teasing, my love." She kisses my head and my cheek. "You've done nothing wrong. Thank you for staying true to your word. I'm grateful."
Now feeling her adoring comfort, I whimper, "I love you…"
"No, thank you, Crimsy. Very good. Very good indeed." She starts petting my head and playing with my hair, taking our usual seat at the table. "Quite the deduction, Penny. I am impressed. To answer your yet unspoken questions… There are indeed a number of reasons why I've chosen the weapon that I have."
"Mhm?" She scoots closer, sitting on the table's edge with her legs dangling over. "Will you explain?"
"I may as well, at this point. It is true that I'm unfit for the task. You see, Aurora and I are polar opposites, and though I am the eldest between us, she is indeed an even match when it comes to power. Thousands of times we've gone through this dance, and it always ends the same way. When the two of us clash, it inevitably ends in a stalemate. I cannot best her. She cannot best me."
I wasn't aware of that. Good to know.
"An equal match," Penny murmurs to herself. "Hm. Thus the need for a weapon."
"Yes. And on that note, you are correct once again. I have chosen not to use the divine weapons that I already possess. For one, the Solar Shield and Sunbeam are fragments of Aurora's own power. They can do nothing against her."
"But divine weapons cannot be created."
"I did not say she created them. I said they are fragments of her power. That being light magic."
Penny sits motionless, her antennae doing the opposite. "That eliminates the vast majority of divine weapons located in the Heavens."
"It does. And, similarly, weapons composed of dark magic are just as impotent. We are two sides of the same coin, so to speak. Opposite, antithetical, but not inverse. Not separate. Again, stalemate."
"But then… What's left?"
"Cosmic magic. Otherwise known as void or primordial magic. Divine entities whose alignment is best described as something other. Weapons which are neither light nor dark, here nor there, hers nor mine. Then there's temporal and spatial magic, but that's where everything becomes strange and overly complex. I don't intend to wander through the fabric of time looking for one little needle in an infinite haystack. So, I chose a cosmic weapon. Yes, Crimsy?"
I stop tapping her chest. "Atr you certain you didn't choose the sword because it would be poetic to kill her with the weapon she stole when she betrayed you?"
She clenches her jaw. Takes a breath in. "Must you embarrass me in front of company?"
That makes me laugh, swoon, and hug her. "Aww! Umbsy! It's okay! Penny doesn't cast judgments!"
"I quite like the poeticism, in fact. It's worth the trouble."
Umbra sighs, her face just a touch pinker. "At least you understand. Do not tell any of the others. I'm entrusting you with this… frivolous secret."
"It stays with me," Penny nods with a vague smile. Kicking her feet, her faint grin takes a mischievous turn. "If you tell me which weapon you're after, Miss Umbra, then chances are… I might know exactly where it is."
"Hm. I'll bite. And how is that, Penny?"
"I worked as a librarian at the Archives for more than a century. Due to its very nature as an institute of learning, much more than books and scrolls pass through its halls, particularly at the beck and call of the upper echelons of Scribes. And the Elder. Many of those items were obscured, kept secret, but… People talk. A lot. Too much. Sometimes, about things they shouldn't. Sometimes, around people who happen to hear them. See, most everyone thinks I'm completely spaced out at all times, or that I'm somehow dim-witted. However, Crim-Crim will verify the assertion that I do pay attention to the things happening around me, but only when I find them more interesting than what's in my mind. Now, my coworkers, they talk around me as if I can't hear what they're saying. As if I'm not there. As if I don't exist. So, sometimes, I hear things. Things that I shouldn't hear. Things that would ruin people. Things that have been moved around. Stored. Transported. Studied…"
Umbra is leaning forward over her lap, suddenly intrigued. "And you're able to recall these dismissive indiscretions?"
"I am. Word for word." Penny crosses one leg over the other, leaning back on her hands with an unusually coy look on her face. "So? Why me? Because I'm me. That's why. Ask me your question. See if I have an answer. Maybe… Just maybe… I could do in seconds what it would take your intelligence division years to do."
"Crimson. Is all this true? Or is she boasting?"
"Umbra… She's boasting by speaking the truth."
"Well then." Umbra's lips crack open into a grin. "Penelope. You little savant. Yes, I'm keeping you. Welcome to my intelligence division. You're their new administrator. That said, you won't be telling them what to do. You'll be telling me what I should tell them to do. Understand?"
"Yes, Miss Umbra. Anything that you require of me."
"Excellent. Where is my younger sister hiding Longevity?"
"Longevity…" Penny begins to glow brighter. "Not long before I departed, the Elder brought it in for study. He's likely still examining it. Which means, it's either within, below, or around the Archives. If not the Lighthouse itself."
Umbra draws in a long breath and exhales even slower.
"Xikarius. Hells. What a heist this will be."