Chapter 5: Remanence

Melia picked a hard candy out of the bowl. She was getting pretty good at manipulating light objects at a distance with only her mind, only making hand motions so it didn't look too eerie to onlookers. It was very convenient for moving documents around the Audience Chamber without having to wait on aides or leave the throne.

She ate the candy and considered where to turn her self-training to next. Sure, she was always busy with all that had to be done as empress, but having held a Monado for precious few minutes left her with a drive to see how far she could bend or break the laws of physics under her own power. The new world wasn't quite the same as the old one under the covers, but it did follow a lot of the same rules, and she had enough of the tiniest foothold into its inner workings that every day she pushed herself to learn how to rewrite reality ever further.

I like how I snapped my fingers to initiate a lightning strike, she considered, idly rubbing her hand across the throne's armrest as if it would create static. Perhaps I'll start with ionising my fingers as I snap them.

There was an arrival in the Audience Chamber. Melia recognised him as the palace jailkeeper.

"Hello, Zeth." She was experimenting with running affairs slightly less formally, though she found she often slipped back after a few minutes. "What do you have to report?"

"I have news on the prime prisoner," he said.

"Do you now?" Melia leaned forward with interest.

"Yes." The jailkeeper paused for effect. "The prime prisoner has requested death."

Melia nodded. I must admit she held out longer than expected, but no matter. "Very well. Advance to the next phase of the torture plan." She used her telekinesis to select a prewritten document from the nearby scribe's table and hand it to the jailkeeper.

The guards in the chamber cautiously glanced at each other, with expressions of mild surprise.

The jailkeeper was similarly unprepared for the directive to continue. "Are...are you quite sure, Your Majesty? Would you not prefer to simply end it?"

"Of course I am sure. It is well-deserved."

Kallian, who had been reading some other documents off to the side, decided to step in. "Your Majesty, I object. I have seen your torture plan; it is vile and gruesome to an unparalleled extent. I have turned a blind eye to its illegal elements thus far, but no longer. This has gone on long enough. Give her death."

Melia didn't expect anyone else to understand. She mentally pulled a blank sheet of paper and quill to herself and began to dictate what she wrote.

"I hereby declare Lorithia Nekudiora to be outlawed from the Empire of Alcamoth. She is henceforth no longer afforded any protections of the law." She signed it with flourish.

The sense around the room was hushed shock; no one was ready to believe that the empress had such a personal vendetta that she would outlaw someone simply to enact extra torture upon them.

The jailkeeper read the first half of the torture directive and threw it on the ground. "I refuse. Kill me if you must, but I refuse to carry out these orders."

Melia dismissively waved her hand. "You need not give up your post or your life to decline my command. Be on your way. I will simply do it myself."

The jailkeeper remained still for a moment before quickly turning and leaving the hall.

Wimp. Melia lofted the recently-written declaration back over to the scribe's table, and took the discarded orders back into her own hands. It may be just as well to carry out the remaining phases myself. I will need to construct a machine so I don't have to witness it...

Kallian scowled and came to sit down in the auxiliary throne beside her. "I have to know, Melia," he said quietly enough that no one else would hear. "Why must you be so shamelessly barbaric with Lorithia? I can think of no actions one person can take that earns them a single day of the treatment you have forced upon her."

Melia didn't look him in the eye, but rather continued to stare straight ahead. "Perhaps one day I'll tell you. Suffice to say that...it is deeply personal."

"She admitted her desire to exterminate our family and society in the trial. What could be more personal than that?"

"The journey is more important than the destination."

Kallian looked away for a moment, considering the implication, before turning back. "Surely you know that continuing such torture upon her will be a grim mark on your reputation. Do you not think your lust for revenge is an abuse of your power?"

"Revenge is a theme I know much of," Melia replied. "I watched it consume both Egil and Shulk, and know how difficult it must have been for them to see the error of their ways. But I daresay I have earned some abuse of power, and to do so on a single prisoner is fairly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things."

"May I remind you it is not a single prisoner."

Melia rolled her eyes. "Ironically sealing Dickson in Prison Island hardly qualifies as "torture" or "abuse of power". How many of our population even remember him?"

"You don't know if Zanza has already made Lorithia immortal to natural death," Kallian muttered.

This was true; Melia had set the torture plan assuming that Lorithia would die from malnutrition at some point in the next few years. That said, "I fail to see how that's a problem."

Kallian shook his head and stood up. "My displeasure has been noted, there is little point in me continuing to re-iterate it." He left the hall.

Melia summoned a fresh sheet of paper and started sketching ideas for the torture device. She wondered if she could get Shulk to help build it without him knowing what it was - the public wasn't supposed to know anything beyond "the former minister of research has been convicted on many counts of high treason and shall be treated appropriately" - but that would require all the operational bits to be left off for later installation, and so seemed unlikely to be all that much help.

Maybe I shall build the device directly in the cell, to amplify her feelings of fear and dread. Then perhaps pretend to forget to activate it once installed, only to do to at the least-expected moment.

The phone rang, its ringtone identifying the caller as Shulk. Having a telephone in the Audience Chamber was a new concept, but Melia wanted to give her friends a way to contact her without having to worry about travelling to Alcamoth, and it turned out to be quite useful for quickly communicating with the other settlements as well.

Melia donned her headphones and routed the call into them so she could continue drawing. "Yes, Shulk?"

A long exhalation came through first, suggesting Shulk was either exhausted or upset. "Dimitri cancelled," he said without pleasantries. "I asked why and he just refused to tell me."

"The cad." Melia immediately pulled a form off the scribe's table and started filling it out. "It's impressive how some people mismanage their last chance. He shall be lucky to ever find catering work again, I shall see to it."

"Uh, so...what do we do now then?"

"I will send the palace chefs to replace him."

"Um, you..." Shulk stuttered for a bit. "You know that Fiora said she didn't want that."

"Of course, but what alternative is there given merely three days' notice?" Melia finished the form nullifying Dimitri's catering license and put it in the outbox, before switching to writing a notice of preparation for the kitchens.

Shulk could be heard saying something to someone in the distance on the other end of the line. He was then interrupted by Fiora butting into the receiver.

"L-Look Melia, I..." She was clearly on edge and emotional. "...thanks. You saved us."

"It's nothing. Head Chef Parsimo will be by as soon as possible to collect the plans."

Fiora was heard trying to say something else before giving up and turning into distant blubbering.

Shulk got the phone back. "You're a lifesaver Melly. Literally."

Melia thought this was rather hyperbolic, but she'd given up on trying to understand why a one-day wedding ceremony was somehow more important than the rest of a life's time together. "Do not hesitate to ask for help with any other problems."

"Of course not. Later, bye." He hung up with a clatter. He tended to forget the proper telephone etiquette of allowing the other party to respond goodbye.

Melia put her headphones back on their rack, her mind starting to wander. Of all the ways the new world was different than predicted, her relationship with Shulk and Fiora was the least expected. True to her initial drunken blubbering, Fiora had made it clear over the last while that she had a lot of interest in the empress, yet though all she did Shulk was always alongside and never appeared much upset or reluctant about it. While Melia had repeatedly tried to downplay them - pushing her viewpoint that the idea was very out of place, and was unlikely to be legal given the traditionalist attitude of High Entia society on such things - Fiora insisted on taking any "no" as "not yet". And while Shulk's standpoint was much less conclusive, he also appeared to be undeterred from a three-way relationship, even after the two of them had married. On one hand, it was just what she wanted, but on the other, it was anything but.

Every time I think of this issue, she grumbled internally, I focus on the awkward and unseemly aspects of it, the parts where I worry about it being ill-fitting or what others would think of it. Why can I not instead focus on it as an opportunity for myself, as with my motivation for the entire project I embarked upon? I've created a new timeline where five years of hard work gave me almost everything I wanted - why can't I add something being offered on a silver platter?

Why am I afraid of change when I made a new universe in pursuit of change?

She pounded the armrest.

I'm going to regret this. I am absolutely going to regret this a million times over. But I don't want to count how many times I will regret doing the opposite.

Melia grabbed her agenda and added another note to the wedding day. Allow inhibitions to be suppressed. Cease rebuffing Fiora's (or Shulk's) advances to investigate their true depth. If necessary, do not remain sober.

She replaced the booklet where she took it from. That's that then. Whether I actually follow through shall be anyone's guess. She went back to her drawings.

The Nopon postmaster entered the hall, holding a single plain white envelope. "Hello greetings Your Majesty. Special mail arrive with quickness."

Melia paused her drawing to look up. Receiving mail outside the normal schedule was indeed special. Her first guess was that it was from Egil; he much preferred communicating by mail so he could spend as much time as he needed to review what he was saying. "Thank you. Please dictate it."

"Of course." He started trying to open the letter. "Trying" being the operative word; for some reason he didn't appear able to tear the envelope or break the wax seal, and even jamming a letter opener into the paper did nothing at all. "mmmmmmeh-meh-meh, sorry sorry Your Majesty, will be a bit of time..."

"Oh never mind then." Melia used her telekinesis to pull the letter into her hands and look it over.

It quickly became apparent why the letter was supernaturally bound to only open for its intended recipient: the red seal was pressed with the brethrens' cross.

Well isn't that something. She nodded with a satisfied smirk. As noted from watching Shulk as a spectator, interdimensional combat competitions had a way of helping participants tease out their strongest powers even after their expiry - and travelling between universes again could go a long way towards her efforts to recreate her Monado.

She really did have it all.