"I won't ever."

Hug.

Hug! And then picking her sister up for the hug because she can do that now.

"Ack!" She flails a bit, kicking Bellona in the shin with her new foot.

She sets her down, laughing. "Sorry!"

"That is going to take some getting used to."

Pleased noise.

"I like being bigger than you."

"Don't let it go to your head."

"I won't. Just - I like knowing I can carry you if needed. I don't like not feeling things... But if I had to lose my ability to feel either way - I'd rather be in an invulnerable body, that can protect you, than in a flesh one, where without feelings I wouldn't notice injuries or anything."

"My knight of shining armor."

She makes a very happy noise. "My queen's right hand."

...And then it seems to occur to her what she just said because she 'eep's.

"Well, you're both metal now..."

She relaxes, laughing.

"You know, it's weird, how the stuff the Gate took's almost - symbolic?"

"Sort of."

"I guess, just... Alchemy's supposed to be thing for thing, only quantity and nature matters..."

"Hearts and legs and bodies aren't the same size though, and - how's that even square up? A limb for a soul? Why a heart, if you're grabbing atoms at random because you're trading bits of the alchemist's body, why isn't it whatever's closest or just randomly scattered - "

"Did you meet something that called itself Truth?"

"Yeah."

"Looked like me, just... Whitened out. Smiling."

"It had a personality. Like a human personality. I think it's a parasite of some kind."

"Really?"

"It doesn't make any sense with the rest of the rules of alchemy, like you said. And it's not like a natural law; those don't taunt you. Either it made the Gate or it found the Gate or someone else put it there, and now it eats souls. And if you want to get a soul back, it eats some of you instead. And the bits you lose are symbolic because it's intelligent and likes to play with us."

"Huh! Yeah - maybe there used to be a god and an afterlife and everything and that thing ate it all up, but now it can't eat stuff that's not in its world so it's just waiting..."

"Yeah."

"I'm going to kill it. I'm going to get your body back and then I'm going to kill it."

"We're gonna kill it."

"Yes. We will."

"Nothing we can't do together."