Eep. Maybe Diviaticu is not her favorite sibling of the three, then.

"Uh. Yeah I'll... pass on that. And I guess I could change it if I don't like it, but. I'd rather get it right the first time?"

"Well, I wish you luck, new one," says Diviaticu.

"Thank you!" Then again, there are a lot of acceptable reasons to kill someone? She probably doesn't know enough to judge, and shouldn't.

"Okay, is that everything you'd like? I should probably try to, uh, leave and go back to my own body."

"I think so!" pipes Kamose. "Once again, thank you so much for your help. We hope we won't be imposing too much by staying in your, ah... mind."

“You’re welcome! And it’s better than the clock or dying just for opposing sire-dearest.”

Okay! Back to the real world. She can do this, right? It’s her mindscape thing. She can just… go back.

When she opens her eyes, she finds herself prone on the ground at the exact same spot she was just before. The two cultists are hovering anxiously, but her travel companion is standing between them and her body, arms folded, looking (though she cannot see his face) like he is daring anyone to touch her.

He is also extremely worried and snarking at himself in his head for being worried over a gods damned castoff.

"I'm okay," she says the minute she's conscious again, mostly to Aleks but also she guesses to the other people here, too. "Sorry, I didn't expect that."

    "Revered one!" sighs Mimeon in relief, before bowing. "That was masterfully done; a performance worthy of your sire."

Aleks himself—merely looks over his shoulder and gives her a minute nod before turning to look at the priests again, but there definitely is a knot in his stomach that gets unmade when she speaks.

She would like to talk to Aleks right now, because he was so worried, but she does not want to do it while the creepy priests are hovering nearby calling her 'revered one' or something.

"Does that count as helping with the clock, can you pay me so we can go?" she says, sitting up and getting to her feet.

"We—can—" starts Mimeon, but Casmeen interrupts it with, "But what did you find? Who were the figures in the clock?"

"Your concern for my welfare is touching. Kamose, Diviaticu, and Villon. Trapped in the clock by our mutual sire."

Casmeen's face falls. "I know these names. They're not new to us. They were favoured servants of your creator, castoffs who served them well—Diviaticu was the one to bring the Order of Truth to Sagus Cliffs!—but the three of them betrayed their holy trust and disappeared."

    Mimeon nods and sighs. "Nevertheless, our agreement shall be honoured. Here, revered one," he says, reaching inside a pocket in his robes for a bag and another pocket for shins. He counts them—a hundred, total, a not-at-all negligible amount—places them in the bag, and offers them to her.

"Thank you," she says, taking it, and then yes excellent they can go now.

Yes they can. To... wherever it was Aleks was taking her, probably.

She does not wander off even a little bit! And she is sticking so close to Aleks!!

"Probably a conversation should happen before a bath, if you um. Know a place we can talk privately? ... I'm sorry for scaring you."

"...okay?" He can find a quiet, secluded alcove somewhere.

Well first she can pay him back! She knows the exact amount she owes him and is definitely not distracting herself from hard conversations by getting it all repaid first. Definitely not. But then it’s hard conversation time, so uh. She’d better get to that.

"Okay so um. I know exactly what happened that caused me to pass out, but it's going to take some explaining first and, um. Admitting that I haven't been... entirely honest with you. I haven't lied! To you, I mean. But I did, er. Leave out that I can, er. Read minds. And I could play dumb and say I didn't know this was information you might like to know, but actually what really happened was that I had just started and I was scared and it seemed smart to not mention it."

He pauses and tries to think back on everything he... thought... over the past hour or so. Then he wonders if he really even has any thoughts he cares about sharing. His tragic backstory? Meh.

"—that explains why you disliked them so much so quickly," he realises, thinking about the cultists.

“You have mostly just been saying exactly what you’ve been thinking, but softening things a bit so as not to hurt me? Which is really sweet and one of the reasons why I have gotten so attached to you and keep following you around. You’ve also just been really nice in general. And, yeah, it’s um. Not great to be inside the heads of people who want to study you, or knock you over the head so someone else can study you.”

...well that's a whole lot of emotions he's feeling right now. He is not sure he can keep track of all of them and he very much hopes she can't either.

He looks away, and it occurs to him that that is entirely useless, so he sighs and looks at her again. "Well. Thank you for telling me."

“You’re welcome. I also um, don’t know how to turn it off. It probably doesn’t come with an off switch, I can’t imagine sire-dearest would see the point. So I will understand if it means you don’t want to keep helping me out anymore.”

"As you've said, I don't think there is much that happens in my head that I care about expressing anyway."

And why is he helping her anyway? This is a great opening to walk away. And yet he sits.

“I think it’s a combination of your sense of responsibility towards a brand new person, and also how I’m naive and well meaning and charming. Apparently those are very endearing traits, my siblings all went from being rightfully alarmed by me to thinking I was very nice and cute.”

Is she trying to convince him to walk away out of principle.

"Let's get you clean," he says, instead.

“Well, yes and no, I think if you’re genuinely confused about why you like me I should try to help with that out of principle, and also not try to keep you if you don’t want to stay, but I think you do, so it’s not really risking anything to be honest so it also can’t really be seen as particularly noble I think I’m babbling yes let’s get me clean. Um. Is there a place where I could grow out my hair? I don’t like when you look at me and see them.”