"Much better," says Bird, satisfied. "Nice brain parasite. What's it like being a brain parasite? I want to try it. —I don't know how to turn anyone else into a human, sorry, it was an accident. But lots of people from my world probably do and you could find them and make them tell you!"

Asthirin shrinks in on himself a little now that the fight seems to be over. "Bird - um, I want to let you know that I hope I'll be able to give you morph. I want to give morph to just about anybody who wants it. But - it's so, so important that I not give it to anyone who would use it for the wrong reasons, or who could be manipulated by someone who had the wrong reasons." His eyes start leaking mysteriously. "It's... really important."

"You're being very nice to me and it's good and I'm happy about it. Oh! You're crying! I should do human actions about that!"

The action she chooses is Hug.

Asthirin sniffles into Bird's shoulder for a while.

Hornet turns to Pel. "I'm also fighting against a polity of widespread mind control. Which is a fun coincidence."

"Oh? What's yours like?"

"There's an... entity... called the Radiance. She's halfway between a goddess and a disease and a state of mind. My father conquered her territory centuries ago, and her people went from worshipping her to following him. And she withered. But... somehow, she came back. And she infected his people, making them hers, making them puppets. So - he tried a lot of things. Ultimately, he locked her within a pure vessel imprisoned in a sealed temple, and barred her from the realm of dreams using the dreams of three great bugs, who are currently comatose."

She sighs. "The pure vessel is my half-sibling. One of the dreamers is my birth mother. And Father... locked himself away in his palace, after, and no one's heard from him since. So. If I want to have a family at the end of all this, I'd better get very good, very fast."

"Yikes," says Pel, sympathetically.

(Meanwhile Bird is explaining to Asthirin, "Hugging is a good human action. It makes the feelings cozy. Like blankets! Do you know about blankets? Blankets are important.")

("Blankets are very good.")