[No, Zash. These people will need to understand.] And he can convey to Zash exactly what they need to understand. He can't convey it to the humans, but he can convey it to his brother. There is so much that mere words cannot communicate, but he doesn't need them. He knows Zash will understand.

"Rem sacrificed herself to save them! Doesn't that mean anything?"

[Rem. The creature who bewitched you.] "She was one of them. She was also a human." The word means a lot more than just the species, now. It's coloured with disgust and loathing, it's a bundle of all that is wrong and ugly and dirty. [If it hadn't been for her, all humans would've died.]

"She was our mother, Nai—!"

"Was she?" She was playing a role, that's for sure. So doting, so nice.

She didn't stop Tesla from happening.

[You know she tried!]

"Do I?" She said she did, but what are the words of humans worth? They lie and manipulate and hurt and kill. Their words mean nothing.

"It wasn't... just her words..."

"And how can I trust your words?" Zash is one of them, now. Or he's trying his best to become one of them, to become human. Using words, not thoughts. Dressing like them. Eating food. They're so charmed by him, but charm means nothing. [You can also lie.]

[Not to you. Never to you.] He's still hurt, that Nai hid his plan from him, didn't even let Zash talk him out of this, and now they're all dead—the hurt over Rem herself is still fresh, it's been years but it's still fresh. Can Nai not feel it?

Of course he can. But how can he trust it? Humans lie. What does he even know about Rem? What did Rem even know about love? How could he possibly know what she meant, if she did mean what she said? He can't hear humans, at all, the way Zash can. And even Zash has admitted it's superficial. He can't trust—anything.

She wants to argue with him — she thinks Zash is projecting, this all feels so real, like this cascade of tragedies is happening in front of her — but of course, she can’t. Nai isn’t here to argue with. This all took place over a century ago.

Instead she reaches out to take Zash’s hand, and offer what little pathetic comfort she can.

Morgan knows how this goes from here. From the religious doctrine. God found humans unworthy, and then tore Eden asunder. They didn’t deserve it.

"Sorry, I'm all jumbled in telling. The man that was with Nai, the one he called doctor—our ship wasn't one of the ones that survived mostly intact but there were some survivors, there were some shuttles that managed to escape just like ours did—he was William Conrad, the head of the team of scientists who did—what they did—to Tesla. I hadn't known he'd survived, until then, and I was very surprised that he was with Nai. I think Nai hated him more than any other human, but..."

...the flavour of their relationship is not hard to understand, really. Nai is filled with contempt and hatred for all humans, and yes, for William Conrad especially...

...but Conrad himself is filled with regret and self-loathing and a desire to make amends. He's clearly being threatened into compliance, but—not very much. He genuinely wants to do whatever it takes, and he sees himself as ultimately the one responsible for the Fall. If he hadn't been so monstrously callous, hadn't treated Tesla like a thing to be studied...

This all, Zash pieced together later, from understanding humans better. The glimpses he got into Conrad's psyche served as the basis for it, and he never ran into the man again, but he thinks that's what was going on.

"Zash... Let's finish what I started. Let's build a paradise together." Eden, a place free of hatred, free of death, free of the chains humans impose on them, free of their prejudices and their pettinesses and their greediness. "Let's free our sisters," and take revenge, and kill all humans, and be angry for everything humans have done and continue to do.

"We... we can't just free them." (Several other guards run into the room and towards them from when the two survivors called for reinforcements.) "You know this." [They'd die. There's a reason they called us Independents. Outside of their carefully-controlled environment they can't survive.]

"So you bought into that nonsense..." [If three Independents can exist, then more can. I refuse to believe there's no way for our existing sisters to become Independent. Their gates are small, they can barely access the higher dimension, not like you and I can. They'd be able to control their own energy and bodies a lot better, if they could.] "And it doesn't matter. Chains are still chains." [If they die at least they won't be slaves, tortured to death by humans.]

The arriving guards heard the reports from the earlier guards and aren't asking questions first. As soon as they're close enough, they shoot.

"Nai, wait—!"

Too late.

Nai's blades intercept every bullet, and then for every bullet he sends a blade into the person who shot them. It's only fair, an equal and proportional retribution.

"We—we had to do this to survive—!" says one of the two initial guards.

"No. You didn't." And now they're dead, too, these directly by Nai's hands.