I was up early the next day--which, in combination with going to sleep late, meant I had very little slumber and was drowsy when I awoke. My alarm was blaring and I could muster enough willpower to not turn it off and fall into the temptation of sleeping some more.

My grandparents were old so they go to sleep relatively early which was quite fortunate for me--it would’ve been incredibly difficult to explain away the injuries I had received from merely jogging. However, it also meant that they woke up early but not too early, as they needed a good night’s rest. As such, waking up at a bright and early six o’clock meant I had the whole morning in isolation, which was exactly what I wanted; while they may not have suspected anything, I didn’t want them to get suspicious because I went jogging for two days in a row.

Yesterday, I threw off my blood-stained clothes, hiding them beneath a bunch of other clothes in my dresser, and today, I wore normal, non-athletic wear since that was basically all I had. I chose to leave how to deal with the bloodied clothes later.

I had a quick breakfast and did my morning ablutions but apart from that, nothing else; I didn’t want to spend any more time there than I felt comfortable with.

Out and about, I walked to ever the predictable destination--Luna’s warehouse. Just like every other time I made my way there, my mind was plagued with the thought of whether she’d be there or not; I would really immensely awkward if she wasn’t and so had to either idle away my time doing something inane or wait for her inside her very own home which I wasn’t invited in to.

It was thoughts like these that made me wish she had a phone.

Thankfully, however, even though my mind was occupied with notions such as these, as soon as I knocked on the familiar door, S1 opened it quickly once I had called out who I was--an embarrassing action in and of itself.

“Good morning, Charlotte,” She greeted me, practising polite and formal manners--a demeanour Luna was eager to instil into her servant. All it did was make me feel weird, like being referred to as a ‘lady’ or ‘woman’; perhaps the feeling vanished with experience or age.

Not that I cared much about it--not enough to bother bringing it up with Luna, anyway.

“Hello,” I replied in a soft voice as I stepped inside. “Where’s Luna?”

“She is currently out shopping with the newest servant S2. Luna gives you her gratitude in securing another heart.” S2… She was really serious about this naming convention.

S1 closed the door once I had walked inside but with her doing that, I felt awkward just like I knew I would. Luna didn’t really have anything that lent itself to recreational activities and my propriety forbade me from indulging myself in any food or drink without Luna’s explicit permission. I knew she’d probably not mind but it just wouldn’t have sat right with me.

So, instead, I decided to bide my time by talking with S1. Perhaps I had sunk into normalcy too quickly but being able to converse with an actual was such a rare opportunity I’m, frankly, surprised I didn’t exploit that fact sooner or in a more exhaustive fashion. And so, I took a seat.

“S1,” I began. She stood right in front of me, back ramrod straight and hands clasped in front of her, reminiscent  of a maid at the ready. Perhaps that’s the sort of aesthetic Luna was going for. “How do you view me?”

I wanted analytical and objective information regarding our relationship, such as how Luna was the ‘master’ who’s orders must be obeyed without question. So far, S1 has been listening to me like I was a master as well, though I felt that there was more nuance to it than that.

“You are a partner of my master and I have been informed to listen to you when it does not contradict an order given by my master.” The word ‘partner’ startled me a little but I quickly reasoned out that its use was of the emotionless, associate kind.

“Luna told you to listen to my orders?” It was best to clarify things explicitly so no wrong assumptions could be made.

“That is correct.”

“So if I told you to get me a drink right from the fridge right now, you would?”

“That is correct.” Her somewhat unnatural cadence and identical pronunciation of the same phrase was unsettling but I had to ignore that as just a quirk of hers. Just another reminder that she wasn’t human.

What was interesting, however, was her willingness to oblige to my request.

“Has Luna explicitly told you I can drink whatever I want from the fridge?”

“No.” So her comprehension is shallow, or just superseded by Luna’s orders.

I felt it was safe to say at this point that I was effectively her provisional master in the absence of Luna or an order by Luna.

“Okay. Thanks for answering. Next, what can you tell me about S2?” As soon as the words left me mouth I realised I phrased the question incorrectly.

“Anything that you wish to know, Charlotte.”

“Tell me about what S2 looks like, for a start.” I wonder if its a guy this time…

“Upon metamorphosis, Luna commented on the similarity between S2 and myself. Contrary to Luna’s desire, S2 maintains the same white colouration as I do.” That’s the whole description?

It seemed odd at first to be so… Lacking in detail, but it actually made sense once I thought about it. She recounted Luna’s comments on appearance and not her own.

“Did you not draw any observations about S2’s appearance yourself?”

“That is incorrect. However, I am uncertain as to what level of detail you would prefer. As a partner of Luna’s, I deemed conveying her thoughts to be the most applicable answer to your question.” It made sense. When you ask about a friend, you’re not going to hear that they have skin or hair made of keratin.

“Okay.” I thought for a moment on how to specifically organise my thoughts. “When describing a person’s appearance, what you should describe is their height, skin colour, hair colour, eye colour, and whether they’re male or female. Those are the most important things.”

Even though those categories were somewhat subjective, they should've been objective enough for S1 to use them without any issue. Describing how attractive someone is or a facial structure I felt would not have been that helpful coming from S1.

“According to those parameters, S2 is of a similar height to you, Charlotte, with the same white skin and white hair as me. Her irises, likewise, are of a similar shade of grey as mine. I am unsure whether you would refer to them as male or female?”

“Why don’t you know if they’re male or female?” That struck me eminently as odd.

“As a heart, we do not possess primary or secondary sex characteristics necessary to determine the sex of an organism.” Ah; an asexual species would not identify as a different sex.

“Are you female?” I probed, now curious. To my knowledge, I didn’t explicitly remember S1 referring to herself in any feminine way--it was really only Luna and myself. The breasts, curvaceous form, and high-pitched voice really prevented me from seeing S1 as anything other than a woman, not that she seemed to care.

“Both you and master refer to me in accordance with how you refer to those who possess female sex characteristics.”

“But do you identify as a woman?”

“I identify as a heart. Hearts do not exhibit sexual dimorphism.”

“Ah. Okay.” That revelation stumped me. One the one hand, it felt like I had been purposefully misgendering her for days now. On the other hand, she didn’t seem to mind and I believe she would identify as a woman if merely ordered to.

I sunk into a contemplative stupor as I thought about this unexpected quandary.

“Well, S1, for convenience’s sake, it’d probably be best for you to identify as a woman from now on.” It would cause far fewer issues when interacting with other people.

“As you wish.”

“With that out of the way… How did Luna refer to S2? As a male or as a female?” I felt phrasing the question in this way would’ve elicited a desired answer.

“Luna referred to S2 as a female.” Another one, huh.

“Why did Luna go out shopping with only S2? Why didn’t she take you along as well?”

“I do not know the justifications behind my masters actions, only that she requested I stay here while she and S2 went out.”

“Does that mean if I ordered you to go out and fetch Luna for me, you wouldn’t.”

“That is correct. I would have to disobey your order.” It felt slightly sad to me that even this disobedience of hers wouldn’t have been out of free will but rather due to complete subservience to her master.

Now, however, after the brunt of my questions for the interrogation had been answered, a lul descended upon us and the same awkwardness I felt from the beginning reemerged. 

As I stewed in silence, I realised it was times like these that would force people into idle chatter and small talk. Usually, they’d have a more proactive conservation partner than a robot with a face, though.

However, the awkward silence that had emerged was doomed to a short existence for only a handful of minutes as I was sitting there, during nothing much, before the distinctive, metallic sound of the door sliding open resonated throughout the whole room.

There was only one person--two, I corrected myself--that both knew this location and had a desire or reason to enter. Feeling grateful for a reason to eschew further conversation with S1, I shot up out of my seat with alacrity, walking to position myself in sight line of the door.

Just like S1 had said, the new servant of Luna’s bore a striking similarity to S1, though she was actually at my eyesight this time. I had only just taken it for a fluke with S1 but with a larger sample size, although it’s two, suspicions began to arise over the random nature of the physical characteristics of the two servants.

For one, both were unblemished, unscared, and flawless in the most objective way to describe. Rather than a conventional beauty being born through random chance--which, in itself, was rare of humans--I surmised that this almost wax-like recreation of a human was inevitable of a metamorphosis of a heart into a humanoid-form. Thinking back, the limbs of the hives couldn’t be described as pockmarked or blemished before being attacked, so it sort of made sense.

“Ah, you’re here,” Luna remarked as soon as she saw me, S2 behind her and closing the door.

“I did say I’d come today,” I replied. Luna hummed in response but didn’t actually say anything.

S2, having secured the habitation, made her way to Luna’s side with a bright smile on her face--not an exaggerated one but a natural and pleasant adornment. Seeing her, it made me realise that, through all the similarities, S1 had a much more stoic resting facade than S2.

“Hello,” She greeted me. I nodded, too fascinated in observing her to utter a response.

She bore visual characteristics of what I’d only imagine as the distinctive ‘heart phenotype’ based on S1 but, even then, it felt almost like looking into a mirror. Her subdued cheekbones, roundish face, eyes with a positive canthal tilt--I could’ve mistook them for my own; she was like a wax sculpture of myself that simply lacked pigment.

“Yes, I felt for my next masterpiece, I’d try something more based off real life,” Luna interrupted my observation with an exaggerated accent. It took me a few seconds to properly parse what she had just said.

“Does that mean you can control what your servants are going to look like?” I queried.

“Hmm. I think I can. I mean, look at her; not everything is the same but I was basing her off you.” I’m unsure whether that’s flattering or creepy.

“How do you do it? Deciding how they look?” I deliberately ignored the connotations of her previous statement as excitement bubbled up inside me--unprecedented complexity presented itself pertaining to Luna’s System Specialisation and the opportunity to delve into was incredibly appealing.

“Well… Like an impulse? I don’t really know how it works.”

“But you’ve done it?” Confusion written plain across my face.

“Like, when I had the heart--thank you for that, by the way--I thought about whether I could control anything now that I knew loosely how they’d turn out and so I thought I try creating something like you.”

“Why me?” I asked once I had understood what she had just said.

“Well, it was either you or S1 that I was the most familiar with and I couldn’t use S1 because I didn’t know whether all hearts would look like her.”

Ah. I see.

“Well,” I looked towards the new servant, “Hello, S2.”

“Hello,” She replied again, her voice distinctive pleasant to the ears but bearing uniqueness that differentiated her from S1.

“How do you like your name?”

“I love it. It’s wonderful.” My disappointment at hearing how overjoyed she was quickly evaporated once I thought about those words.

I had asked a similarly worded question to S1 but their responses, while shared the same sentiment, were wrapped in a totally different presentation and demeanour.

“You’re a lot more… Casual.” I uttered out, merely to see S2 not interpret that comment in either a positively or negative way. “Why is that?” I turned to Luna who had slumped on the sofa behind me.

“I don’t know.” She threw her arms up dramatically. Helpful. “S1, help S2 with putting the shopping away.” Luna called out to her other servant.

It was with that that I realised S2’s arms were full with plastic bags and I was standing in her way. I quickly unobstructed myself and found myself on the sofa right next to Luna.

“By the way, do you still want the money I got from the first hive?” She asked me.

“The money? How much was there?” Although I knew clearing hives generally paid well, we didn’t technically clear the hive. The only way we could’ve made money was by selling the remains of the Manifestation, and I certainly didn’t have a part with that.

“A good amount; about £150.” I was unsure how I felt about that. On the one hand, for what must’ve been a short amount of time, it’s proportionally a lot of money--especially for a teenager like myself--but in the grand scheme of things, you’d need to clear a lot of hives to be able to make a living.

“Do you have it on you, or...”

“No, I’ve got it,” She said as she stood up and pulled out a beaten-up and tatty wallet from her back pocket. I was impressed she could even fit one of those things in there. 

Once she gave me the money and sat back down, I just watched the two servants putting away food and drinks and what-not that they had purchased in what could generously be called a kitchen but more appropriately a kitchenette.

They worked in harmony with each other, putting away things one-by-one but never getting in each other's way. They moved with a smoothness or grace that would’ve suggested they were professional dancers rehearsing a coordinated routine rather than simply servants doing menial labour.

Their coordination was preternatural and eerie to my eyes. Seeing them together made me curious.

“Luna,” I got her attention, “What’s S2’s Specialisation?” Perhaps it’s something related to movement or spatial awareness?

“You know what, I haven’t asked!” The forcefulness in her tone took me aback, as well as her words.

“Really?” Naturally, I was incredulous.

“Yep. I think you should ask her right now.” She was acting strangely but I thought: Why not?

“S2,” I asked, having walked up to the two of them, “What’s your Specialisation?”

“My System Specialisation is Blossom of Fate.” She responded promptly.

I froze. I stared at S2, who was smiling back at me, unable to properly formulate a response. Out of everything she could’ve said, not once in my mind had I expected that what she would’ve replied with was the exact same Specialisation as myself.

Once I had gotten over my initial shock, my curiosity imploded.

“You have the exact same Specialisation as I do?” I asked S2.

“You have Blossom of Fate as well?” Her voice was high-pitched and excitable, and her eyes shone with eager interest. Frankly, her blunt and bubbly reception startled me, having been far too used to S1’s stoic and calm demeanour.

“Yes,” I replied, though my tone was quieter and softer. It seems, however, that she heard it anyway as a smile was plastered over her face--a rather unnerving sight, given the similarities between us.

That’ll take a while to get used to.

“How does it work? For you?” S2 asked eagerly. Although I had interrupted her, she didn’t seem to have cared and was indulging herself in her own curiosity.

“You know… You just look at things and see the future.” My tone was hesitant, my voice uncertain as I was a bit awkward dealing with such a personality.

“You look at things?” She asked, her tone lilted and questioning.

“Yeah. Isn’t that how it works for you?” I probed.

“No; not really.” Her answer shocked me, pulling my faltering gaze back to her.

If we have the same Specialisation, why doesn’t it work the same?

“But you can see the future, right?”

“Uh-huh,” She nodded.

“How-how does that work?” It was like one bit of knowledge that was foundational to you was upended suddenly. I was also a tiny bit hopeful that if she didn’t have to directly see somewhere to know the future, perhaps I could apply my spec in that way as well.

“Like, I just know the future. If I drew nine dots and told you there’s twenty-seven dots, you’d know it was wrong without needing to count how many dots there are.”

I didn’t say anything in response. Instead, I was silent so I could ruminate on my thoughts--she presented me with some very interesting information.

Firstly, how she described how she interpreted the data presented to her by her own Specialisation sounded the same as how it worked for me--an intuitive feeling rather than a conscious parsing of information. However, she said this intuition activates and applies itself to things outside of her field of vision whereas mine only worked with things I could see. It was this difference that was the most perplexing thing--and it opened my mind to another way to think about my Specialisation.

Firstly, I just assumed my ability to understand the information I was getting by my system was like being able to identify what a car is by its shape--you don’t look at the various parts of the car to conclude the whole. But perhaps this was wrong? 

Thinking back on it, when I was in the hive, I was utilising my Specialisation specifically for combat, which required quick reflexes. If I had to stop and think about everything I saw, that included both the present and the future, that just wouldn’t be realistically applicable. Therefore, the intuiting and automatic interpretation of what my Specialisation provided me I was already doing.

Then that meant the difference between S2 and me lied primarily in what we could see. For her to be able to ‘see’ the future without actually having to look but yet having the same Specialistion suggested to me that perhaps sight wasn’t a limitation, pre se, but rather a way of application. If so, that meant there was the possibility I could train myself to use my system in a more versatile way.

The thought alone was motivating and my shocked and interested mood lighted up as I became happier at the insight.

Wanting to see if there was more I could figure out or ponder upon, I checked the precise description of my System Specialisation again:

[System Specialisation: Blossom of Fate]

[Grants the user the ability to see an image of the future of whatever is in her sight]

And my hope began to waver.

“S2?” I asked, interrupting her from talking to Luna; I was so involved in introspection I didn’t even realise they were conversing.

“Yes?” She replied after throwing a look at Luna and then walking over to me. Luna stayed back but was clearly listening in.

“What’s the description for your System Specialisation?”

“Description?” No trace of recognition passed through her face.

“Yeah, the description. Do you not have one?”

“No, I don’t seem to. S1, do you have a description?” She called out suddenly to S1, who was still in the kitchenette apparently making some food.

She was a fair distance away and was busy but, unsurprisingly, she heard just fine.

“I do not have a description of my System Specialisation, S2.” Without so much as lifting her head, S1 responded without having to pause her work.

I wonder what she’s making?

“Luna, you have a description, don’t you?” Cognitively, I knew that everyone did--even if, it seems, that hearts did not--but I was beginning to doubt what I thought I knew and so just had to confirm it.

“Of course I do,” She answered succinctly.

Yeah, obviously she does.

After hearing all this, a single thought coalesced in my mind; was my limitation of only being able to see the future through direct sight a limitation imposed by the system itself? The phrasing ‘see an image of the future’ certainly suggests so and would preclude the ability to ‘see the future’ through any or sense or mental faculty.

With a sigh, I gave up ruminating on this. Whether or not I would be able to change, it didn’t make a difference right at this moment.

Slumping down on the sofa and obviously dismayed, Luna spoke up now that it seemed I was finished with that line of thinking.

“Are you okay, Charlotte?” Her voice dripping with concern over my sudden shift in demeanour.

“Yeah; I’m fine.”

“Well, what do you say we go out somewhere?” 

That...Was not what I was expecting.

“Go out?” I asked, curious.

“Yeah, shopping or something. You’ve got money; might as well use it!” She spoke with a lively tone, one that I felt was trying to instil the same sort of energy in myself.

“Sure, why not.” I wasn’t particularly enthralled with the idea but a distraction from monotony and a less dangerous pursuit than what I usually did with Luna was appealing.