“You were born here?”

“Yess. This one was. Many summers ago. Many many many.” Chrysanthemum’s voice carried an odd pride, though tinged with something softer, almost wistful. “This is also where this one gets the human foods for the girlfriends.”

She crouched carefully, lowering Vicky onto her feet with deliberate gentleness, then rested one of her many hands on the dragonkin’s shoulder. Her grip was surprisingly warm, grounding despite the alienness of everything around them.

“The spirit makes the food happens,” Chrysanthemum explained with a solemn nod. Then she turned her head toward the chamber’s walls and raised her voice. “Wake up, spirit!”

The lights overhead flickered, then steadied, and a voice rang out from everywhere at once. It wasn’t echoing, but surrounding—impossible to pinpoint.

“Oh, hello Miss Reta—Did you finally bring someone else in here?”

Vicky stiffened, scales prickling. She turned in a slow circle, trying to find the source, but there was nothing—no body, no shadow. Just a voice, calm and clear, woven into the very air. Her chest tightened. This must have been what Chrysanthemum meant. This is the thing I wasn’t supposed to be afraid of… A real spirit. A lost soul.

“Yess yess, this one did,” Chrysanthemum replied brightly, giving Vicky’s shoulder an encouraging squeeze. “The cute repulsive one wants to do the cook and this one does not have the hyoomee tools to do it in the palace. So this one… reluctantly brings the girlfriend here.”

Her antennae twitched in quick nervous motions, betraying her. “But no tell anyone! This is big secret!”

Vicky forced a smile, though her tail betrayed her nerves with a twitch. “…Repulsive?”

Chrysanthemum looked down at her, blinking innocently. “Yes. Repulsive. But cute. Very cute. This one likes repulsive cute very much.” She tapped her own chest as though to emphasize it. “Perfect balance.”

The voice chuckled, dry and knowing, echoing from all around them. “You really do have a way with compliments, Miss Retania. Well, hello, I am Edward, a shipboard AI.”

Vicky’s eyes went wide. “What… what is an AI?”

“It is—” Edward began, his voice calm and oddly human-like, before Chrysanthemum cut him off with a sharp click of her mandibles.

“Is another name for spirit.” She leaned closer to Vicky, her antennae brushing lightly against the dragonkin’s arm. “Teach this one to use the food box. This one allows her to do so.”

“As you wish, Miss Retania,” Edward intoned, though there was a faint undertone of bemusement in his tone.

Chrysanthemum straightened and looked down at Vicky with an almost shy intensity. “Very good. This one… reluctantly must make the preparations for long trip.” Her multiple hands drifted toward Vicky, resting gently on her shoulders. “Could this one have a face smush?”

Vicky’s cheeks immediately warmed, though she already knew what that meant. “…You mean a kiss?”

“Yes. Human way. Very proper. Very good.” Chrysanthemum’s eyes shimmered with anxious anticipation..

Vicky pressed closer, leaning into the queen. Chrysanthemum’s mandibles twitched in anticipation, then their faces met. It was warm, soft, and somehow alive with that subtle hum Vicky had come to associate with the queen. The strange, dorky solidity of Chrysanthemum made it feel almost like kissing a moving statue—but one that was very much paying attention.

When they pulled apart, Vicky’s eyes fluttered, and she let out a small, shaky laugh. “Yeah… that’s… wow. Definitely a face smush.”

Chrysanthemum clicked and chittered in satisfaction. “Good. Very good. Human ways… well done. Must learn more. Much more.”

Vicky swallowed, realizing again just how alien, devoted, and completely overwhelming this world of Chrysanthemum truly was—and that she was already deep in the thick of it.

The queen had vanished from the chamber, leaving Vicky standing alone in the eerie, softly glowing space. The polished metal walls reflected her uncertain expression back at her.

“So… you would like to cook?” Edward’s voice floated from all directions, dry but not unkind.

“Oh, um… yes, please, Mr. Edward,” Vicky replied, nervously twisting the hem of her dress.

“Just Edward is fine,” the AI corrected, a faint chuckle threading through his tone. “And I presume you don’t want to rely solely on the food printer?”

“What’s a food printer?” Vicky asked, eyes widening.

Edward’s voice was patient, as if explaining to a child. “Ah, it is what Miss Retania now calls the ‘food box.’ It can produce any food you can imagine, provided it is given the correct nutritional input. The ‘food balls’ that I am supplied with are extremely nutrient dense, so I have largely been using those. They are efficient… but not very appetizing.”

Vicky made a face. “So… we’ve been eating those weird balls this whole time?”

“Only in a sense,” Edward replied, almost wryly. “When you eat meat, for instance, you are consuming the same plants the animal ate in its life. Components are identical, but the form is… fundamentally different.”

Vicky blinked, trying to wrap her head around it. “…I see.”

“Well, this is exciting!” Edward’s tone brightened. “I haven’t had a proper conversation with someone in centuries. And now you’re here! I can print any ingredient you might need—and we do have a kitchen.”

Suddenly, the floor beneath her feet glowed softly, and a line of light extended from her toes like a guiding path.

“Just follow the line,” Edward instructed. “It will take you directly to the kitchen. Everything you need can be made in a short span of time. Consider this your domain for culinary exploration.”

Vicky took a hesitant step forward, then another, feeling a strange thrill. Finally, she had something to do. Something to claim as her own in this bizarre, sprawling underworld ruled by a queen, a swarm, and a centuries-old spirit.

The hallways were no less strange than the chamber she’d left behind. Too clean, unnervingly clean, like no one had ever truly lived in them. The walls gleamed faintly, seamless metal inlaid with panels of crystal and strange runes that pulsed softly with light. Here and there, odd enchanted contraptions jutted from the walls—slender rods, flat plates, spheres floating in little cradles—that whirred or glowed when she passed by. It was impossible to tell if they were watching her or simply existing in some mechanical trance.

She was led into another chamber, and the sight made her stop short. The room was dazzling, so starkly white it almost hurt her eyes. No soot, no grime, no hint of a hearth or a scullery maid’s hand ever touching it. Surfaces gleamed like polished bone, counters and cupboards built into the walls with perfect, uncanny precision. It felt less like a kitchen and more like she had stepped into the belly of some vast, sterile beast.

Edward’s voice greeted her, warm and amused. “What would you like to cook, Miss—Goodness! I was so eager to see another face, I forgot to even ask your name.”

“Oh, um… I am Victoria,” she said quickly, fiddling with her claws. “But most just call me Vicky.”

“Victoria…” Edward repeated, savoring it. “An old name, that one. A very fine name. Very well, Miss Vicky. What would you like to cook?”

“I’m… not sure,” she admitted, still staring around the too-perfect room. “Maybe… a stew? Something basic?”

“Of course,” Edward said, delighted. “And what ingredients shall we gather?”

Vicky listed what she was used to—rinnes, sweetroot, squats, maybe a bit of bone and meat. It took far longer than she expected, though, since half of what she said had to be translated. Rinnes, Edward explained, were what he knew as “potatoes.” Sweetroot, “carrots.” Squats… there was no word for squats in his archive, though he assured her they were almost identical to something called a “yam.” Every step of the conversation made her head swim—this “spirit” carried a whole other language inside him, one older than her grandmother’s bones.

And then came the spices.

When Edward offered them, Vicky almost buckled at the knees. Spices—real spices—were things only nobles and royals could afford. To her, the faintest pinch of pepper or a wisp of saffron was treasure, worth months of work. Yet here, Edward mentioned them as casually as if he were offering her a mug of stale ale.

“Go on,” the spirit coaxed. “Anything you desire. Cinnamon? Nutmeg? Star anise? Or perhaps something rarer?”

Vicky swallowed. Her throat felt dry. “…Pepper?” she asked timidly, half expecting to be mocked for daring to say the word aloud.

There was a faint hum, a sound like hidden machinery stirring. A panel slid open in the wall, and something heavy thunked into a waiting dish.

Vicky’s eyes went wide.

“Here you are,” Edward said pleasantly. “Half a livre of pepper.”

On the counter sat a mound of the dark spice—far more than she had ever seen in her life, enough to bankrupt a dozen villages.

She stared at it in mute horror, her brain refusing to process.

“…Edward,” she whispered, voice trembling. “That’s… that’s a king’s ransom.”

“Ransom?” The spirit chuckled. “No, Miss Vicky. It is only pepper.”

“Only pepper? Only pepper?! Do you know how rare it is? There is no spice more valuable than this! If I sold this to a kingdom, I would be set for life!”

Edward’s voice hummed with amusement. “Aren’t you romantically entangled with a queen? Are you not already set for life?”

Vicky’s shoulders slumped. “…Okay, fair. I’ll stop thinking about it before my brain melts.” She clapped her hands together and tried to focus. “Could you direct me to the pot and the hearth to cook over?”

“Ah, no need for that,” Edward said brightly.

With a hiss of hidden mechanisms, several slender metal arms descended from the ceiling. Their joints whirred with unnatural precision as they plucked open cabinets and fetched tools she hadn’t even noticed. Vicky squeaked and backed up as one arm slid out a gleaming pot, polished to a mirror shine, and set it gently on the counter beside a strange flat-topped contraption.

“This,” Edward explained patiently, “is an oven–stove combo. You may adjust the temperature for each of these four plates individually, using these controls. And this panel on the front opens into the oven, for roasting or baking. You may also set precise heat levels.”

Vicky leaned close, eyes wide, and reached out a trembling claw to touch the device. It was so clean, so smooth, not even a scratch or soot mark anywhere. “Such magicks… I’ve never seen anything like this.” Her voice dropped to a reverent whisper. “I am honoured you are letting me use such a powerful enchanted device.”

“…It’s, ugh… yeah, sure,” Edward said, his tone caught between weary and indulgent. “It isn’t magic. It’s technology. Mundane, back where we came from.”

Vicky blinked. She straightened up slowly, her tail twitching with curiosity. “Where are you from, Edward?”

There was a pause. Not silence—because Edward was never truly silent—but the kind of pause that felt deliberate, measured. When he finally spoke, his voice was lower, almost wistful.

“…From a place very far away. So far, you could walk for a hundred lifetimes and never reach it.”

Vicky didn’t know how to answer that, so she set the thought aside and got on with the stew. Doing something familiar steadied her—chopping, stirring, seasoning—so she let the kitchen calm her nerves. The knife Edward produced was absurdly sharp; it slid through rines and sweetroot like silk, leaving clean, even surfaces that made her fingers itch with the old smith’s satisfaction of a job done well. The hot plates were a revelation: instant, even heat, no cursing at a balky hearth, no worrying about damp kindling. She could set a temperature and trust it to hold.

The ingredients were ridiculous in the best way. The vegetables looked as if someone had grown them under a kinder sun: firm, bright, and entirely devoid of the little worm-holes and bruises that marked market produce in her city. The meat, when she trimmed it, showed fat marbling that promised a stew deep with flavor—something that, once reduced, would glue the broth together into something that could make a savage soldier sigh. Edward moved through the kitchen as a silent conductor, nudging out a spice she asked for, uncoiling a hose that rinsed a pan with warm, mineral water, and always answering her little technical questions with patient detachment.

While the stew simmered and the room filled with an earthy sweetness, Vicky sat on a stool and felt the seat mold to her weight as if it had been waiting for her. Her reptilian tail hung off the edge, flicking in time with the bubbling pot. Steam fogged the polished counter, carrying the scent of sweetroot and pepper into the clean white space.

“So, Edward,” she said idly, propping an elbow on the counter and watching the surface of the stew ripple. “How old are you?”

There was a soft pause, the kind of pause that suggests the speaker is turning the question over in a database far larger than the present moment. “Mmm. I am not sure how much I should say. I do not wish to upset Miss Retania.”

A laugh escaped her before she could stop it. “Why do you call her that?”

“Because that is her registered name in the system,” Edward said. There was a faint metallic amusement in his voice. “Not that there is much left of her these days.”

Vicky blinked. The spoon paused in her hand, steam haloing the tip. “What do you mean, ‘not much left’?”

“Again,” Edward replied, voice smoothing into the careful cadence of someone who is about to close a conversation for good, “I am uncertain how much I ought to divulge. I do serve her. Historically, I anticipated many of her needs. Recently—her priorities have shifted. It would be… discourteous to compress her into the simpler terms available in my archive. She is more focused on other things than who she once was.”

The phrase sat in the room like a stray bone. Vicky frowned, then tried another angle. “Was she the queen of a swarm somewhere else? Before this?”

Edward gave a sound that was almost a laugh—dry, distant. “No. No, she wasn’t. And until I have her permission—which, candidly, is unlikely—I shall say no more.”

Vicky let out a breath that tasted of pepper and unresolved questions. The stew hissed as a bubble rose and popped; the kitchen hummed with hidden mechanisms. Outside this polished chamber, the hive went on—thousands of lives braided together in its tunnels. Here, in the white quiet, she had been given every tool and ingredient in the world and an answer no less mysterious than the polished metal door they had passed.

She dipped a spoon into the pot and brought it up to taste. The broth hit her tongue—warm, rounded, threaded with spice—and for a moment the unease slipped, replaced by something simple and human: the comfort of a good meal made by her own hands. The question about Chrysanthemum’s past waited; Edward’s refusal hung like a closed book. Vicky folded both into the pot, seasoning the stew with a reckless generosity and the small, private joy of making something real.