Domi was the first to break the stunned silence following Ausus's words. The sly smirk on his lips warned Valens his alumna was about to say something inappropriate even before the kid's mouth opened.

"You know," the boy drawled, "when people tell you to hug a clivia, they don't mean you should go so far as to--"

"Domi!" Aix scolded. Valens could only snort as Buccina chuckled.

"What?" The boy leaned against the webbed wall and crossed his arms. "Last I checked, we all know how babes are made. If those things are really somehow his sons..." He jerked his chin toward the pair of tiny clivias in the Blended man's hands and lifted his brows.

A blush turned Ausus's otherwise blue-touched cheeks lavender. "I didn't have relations with a clivia, Son."

Domi stiffened, all humor fleeing his face. "Don't call me that."

The Blended man winced. "Very well, Laetus."

"Or that," the boy snapped, his expression stony.

"His name is Domi," Daedalus said in a soft, tense voice. Valens studied his other alumna and frowned at the clenched fists at the older twin's sides. The boy glared at the pod's brownish-gray webbed floor.

Ausus swallowed and turned carefully to the son who would still meet his gaze. "Sorry, Domi." The younger twin's shoulders relaxed. A little. "I did not-- That is not how clivias have children. They..." He cast Kaitlyn a pleading glance.

The eidolon's hair flared bright orange, as did Logos's own beside her. "You want me to explain clivia sex to your kids?" She rolled her eyes as he just waited. "Fine." She turned to Domi. "Simple version? Clivias don't have sex. Not even close."

The kid frowned. "Then how do they have babes or whatever you call them?"

"They collect tissue samples from their own species and other lifeforms and extract favorable attributes."

"Attributes?" Buccina asked. Her apple-green eyes widened in alarm as the pale filaments of a passing adult female drifted through the door. The Princeps swept the edge of her crystal white paenula away from the bestia's reach with a grimace.

Ausus glanced at the doorway, his brows furrowing. The pod's walls knit closed, gray threads weaving across the opening like a thick, messy spider web and blocking the female clivia.

"They collect attributes like the ability to eat certain kinds of food or fly," Kaitlyn said as though the Blended forgeholder had not just shut a wall with his mind.

She nodded at the two pups, which squirmed out of Ausus's fingers and flew up to his shoulder. Perching side by side with half of their filaments tangling with his hair, the pups pointed the other half straight at the eidolon like a pair of blue arrowheads.

"When a female gathers enough useful information," Kaitlyn went on, "she clones herself and then adds the collected attributes to form two male embryos. They grow as buds on her filaments and then separate after about ten days as newborn pups."

"How old are these two?" Aix asked, eying the pair.

"Thirteen--" A pulse rippled from one of the tiny clivias. "Fourteen days," Ausus said.

Valens stared, his astonished thoughts chasing themselves in wild circles. "I'm sorry," he began thickly, frowning at the pups as their blue tendrils shifted his way. Eternal Radiance, were the bestias actually following the conversation? "Do those things know how to count?"

"Only up to twenty," Ausus said, his lip quirking, "but they're learning fast."

Valens's jaw dropped. Eyes devour, since when did clivias understand numbers, let alone how to put them in sequence? This was too much to take in. His spinning head felt like it hovered somewhere near the webbed ceiling.

Kaitlyn cleared her throat, a weirdly human sound for a creature without true vocal cords or a need to breathe. "These two will spend a few weeks to a few years testing their modifications and learning the behaviors of their species--" She hesitated and then added. "--of both their species. If the Eyes determine that the changes are indeed advantageous, then these two will be granted sexual maturity, able to pass on--"

"Wait, if the Eyes decide their changes are beneficial?" Aix interrupted. A faint promenia hum surrounded the man; the silvery shimmering song of someone jotting down notes in the Caeles.

"Yes," Kaitlyn said, "If the Eyes deem the changes beneficial to Aquarius, the pups will be permitted to share the modifications with females, allowing a new generation bearing the changes to arise. If the changes are not beneficial or grow obsolete, the pups will deactivate the changes and become genetically-identical female clones of their mother. If that happens, they will begin seeking beneficial genetic material from males and other species to create new pups."

"But you said the Eyes decide whether the changes are beneficial enough to share?" Aix prompted, gray eyes wide in his mahogany face and shining with an eager light.

"You have to understand that the Eyes are..." Kaitlyn paused, glancing at Logos. "How did you describe it the other day?"

"The Eyes are like a human body," the medical advice daemon said, its voice piping like a child. "You have a head, torso, arms, and legs, right? Well, the Eyes are similar."

"They're a body?" Daedalus asked, brows knit in an unconscious mirror of his father.

"They're a single organism with many parts," Kaitlyn said. "Only in their case, the parts are planets." They all stared at her and she sighed. "In my time, we knew one of the Wandering Eyes and two of the Devouring Eyes harbored life. We even surveyed some of it before we finally landed on Aquarius. Many of my people, the Sleepers, grew convinced that the planets were networked somehow to form one consciousness. I believe that consciousness, in turn, somehow gives sentience to the clivias."

"They're intelligent?" Valens asked. He watched the pups on Ausus's shoulders doubtfully. They had stopped pointing their filaments at each speaker and instead appeared hard at work trying to shove each other off of the Blended man's shoulder.

"How else do you think they built all of this?" Kaitlyn asked.

"Like bees build their hives," Valens said, shrugging. "But you're saying they're smarter than that? They usually seem like nothing more than beasts to me."

The romping pups certainly seemed like any other young animals as they rolled from Ausus's shoulder in a tangle, flung their filaments wide, and hovered midair, radiating small pulses at each other.

"The clivias seemed mindless at times in my era, too," Kaitlyn said. "But other times, they exhibited a sort of collective intelligence when the Eyes were visible in the sky." She crossed her arms, frowning. "But the intelligence was so different from our own, and we couldn't figure out how to communicate. We needed more time to study them, so we urged the neo-Romans to delay the terraformation phase of colonization."

"You feared terraformation would essentially lobotomize a living, sentient creature," Aix said thoughtfully. "Cut part of the Eyes off from the rest."

She swallowed. "Yes. We advised against clearing the day-side and erecting the Trellis, at least until we could study the phenomenon more. We didn't understand exactly how the lifeforms on the planets were networked, but we knew it had something to do with spores all organisms on Aquarius and the other planets produce. They're extremely resistant to cold and can survive the vacuum of--."

"Spores?"

"Yes, similar to the ones seen in a clivia infection." She looked pointedly at Ausus, and he rubbed his cheek where a pale blue crystalline growth webbed out from a deep scar. "They're everywhere. The soil, the air, our lungs. We even detected infrared signals among spores adrift in the Dark Waters between the planets. Ah, heat signatures. We feared that the Trellis would block the spores and disrupt the signals."

"Didn't anyone listen to you?" Daedalus asked, firmly turning his back on his father to face the eidolon. "The Trellis was built and--"

"A growing number of people listened." Kaitlyn's glowing golden eyes narrowed. "Then one night I went to sleep. When I woke, I was an eidolon in the Caeles. All my colleagues were there to greet me. To this day, I don't know how we died. Official reports cited accidental carbon monoxide poisoning." She offered a wry smile. "But twenty scientists don't all accidentally die around the world of the same thing overnight."

"And then there was no one left to speak out," Domi said quietly. "So they built the Trellis. And it hurt the Eyes." He winced. "Hurts the Eyes."

She sighed. "Yes, the Trellis hurts the Eyes' collective mind and also harms each and every lifeform on this planet." She glanced at the pups. "Until these two little ones were conceived with humanlike self-contained sentience, every clivia depended on contact with the Eyes to maintain anything like individual self-awareness. When they're cut off, they're little more than mindless beasts. The day your ancestors built the Trellis, they may have destroyed an entire civilization."

"And when Domi and I restored the Trellis, we prevented them from rebuilding it," Daedalus said, biting his lip. He watched the two pups as they flitted around the mushroom table, knocking one of the bowls to the ground with a clatter.

A sharp glance from Ausus sent the pair streaming toward Domi, who caught them reflexively as they tried to land on his thick winter paenula. The boy blinked down at his hands in shock, staring at the squirming blue balls of tendrils he held before releasing them with a hard shudder. "Ick." They floated up to hover by his face, filaments reaching for his hair. "Go away."

Kaitlyn smiled sadly. "These two are probably the only truly sentient clivias in the world right now. They carry changes that, when they're older, can give rise to a new generation capable of thriving without the Eyes if needed." She shook her head. "But for that to happen, the Eyes have to trigger their maturation after a period of observation. And now, there are very few opportunities for unimpeded contact with the Eyes."

"I sympathize with their plight," Aix said quietly, his expression soft as one of the pups lifted a lock of Domi's hair as the boy tried to shoo the other clivia away without touching it. "Truly, I do. But day-side life can't survive without the Trellis. Human civilization can't survive."

Ausus clenched his jaw, shaking his head. "No, that's where you're wrong. Where humanity has always been wrong. We cannot survive as we were, but this world can be shared. The Eyes were starting to provide for us all." His expression twisted. "At least, they were before the Trellis went back up."

"Provide for us?" Buccina asked and then gasped, stumbling back with her eyes growing wide. Her hand flew to her mouth. "Eternal Radiance!"

"What is it, Basilicus?" Valens asked.

She shook her head, lowering her hand and revealing the astonishment on her pale illusory face. "My agents reported unrest among the underclasses. The Pullati declaring independence, of course." She cast Domi a pointed look. "But also panic caused by severe rationing. I heard that the lowest classes were already being driven to try eating odoratus and some other inedible night-side invasive species that started spreading into the slums after Trellis Descent, but--"

"They're not inedible anymore," Ausus said firmly. "The Eyes provided for us, as they promised. They modified odoratus and medicine flowers for food. Glow worms to purge Trellis sickness and fortify the body against solar flares. The clivia were building a solar shield over the Scutarii Sea for additional protection. And in the textile farms, they started producing webbing that could be used for fabric to help guard against the growing cold." His eyes hardened as he glanced at the pups. Valens found it difficult to believe they were somehow the man's sons, but he couldn't deny the fatherly protectiveness in the forgeholder's gaze. "Without anyone needing to kill them to harvest their filaments."

"But those changes would have taken time to spread planetwide," Kaitlyn added. "They needed a solution that would aid humanity in the meantime and offer the possibility of greater mutuality in the future. So they modified the toxin that clivias produce to induce the changes the Blended bear." She looked expectantly at Ausus.

The man shifted from one foot to the other as everyone turned to look at him. "I don't know all that was done to me and the others, yet," he said slowly, rubbing the back of his neck. "I discover new changes each day. But I can see in the dark, eat night-side plants, tolerate the cold, understand clivia, and commune with the Eyes."

"That last one doesn't sound creepy at all," Domi muttered, fingertips crawling to his bulla. One of the pups drifted near to follow his hand, then darted away from the wooden amulet, a shiver passing through its filaments. At last, it retreated and landed back on Ausus's shoulder.

The Blended man reached up to stroke the midnight blue tendrils as the pup curled into his neck. "It's not creepy at all, Son--Domi. It's wonderful." He drew a deep breath, his expression relaxing into a beatific smile. "The combined voices of four worlds."

"Oh, he heard the Eyes just fine," Valens said, remembering the raw terror on Domi's face when the planets attacked the boy's mind. "It was anything but wonderful."

"I once heard them as you can now," Ausus said. "That is but a shadow compared to the shining splendor of true communion," He spread his hands. "Imagine an infinite chorus of voices. A vast presence, there with you at the edge of your thoughts. Art and music like you've never experienced. New ideas you can scarcely grasp, but which await your exploration." The Blended man shook his head. "The closest thing we have to it is the Caeles. But this is far deeper."

"Well, I hope it is nice," Daedalus said bitterly. "You left me so you could have it." He glared at the pups. "Have a new family out here."

Ausus's face fell. "Son..." The older twin turned away, staring stiffly at the wall. His father started to reach out, then dropped his hand an inch from the boy's hunched shoulder with a heavy sigh. "I didn't mean to leave you. I just wanted to make a better world for you. One where you wouldn't be crushed beneath the weight of the Trellis the way your mother was."

Valens reached out, drawing the silent twin against his side. The kid was so tense he could feel faint tremors passing through the small frame. "But instead, he was left alone to be crushed under it without you there to help him," he pointed out. "Did you know that he died? Twice," he added, as Ausus's eyes widened and the man's face grayed. "You should have been there."

"Yes," Ausus said, his voice choking. "I should have. But I'm here now." He met Valens's eyes. "Please help me make a better world for him." He glanced at Domi, who promptly crossed his arms and glared. "For both of them."

Valens studied the man, rubbing Daedalus's shoulder soothingly. If even a little of what Ausus said was true... "What do you want me to do?" he asked suspiciously, though he already knew.

Ausus inhaled slowly and met his narrowed gaze. "I want you to Blend so my sons will see what it is like and that it is alright."

"Absolutely not."

Valens wasn't the only one to blink in surprise at Aix's flat refusal.

Ausus turned to look at the old man. "It is his decision to make."

Aix shook his head. "I'm his aedificans and I say no." As Valens started to scowl, the older Lightbearer held up a hand. "Not until I've tried it first."

Ausus frowned at the impure lifeholder. "You want to Blend?"

Aix's gray eyes gleamed with a curious fire that Valens knew all too well. "I would be delighted to Blend."

Adult male:

Adult female:

Baby: