All of this spins through her mind but there's something underneath it, something at once subtle and all-encompassing, an alien sensation that's more an absence than a presence.

What is it like, to wake for the first time in a world with no dark shadows of ancient gods anywhere? It's the inverse of the oppressive pressure of the Bishops' taunts. The whole world feels light, empty, almost vaporous—ethereal, unreal. Unmoored, unnavigable, a trackless steppe with no landmarks in sight.

What is consciousness, without the constant visceral sensation of being powerless in the face of forces beyond your comprehension? What is being, without being small and weak and helpless in a world made for things so much bigger and stronger than you?

She takes deep breaths, trying to calm her panic, trying to orient to the change in circumstances. The last thing she remembers—she has to hunt for it, sifting through scrambled memories. Right, she was dithering about where to go and what to do, under immense pressure from her own stupid feelings, trying really hard not to retread the same stupid ground and not really getting anywhere. And now—this.

In a word: what.

You didn't do this, did you?

Her crown did not do this! Her crown is also kind of daunted by the sheer nothingness of this place. But oh, if it's really vacant, really truly unclaimed by any approximation of divinity, the possibilities that could open up that way—! How does the Lamb feel about world conquest? :D?

...no world conquest. Probably. Almost certainly. Depends how much this world manages to suck with no gods keeping it down.

The Lamb (Paril?) opens her (their?) eyes.

If Zmavlire'a spoke English, they would probably use he/him pronouns, with some choosing they/them.

Footsteps, and then knocking. The person – no, a drone – enters. It's wearing a red short-sleeved tunic fastened with a black cord, with similarly black pants. There are six holes in the tunic where the tentacles would pass through.

"Good morning, Controller. Would you like to have breakfast brought to you here, or eat in the dining room?"

[Paril will know, from the old person's memories, that the drone's name is Fels.]

She digs in her borrowed memories to try to find, not just the words that convey the meanings in her thoughts, but the appropriate register to speak in, and a characteristic sort of answer to have. She... thinks neither answer would be suspicious? She's not currently super confident in her ability to operate this enormous weirdly shaped body, so, "Here."

The person she... displaced, let's go with displaced... seems to have generally preferred phrasing things in short, blunt, efficient ways with as little embellishment as necessary to get the point across. She also thinks, hmm... it'd probably be less-suspicious-than-otherwise to add... "Not feeling well after hitting my head. Recovering. Remind me of upcoming schedule?"

Meanwhile, her crown is vibrating slightly on her head.

Sit still! she tells it sharply.

But but but drone! Drone!! Perfect Follower material, absolutely optimal in every way!!! Come on come on can't they Convert it? It wouldn't mind, it would probably love to become more properly theirs!

We are absolutely not Converting anyone until I understand what the fuck is happening. Sit still. Pretend you're inanimate.

Fiiiiiine. The crown reluctantly settles. (Drone...!)

[If Zmavlipre were put on Earth, they would probably use he/him with some using they/them. They have the concept of having a unified personal aesthetic, but not of gender, and so they don't have gendered pronouns. They do make a personal/impersonal pronoun distinction though, with drones receiving impersonal pronouns, like objects.]

"Yes, Controller," Fels says. "The date is the two dozen and second day of Spring."

[Paril will know that the year, which is three gross days long, is divided into three seasons, Spring, Summer, and Winter, each being a gross days long. The year starts on the Spring equinox, so this is also the two dozen and second day of the year.]

"No planned activities for today. Is there something you wish to do, Controller?"

If Paril doesn't ask Fels questions or talks more, the drone will leave to fetch Paril's breakfast.

Is 'headshake' a gesture that they have here...? It appears to be. She uses it. The person she's pretending to be would want to rest, recover, orient, and eat breakfast before embarking on any more significant project, and fortunately that is also exactly how the Lamb feels.

So: what would 'rest, recover, orient' look like from former-Paril's perspective? What is the local equivalent of lying in bed and having your friends if you have any bring you food, besides lying in bed and having your drones bring you food which appears to just separately be a normal way to go about one's morning?

(Drones!!)

Yes, crown, she's aware. Patience.

drones.....

She reaches an unfamiliar hand up to give her crown an actual physical pat. It settles a little better after this concrete expression of care. But she doesn't want to get caught patting herself on the head because that's weird, so she tucks her hand back under the blanket immediately.

Fels appears to understand the headshake. 

[Paril will know that drones are trained in 'impassivity': the practice of deliberately suppressing emotional suppression, and that his drones are trained in that, but that he has them refrain from doing that, at least when they're alone with him, so that Paril can read his drone's emotional expressions. Usually, Keepers train drones in it both as a method for asserting and maintaining control, and also because it is aesthetically pleasing.]

[Many people just stay at home and have their drones bring them food and entertain them! This is a very normal and mundane thing to do, in fact, you could say that that's the default state for Zmavlipre. If Paril wants to literally lie in bed all day and just eat, his drones will do just that.]

Fels appears very mildly confused at why Paril is patting his crown, but doesn't say anything. Instead, the drone leaves to fetch Paril's breakfast, which arrives on a wooden metal tray, which it will place on the bed. It has a stand and everything. There's chocolate rice pudding, fried eggs, dried small fish (like anchovies), lightly toasted bread, royal milk tea (with the correct amount of milk and sugar), and peach jam, which has already been placed on some of the bread, with some extra on the side. It's kind of a lot of food? It's enough to feed one and a half human men, but [Paril's memories are saying that this is a totally normal breakfast amount and is actually kind of on the lower side?]

There will be spoons and a knife there for him to use, but there aren't any other utensils. He will know that [you're also supposed to use your aftendrils to eat, because you can taste and smell with them. They can be used in an oscillating motion – repeatedly retracting and extending – to permit particles to dissolve in mucus and be brought inside to be 'smelled', as though a snake's tongue, but also that they can simply be stuck in food so that it can be tasted, like a regular human tongue. These functions are kept separate, though, because you eat by bringing food to your mouth – cleaning food particles stuck in aftendril-orifices is slightly inconvenient – some are only used to smell, and some only used to taste, at least when eating. It's common to leave one or two pairs of aftendrils to oscillate, and use the remaining pair or pairs to handle food. Paril's memories will also include the instinctual muscle memory of how to eat! He prefers using two pairs to oscillate.

This is also why hands are used to hold things normally and not the aftendrils.]

"It may please you to know that Sir Damin is planning to visit tomorrow, Controller, and that he probably send a message asking to confirm that you are still available," Fels adds.

Wow, she's going to need to guard vigilantly against Paril's instincts that say that being observed by one's drones does not relevantly count as being observed. Crown, you are behaving like an inanimate object for the foreseeable future.

(If they—)

We are absolutely not Converting anyone until I understand this place better! What if somebody notices something weird? No.

Anyway. Having never seen a human before in her life, the Lamb is pretty intimidated by this quantity of breakfast, but she operates her muscle memory appropriately. Focusing all her attention on eating as normally as possible does not leave much left over to enjoy it with, but she does have to admit it's pretty good. She misses her crappy little garden already, though. And her Followers are probably all going to be slaughtered without her.

(She can get new—)

So first of all, getting new followers doesn't actually fix the thing where people I took responsibility for are probably dying. Second of all, what have I told you about Converting the drones?

Her crown reluctantly assents. She suppresses the urge to pat it again, reminding herself that Fels is still in the room and in fact speaking to her at this very moment.

What, if anything, does she secondhandedly remember about 'Sir Damin'?

[Indeed! Old-Paril says that since drones aren't people, being with your drones counts as being 'alone'.]

Fels will stand motionlessly in the room and wait for Paril to finish eating, [which was Old-Paril's preference,] and will not leave unless explicitly instructed.

[Here is what Old-Paril has to say about Damin – only drones use honorifics, so Old-Paril doesn't.

Damin is also a farmer and a cattle rancher, and also runs a psychotherapy clinic in Kosfor City. His farm is smaller, but it's closer to Kosfor – only about an hour or so away, from his recollection. Old-Paril is kind of introverted (interacting with drones not being considered 'social') – even more than what would be expected from rural Keepers who live far away from cities. He doesn't even have a house in the city, which is common among rural Keepers. Damin has one, even though it's less necessary for him.

Old-Paril has few connections for this reason, but this also means that there are few people who would notice if he suddenly changed in personality. Even Damin, who probably visits the most out of all his friends, only visits about a dozen or so times per year.

Damin is a socialite and also a little irresponsible and indulgent sometimes.

Both of Damin's parents work in the government – his impregnating-parent in the Imperial government, and his birthing-parent in the Sranam provincial government – Sranam is the province both Damin and Paril live in. Government officials get paid a lot, so Damin and his parents are kind of really rich? But Damin's impregnating-parent was disappointed in him and only gave him the legal minimum allotment when he became of age.

Damin has a boyfriend which he's had for a few dozen years now, named Konrad. Old-Paril has met Konrad, but he doesn't know much about him. He knows he works as a drone trainer and, very weirdly, refuses to keep any drones – that is to say, he has no drones that call him his Controller. Damin does let Konrad be the Master to his drones, though.

Old-Paril will interject to say that a 'Master' is someone authorized to give orders to drones, and a drone may have multiple, but a drone may only have a singular 'Controller', which has absolute authority over order-giving – Masters may be restricted on what orders they give drones – and also have free reign on assigning or removing Master status from people. 

Konrad kind of seemed standoffish and vaguely angry? Not angry at him, just, In General, which is compounded by the fact that he is extremely muscular. Old-Paril is not sure whether or not this is the reason Damin chose Konrad – they're very different in personality, so maybe?

Damin will probably arrive tomorrow afternoon, stay the night, and then leave tomorrow at noon so that he can arrive home by evening.]

Her instinct is to tell Damin to go away because she's not feeling well, but it's probably a bad idea to abruptly cancel everything in the same moment that she takes over Paril's life. If she can get through one normal-seeming social visit, that significantly raises the odds of her being able to get away with this in the long term. Hopefully it won't suck too much.

The thought of an angry, standoffish, extremely muscular Enormous Tentaclefolk—yes, yes, she's now a normal size for this species, that doesn't change the fact that this species is still objectively way too large—is enough to have her alien hand itching for a sword, but luckily her crown recognizes that it would be a bad idea to give her one. Thank you, crown.

She could thank it with DRONES she is welcome and her crown will do its best to be good and patient and responsible and not keep eagerly pushing for Followers at every opportunity.

What would Paril say in this situation. "Damin visiting should still be fine." Would Paril be pleased? Yes, she thinks so. She should pretend to be a similar amount of pleased. "Looking forward to it."

"Understood, Controller. Would you like it to transmit this over the teletype network, or for it to wait for Sir Damin's confirmation message rather than preëmpting it," Fels asks. 

[The teletype network is basically like telex, and Paril is subscribed to a provider which lets him make unlimited communications, billed seasonally. If Paril says yes, Fels will type up a message which will be printed on Damin's teletype machine – Fels already knows Damin's teletype address.]

What would Paril prefer here? Hmm... "Wait for the message, then reply." They would've preferred to have the message sent immediately if there was any significant chance of the message getting lost otherwise, but their judgment of Fels's competence was that things don't slip its mind often enough for that to be an issue.

Meanwhile, her crown, determinedly trying not to obsess over the prospect of Converting drones, instead turns its thoughts to those faint secondhand memories of Paril giving birth. Were those that Paril gave birth to... drones? Does Paril still own those drones, or did they sell them or give them away? Because, in the crown's opinion, it feels especially right for the children of their body to become their Followers, and wrong for those drone-children to be out there somewhere in the world totally unknown to them and not able to become their Followers at all. ...admittedly this is not not obsessing over the prospect of Converting drones, but! But! The crown is trying, and at least it's focusing on different aspects of the situation now?

...April is really not sure how she feels about any of that, but, okay, she too wants to know where the children of this body have got to. She consents to go searching Paril's memories for the answer.

Fels has been trained in secretary duties and does it very well. [Old-Paril will say that Fels tested well on the exams testing whether it would be worthwhile to train it as a computer, but that the drone hasn't actually gone through any. Fels can still do math, just more slowly and requiring writing materials, and aids.]

[Yes, Paril kept all the drones he birthed! The skillset he could impart on his drones, agricultural labor, isn't rare, and he's not an expert drone trainer like Konrad. Drone trainers are divided into two sets, the first being people which can impart a particular skillset, such as calculation teachers. The second set encompasses trainers which teach 'basic' skills like impassivity at a high level – such as parade drones which have to stand for hours upon hours without moving – or which specialize in altering a drone's psychology or default behavior. The term 'trainer' can encompass both definitions, but mostly it only refers to the latter. Konrad does both – he does combat training and survival training.

Paril has not had any Keeper children. Drones can be had both sexually and asexually, but Keepers only sexually, and Paril hasn't had a long-term monogamous relationship with anyone which would have been suitable for that. Old-Paril was somewhat interested in having children, but didn't want to have any until he had renovated his farm, both to make it more efficient, and also to prepare it for being subdivided when it was time for him to give his child an allotment, or perhaps had gotten rich enough to have a second property he could pass on. All of Paril's drone children were borne asexually, of which there are eight. The rest were inherited or bought. He has four dozen drones total.

Old-Paril will also clarify that, while it's thought that the ancestors of remna were ovoviviparous, remna today are fully oviparous. Remna gestate an egg for about a year, lay it, and then incubate the egg for another year, whereupon it hatches. It takes a long time for remna to mature: a dozen years of childhood, and four years of puberty. Drones lack the physical and mental development to do any work more strenuous or complicated than cleaning and maybe light physical labor until after puberty, and of course, you would need to train it afterwards unless you were only looking for a simple laborer. Simple labor is decreasing in value now with better technology, so in the most recent gross years, the Imperial Census has recorded decreases rather than increases in the number of drones per person – people now prefer upskilling already existent drones rather than birthing new ones.]

...all right, under those circumstances, the Lamb is willing to let her crown dictate that if convenient, the drones Paril personally birthed should be the first ones they Convert, if it comes up. She feels very weird about this, but if they Convert any drones they're gonna get them all eventually unless there's a spectacularly good reason not to, because the unconverted drones would super definitely notice that something was up with the Follower-drones.

There is so much breakfast. It takes time to feed a body this big. She's more than halfway through now, though. Just gotta keep on trucking. How's she doing at Eating Normally? Pretty good? She feels like she's probably doing pretty good, but it's hard to tell. At least Fels would almost certainly react visibly if she was being super weird. That takes a lot of the pressure off.

[Old-Paril will say that they'll definitely notice, but that they also won't really...react to it? Unless their orders change, or the Converted drones disobey orders, they won't really care. Drones are there to serve their Masters, after all, and so having themselves change to fit their Masters' needs better is like, normal.]

Paril is doing great. Keepers eat kind of slowly, normally? It's common to eat slowly because you want to savor the food, or eat slowly because you're also being entertained [which is common]. Fels remains motionless save for slow aftendril-oscillation and doesn't react to Paril eating.

...it definitely seems like magic is not normal, though, and even if the drones won't object to it, they'll still notice, and she would like it if no one notices. Drones may not locally qualify as people but for her purposes they qualify as having thoughts.

(They could check whether drones have thoughts, if... okay, okay.)

[Magic, as the Lamb and the Crown understand it, don't exist here. The closest thing they have to magic is ritualism, which is the process of using rituals to evoke powerful emotions, which was the predecessor to hypnosis. It was thought, back then, that rituals had real effects on the world, but experiments were done about that and now everyone knows that rituals only operate on the social and psychological spheres, and not the physical one. Which doesn't make them worthless! Many people are professional ritualists – usually those people are also priests.]

[Drones do have thoughts! And there have been many treatises published on drone psychology, what with drones being the linchpin of their economy, but none have actually peered into the mind of one.]

They can be the first-ever Keeper to read a drone's mind, and then never ever tell anyone about that happening, ever.

...though... if this species doesn't senesce... forever is going to be a long time.

Still probably a good idea to think very long and very hard about it before making any irrevocable decisions like letting anyone find out about magic, though.

Breakfast is winding down. Does she dare try to get out of bed?

Well, right now after admitting to hitting her head is probably the best time to fuck up at using her body, and fucking up at using her body is going to be an inevitable prelude to getting any good at it. She downs her last morsel of rice, shuffles clumsily to the edge of the bed, and tries to stand. Ugh, so much leg. Why. It's not that the muscle memory isn't there, it is, she just feels clumsy and awkward and like everything about this physical form is terrible, and that makes it hard to move smoothly.

Fels will wordlessly lift the tray as soon as Paril looks done with it, and also tries attempting to leave.

The torsos of Zmavlire'a are bigger compared to humans of the same height, but it is indeed a lot of leg.

Does Paril want to stay in his room and do bedroom things – the bedroom is large and has an attached bathroom – or move around?

Fels can definitely leave. Fels leaving is a great idea.

The Lamb gets out of bed, and when the drone is out and the door is closed and she's looked around to double-check that there's no one here and then checked again to make sure that in addition to no one being here there are also no drones, she finally calls her crown into her hand as a sword.

It is a... rather bigger sword than it used to be, scaled to the size of her body. She blinks at it. Wow. Should've predicted that. It's really a lot. Okay. She relaxes her hand and her crown flows back up onto her head and resumes playing dead there. She (looks around to check again that she's unobserved and) pats it again. Sorry. I'll... think about maybe Converting the drones after Damin visits when we've got some room to breathe. I don't think I'm gonna be okay with you being visibly weird in front of them without that, and it's not really fair to you to make you sit still forever.

Okay. The first item on the agenda here will be: walk around the bedroom and attached bathroom, perhaps figure out using said bathroom, then take stock of how well she's doing at walking and if she's capable of acting basically normal about it, go out on a little tour of her estate. It's weird having a home she's only ever seen in someone else's memories.

And because shuffling awkwardly around her bedroom doesn't occupy much attention on its own, she also goes digging in her memories for more about this 'hypnosis' thing. There was a concerning implication that while magic isn't real in this world, mind control might be?? Worst of both worlds tbh.

Fels will leave, but [the drone will stay just outside the door to listen for whether Paril needs anything. Paril is rather unusual in sometimes preferring to be absolutely alone – usually Keepers keep at least one drone by their side for both instinctual and practical reasons.]

No one observes the Crown shifting, unless it makes a loud noise, in which case Fels may hear.

The bedroom's furniture has the same red-white-black color scheme, but the items which are inside aren't. [The other items are kept inside so they don't aesthetically clash. That's what furniture is for!] There's a walk in closet, which will contain more than two dozen separate outfits for each season (for a total of eight) and matching accessories, but would be considered 'small' by Zmavlipre standards. The clothes will also tend towards the red-white-black aesthetic, and will usually have relatively simple printed patterns or simply have flat colors, and will have similarly simple cuts, tending towards loose tunics and shirts. It's currently early spring, but this is a subtropical climate, so while many people would still be wearing a lighter winter outfit now, wearing warmer clothing would not be unreasonable.]

There will also be a writing desk with drawers next to it containing writing materials. It will also have his wax seal, which he prefers to keep here rather than having it as a signet ring. [It functions similarly to a signature, and is preferred to it – many documents require sealing. Usually you have your drones take dictation and write or type it out for you, but sometimes you want or need to write something yourself.]

There is a vanity with cosmetics and perfumes, but there isn't much on it. [Old-Paril didn't really care much about that, but he does have something in case he gets invited to somewhere fancy. Which isn't very often.]

There will be a locked box containing precious items like jewelry, gold bullion, and also a diary. The diary is uninteresting because Paril already has all of Old-Paril's memories, so it's kind of redundant. [The lock number is 821889.]

The bathroom is enormous and will be like, half the size of the bedroom. This is something where Old-Paril was normal in – loving bathtime. There's a big bathtub, which might more accurately be called a tiny pool, given its size. You could fit several people in there.

There's a toilet, which should be self-explanatory.

There's a cabinet near the bathtub which has like, so many bath products. You have salts, oils, various scrubber or scraper type things for your skin, and also books? [It's popular to have drones read to you during bathtime. Most people have drones attend to them during bathtime.]

There is also a shower in the case Paril wants to use that rather than using the large extravagant bathtub.

(The shifting is, thankfully, completely silent.)

It's weird that Paril's life was so aesthetically congruent with the Red Crown. Very convenient, but weird. Almost as though... she's here in part because of that congruence? Did this enormous alien's random head injury somehow call them here across the unfathomable gulf between worlds??? That would be so bizarre.

Overall, the red-black-white aesthetic... works reasonably well for her. She can't decide whether wearing clothing with fluffy white fur on it would be soothing and familiar or unsettling and nightmarish, but luckily the choice is out of her enormous alien hands because Paril does not own any clothing with fluffy white fur on it.

She unlocks and relocks the box just to be sure that she can do that, and then (with a glance around to make extra sure no one is here) unlocks it again and has her crown pocket some of the gold and jewelry. Her crown complains that the gold isn't right and would be barely worth using for construction, but it seems to be an item of value here and it's probably a good idea to keep some of that in a format that can't possibly be taken from them. Then she locks it once more and goes to investigate the bathroom. The bathroom, from the vague impressions she's already picked up in her borrowed memory, seems like it might turn out to be pretty weird by her standards.

Yep! She was right! It's pretty weird! Not that she objects to the enormous bathtub, that part's fine although unnervingly extravagant, but: toilet. She is gonna have to take a minute to process the existence and nature of toilets. It... with water... so that when you... it just goes away?? No mess?? How? Who thought this up??? It's an amazing invention, don't get her wrong, it's just also a lot.

There's clothing with fluffy black fur, but that's only on two winter jackets which would be way too warm to wear in this weather.

[Yes, gold is used as currency here, but gold bullion usually isn't. Most people trade with Imperial rupnu, which is exchangeable with gold at any bank. One rupnu can be exchanged for one grake – one gram – of gold. That's the minimum amount you need for it to be exchanged, but no one does that except to get the fancy collectible coins whose designs change, because the seigniorage fee is too high for it to be worth it. One rupnu is subdivided into one gross fepni.]

[It doesn't just go away, exactly. In the cities that does happen, since they have sewers and process sewage centrally, but in this case there's a septic tank which causes waste solids to settle, and permits the liquids to disperse in a drain field, after it's been processed by anaerobic bacteria. The solids do need to be collected by a company to be processed though – usually you'll need to do that once every six years. The drones can handle that.

Zmavlire'a take cleanliness very seriously! Both because of concern about disease, and also because they are sensitive to bad smells.]

That's so fair of them!! The Lamb is pretty impressed. Enormous aliens, you win this round. Toilets are great.

After thoroughly examining the facilities and turning the water on and off in the bath and shower, she heads back out to the bedroom, moving more confidently now. She would like to select an outfit that is mostly red and white with only enough black to match her crown, and then venture forth into the rest of the house.

But wait! What kind of outfit? There are several to choose from: some that are meant to be cozy and worn around the house, some that are suitable for walking around outside but isn't optimized for beauty, and some that are meant to be used if you want to meet someone or want to go to the city.

Cozy house outfit for now. She can come back and change before going outside to look at the trees, if that's appropriate.

Paril will get cloth slippers and a sort of long-sleeved cotton nightgown in dark red.

The house is big! And old. Unlike other places, where the main house only houses the drones and the Keeper, this house is big enough to house even the laborer drones. [This wasn't really intended, though. Many of the drones are hobby rooms or guest rooms which have been repurposed to be drone barracks, and also, Paril has fewer drones than his ancestors who previously lived here – only four dozen. The previous drone barracks nearby has sat unused and has kind of become a warehouse for various items.]

The architecture and building style will be very reminiscent of castles, and there will be three floors plus a basement cellar and icebox. There's the main bedroom, four guest rooms, with bathrooms, the main living room, and also about a dozen ancillary rooms whose purpose is kind of undefined but have various assorted items in them. Aside from that, there's the kitchen and related structures, the warehouse and pantry, the actual intended drone barracks, the old rooms repurposed to be drone barracks, drone bathrooms, a laundry area...so on and so forth. It will have all of the expected domestic facilities a baron would expect. [Plus electric lighting! It's daytime now, so it's kind of irrelevant, but if you flick this lever here... light comes out from the glass pear on the ceiling.]

Is there any particular part which she wants to focus on? Drones greet him when he passes them. Alternatively, he can return to the bedroom to change into outdoor clothes. Honestly, he could go out with just that, but it might be a bit too chilly.

Her instinct is that this weather does not qualify as chilly but she should adjust that instinct to the fact that this body is much less fluffy than the one she's used to. She'll wander the house looking out windows and inspecting architectural details and getting a feel for the place, and then get into some warmer clothes and go outside to stroll through the trees.

It is indeed much less fluffy, since remna don't have hair at all!

It will look very reminiscent of a medieval castle, with stone and brick, except the brick has been dyed black. It even has crenellations and such. It kind of seems like it was meant to be defensible? [Old-Paril says that this house is very very old, back during the days of the early Imperium, and so was constructed with defensibility in mind. This house has been passed down through many generations.]

Looking out windows indicates that the geography is relatively flat, and also subtropical. There are forests too, but they're not part of the land Paril owns, which has fencing to indicate it.

The interior design is similar to the bedroom, with painted walls and wooden furniture. It will look simultaneously ominous and cozy. There's not a lot of ornamentation, [which is considered a little weird by Zmavlipre standards.]

The trees are all tall and old! You might even describe some of them as 'majestic'. None of them are deciduous, which is why they all have their leaves even though it's early spring.

Fels has been following along this whole time – including when Paril changes, [this is normal, usually you have your drones help you dress] – and will continue to follow him unless he dismisses him or tells him to go away.

Her crown manages to successfully distract itself from ✨drones✨ by enjoying the architecture. Though, in her crown's opinion, the place could do with more crown-shaped and perhaps Lamb-shaped decor. When they move outside, her crown keeps its eye out for good places to put a Temple or Shrine—not necessarily right away, of course, just thinking ahead. Daydreaming. Daydreaming is okay, right?

The Lamb will allow daydreaming. Personally she's really enjoying these trees. These trees look like they've been here a while and are happy with their lives. And unlike really old trees in the world she's used to, they don't feel faintly ominous!

Both of them are happy about the defensibility, especially as they start seeing the house from the outside and getting a feel for it that way. The crown thinks this would make such a good place of power. In fact, once the Lamb has had her fill of wandering between the trees, the crown prompts her to go inside and—just as a thought, just a plan, just a daydream—see if there is anywhere indoors big enough to hold a full-size stone circle. Since everyone who lives here is so enormous, it shouldn't be too terribly hard to find. A cellar or something, some room whose floor is embedded directly in the ground, with room to hold a circle that's more than two but less than three enormous-alien-lengths across. Is there a room meeting that description anywhere?

Many rooms, actually!

The cellar meets this description, but is also full of various food items, so it would be extremely inconvenient to move all that out to make space for the stone circle. There are drones though, and they could probably move it? A few of the rooms upstairs can be converted into pantries.

The ground floor has many such rooms too, including the main living room, which could probably fit four stone circles of that description if you remove the furniture. It does have stone tiling, but you could replace it or remove it.

So that's the stone circle squared away, so to speak.

How about hidden courtyards open to the sky but concealed from external view, any of those? (The crown is thinking ahead to some period of time wherein they will have Converted their drones but won't have gone public yet and should put their Shrine somewhere where it will not be immediately obvious to visitors and passersby that there's a big glowy statue around, bleeding eldritch ichor from its eyes and radiating the light of Devotion. The Lamb is appreciating her crown's foresight in this matter.)

Sadly not – the entire castle is one whole building and has no inner courtyards. The closest thing you could have in short notice would be to remove the roof of one of the ancillary buildings or sheds.

The other option is buying construction materials to build a wall, in which you could place the stone circle. Paril's drones are trained in basic construction – the ancillary structures were all built by them – and buying construction materials would not be considered suspicious or noteworthy in any way, for a rural farmer. Construction will take a while, though. A dozen days or so to transport materials, and a few dozen more to actually build it. More if Paril wants something more elaborate than 'simple stone wall'. The drones are trained in construction but only some of them are, and they don't specialize in it.

In that case, they take a stroll around the castle together looking for good places to put such a walled courtyard, either attached to the main building or separate from it. If attached to the main building, it should have its own door, and possibly no external door, to make it accessible only from within the castle... of course, defensible buildings are generally not built with a ton of outside doors in the first place, so that might limit their options considerably unless they're willing to knock holes in the wall, and they shouldn't be, not yet. Or, on the other hand, perhaps one of the castle's interior rooms has a skylight, or, if not, could be given one? The most important aspect of the Shrine's placement is that it must be open to the sky; having it connected to the ground is a nice aesthetic bonus, but not at all necessary, and if they're planning on hiding all their eldritch magical nonsense they'd better let go of unnecessary constraints.

There are flower gardens near the castle, but the back of it doesn't. The wall could potentially placed there.

No skylights in the interior rooms, sadly, but there are two 3/4-circle towers on the front side of the castle with conical roofs. You could potentially remove the roof from one of them, and place the circle in it, although it will look lopsided and Aesthetically Dissonant if the other roof isn't removed too. Sadly, that would mean that the stone circle isn't in contact with the ground, which seems to be an Important Element.

How exposed does the stone circle need to be? The middle of the castle only has two floors, rather than three, and the central room there – the event hall – has a high ceiling. You could potentially cut a large hole or skylight there, but not remove the ceiling entirely, since it might compromise the structural integrity of the building. It is also a big room, around the same size as the living room (the living room is intended to be more cozy and casual).

While they prowl the grounds and the Red Crown ponders placement constraints, the Lamb digs around in Paril's memories for a sense of just how drastically they could renovate and redecorate this place without it seeming odd to an outside observer. She's getting the sense that Going Places With Your Aesthetic is pretty locally normal, is that right?

[Paril lives in a rural area and not a city, so he doesn't have to follow city-aesthetic-coherence ordinances. People who visit and know him personally might comment on him changing his aesthetic, but a random stranger would not.

It is normal! Zmavlipre care deeply about aesthetics being coherent, but not about following any one specific aesthetic – for example, different cities have different aesthetic norms. So long as the whole of Paril's property gives ominous brooding vibes, people will not negatively comment on or be suspicious of, say, the stone circle, and will simply consider it Fancy Matching Decor.]

In that case...

Magically speaking, their constraints are as follows:

In order to build anything else, they need a big elaborate stone circle connected directly to the earth. It's possible they'll have to build it mundanely, using the drones; they'd need to give very precise and somewhat bizarre instructions, and might want to have the drones Converted first for mystic resonance reasons, but on the other hand it'll be much easier to Convert people once they have a stone circle, so... tradeoffs. The living room seems like the likeliest spot for it, but depending on other factors, they might choose to use a smaller more out-of-the-way room instead. The tradition is to place the large stone circle at the entrance to one's inner sanctum, but this is by no means necessary, and they should probably not prioritize it.

In order to gather the energy of Devotion and use it to impress building-templates into the world, which is necessary to build a Temple, they need a Shrine open to the sky. It can be enclosed by walls, and even partly sheltered by tree branches or perhaps some kind of shade or lattice, but you must be able to look up from the top of the Shrine and see stars under appropriate star-seeing conditions. It doesn't have to be rooted to the ground, though they're often built that way because it's aesthetically pleasing. It should be somewhere that's easily accessible to their converted Followers for long-term practical purposes, but it's also the most blatantly visibly eldritch of all the necessary constructions, so probably the best place to put it is either a tower room with the roof removed/remodeled, a walled courtyard added to the main building at a side entrance if any are appropriate, or a remodeled outbuilding.

In order to tend to their Cult in the long term, they will need a Temple containing an Altar. The Temple's roof should be open to the sky; the Altar should be rooted to the ground. At home—well, all right, the Lamb has mixed feelings about calling that place home—in their former place of residence, the Temple was a small shed-like building. But (and they're not entirely sure which one of them first conceived of the spark of this idea, but the more they think about it, the more both of them like it) assuming there's a suitable position in the event hall for a rooted block of elaborately carved stone, converting the entire event hall into a Temple might work pretty well. It could be the centerpiece of a revised aesthetic for the whole castle, in a way that would seem completely normal to visitors, as long as those visitors did not come by while the Temple was in active use.

This is all planning for the future, of course. They haven't even sat down to properly think over the question of when and whether to Convert their drones into Followers, and before they do that, the rest is just daydreams. But they're nice daydreams, and practical ones, and it feels good to share in a sense of purpose together.

In fact, it feels so good to share in this sense of purpose that the Lamb searches Paril's memory for any sign of floor plans to this castle, and memories of previous redecorations. How is such a thing usually done? How strange would it be for she and her crown to lock themselves in her bedroom together and draw up plans for potential renovations?

[There are entrances on all four sides, but only the front is the main one. Each door also has a portcullis.

If the Shrine is just weird-looking, then it's fine to put in an aesthetically appropriate place. But if the Shrine has weird glowy or tentacly bits that defy the laws of physics, it should definitely be put somewhere out of the way – violations of the laws of physics will most assuredly attract suspicion.

The event hall would be very suitable as a temple, since it already has a raised dais, and you could put a statue in front of it – having oddly-shaped statues or decorations is totally normal in Zmavlimu'e, again, so long as it's Aesthetically Coherent.

The castle doesn't have any written down floor plans, because it was constructed so long ago. Paril's memories say that it hasn't been redecorated in any significant way, at least in the time he's owned it. He also remembers that it hasn't really been redecorated significantly in the years past, but he's less sure of that. He's been content to have it maintain the same aesthetic. 

Unless your drones are competent enough to do aesthetically pleasing and coherent redecorations, you'll usually hire a building and design company, preferably one that specializes in your desired aesthetic, if available.

It would not be strange at all! There is no one here save for Paril's drones, which makes him 'alone'. Drones are property and not people, after all. It would be like being concerned about being observed because your teddy bear's eyes are pointing at you.]

It would probably be possible to pass the Shrine off as obeying the laws of physics to someone who didn't get a good look at it, but they should not be counting on that.

If there are no preexisting floor plans then they're going to have to do a proper survey. The Red Crown is mildly offended at the prospect of hiring an external designer, even though its design and construction abilities are currently badly impaired by lack of worshippers; it would much prefer to work things out with its bearer, no outside forces involved. Also, given that the aesthetic they're going for is literally from another planet, there probably isn't a design company that specializes in it anyway.

The crown is now itching to measure the building from top to bottom, but the Lamb reminds it that this is all theoretical at this point. Plans for surveying the place are going to have to come after they decide whether they're Converting the drones, since the Lamb still firmly maintains that she's not going to do anything blatantly magical in front of them until they're Converted, which means no having her crown turn into a roll of tailor's tape and start snuggling every surface in sight. In fact, it might be a good idea to procure those measurements from the drones, who she presumes can get it done competently and who definitely won't need magic to do it, and sure they'll be slower but the Lamb and her crown can talk through their thoughts on Conversion in the meantime, yeah? (Her crown reluctantly assents.)

Also, they've now been wandering and inspecting for long enough that Paril's stomach is informing them it's lunchtime. Will the drones have anticipated this outcome, or will they need to explicitly request food in order for food to appear? She's guessing the first one.

Paril can order the drones to conduct a survey of the house, if he wants to. It's probably going to take several hours. Does Paril also want the ancillary structures measured, or only the main house? What about the furniture and items? If he orders those, it will take a few days.

Yes! Paril preferred to have the drones prepare meals and menus in advance. There will be beef stew and bread, and a sweet pureed yam soup with glutinous rice balls and tapioca pears for dessert. [This is considered relatively simple as far as lunches go. Some people like their drones to prepare buffets or banquets for them even if they're just one person, and for them to have the drones simply eat the leftovers – Old-Paril disliked this and preferred that the drones only cook just enough for him, or perhaps a little more, and reserve large banquets for when he actually has guests. Which is not often.]

The drones will put the food wherever Paril wants to eat, since there's only two things.

"Paril" will pause to eat in the nearest reasonably eating-oriented space - how about this picnic-table-like arrangement in one of the flower gardens? Cool, sounds good.

After taking the time to think about it over the meal, she orders the drones to do a comprehensive survey of the house's structural dimensions (walls, floors, ceilings) but not furniture or other moveable parts, and to extend the survey to the exterior but in doing so measure only the outer dimensions (width, length, height) of the outbuildings, locations of trees in the orchard (with specifics only where they are near the house and outbuildings; generalities are fine for the farther ones), and so on up to the property line. In other words, a detailed and accurate map of all the parts of this property that would require significant tearing-down in order to be moved or replaced. Once she has that, she can go over it with her crown and they can see about planning in more detail.

The drones will accommodate Paril's request to eat in the flower gardens. [That isn't really a thing Old-Paril did, but they have done it nonzero times.]

The drones will do that! They say it will take a while though, probably days, because of how much he wants to get measured. Not that they're complaining about that – it is simply a statement of fact.

She rummages in her borrowed brain for something Paril might say to that, and comes up with, "Not urgent. Circumstantial delays are acceptable."

The current drone attending personally to Paril, Selt, is relieved by Fels. [Old-Paril was fine with having that be done on a set schedule rather than being managed personally, unless he specifically requested specific drones be available in advance.]

"Are you planning on doing renovations, Controller?" Fels asks. 

"Yes. Not sure of plans yet. Will be thinking about it." She finds the words coming through a little distantly in Paril's voice, as her mind flits back and forth between the topic of renovations and the topic of - Paril. Hmm. Maybe instead of thinking about renovations, she should be thinking about how to impersonate Paril more effectively on the upcoming social occasion. Crown, can you please remind me to focus if I get distracted by architecture again?

Her crown kind of also prefers thinking about architecture, but assents to her request anyway.

"Yes, Controller."

[Damin visited Old-Paril about a dozen times per year, usually staying the night or staying for a few days, but not any longer than that. Old-Paril was friendly but preferred to keep his distance. Old-Paril visited Damin in his own place very rarely, maybe once every few years. Generally, Damin liked talking about how the orchard was doing, the harvests, and food – usually food products relating to dairy or fruits, which were Damin and Old-Paril's products respectively.]

She finishes eating lunch, and gets up and starts walking again. Paril isn't usually this restless but she doesn't think it's unheard-of, and she feels very restless indeed.

(There's half a thought from her crown, at that, but when she wonders what's going on it doesn't explain; its mental presence feels distracted. She decides to leave it alone.)

So she wanders. Wanders, and thinks about Paril. Who he was as a person, what his life's ambitions were. It feels like... he wasn't all that different from her, in many respects? He didn't think in terms of wanting his drones to lead good lives, but the project he was pursuing was eminently compatible with that aim. He was just about as much of an introvert as she is, accounting for cultural differences - and even then, he sometimes took actual alone time, which apparently most people don't. He was a lot more laconic than she would be by default, but it's not a speaking style she's actively opposed to; it's pretty comfortable to maintain that verbal posture of brusque efficiency, if she puts herself in the right mindset.

It feels like maybe they could've gotten along.

She wishes she could've met him.

She wishes she knew whether he was still alive—and trapped powerless in her body in the world she came from? So probably not alive anymore, by now—or whether she... erased him, supplanted him, stamped herself into his brain leaving only fragments of who he used to be. It feels important to know that. She isn't sure she'll ever find out.

What would he have wanted her to do, given that she's taken over his life? What legacy would he want her to uphold? She thinks... she thinks he would've wanted her to carry on his work. Make this household a marvel of efficiency, plan for the longest term, become someone he would've been proud to be. She isn't exactly sure how to do that; she isn't exactly sure that she's right. She tries to sort through his memories to check, but she isn't even exactly sure what she's looking for.

The Lamb's memories and Old-Paril's memories are separate, but if she points her mind Old-Paril's direction, his memories will become apparent to her.

Old-Paril wasn't all that ambitious. He didn't want to change the world; he didn't want to make an impact on it. Not that he was opposed to that – he just wasn't pursuing it actively. Mostly, he just wanted to make things run on his estate smoothly, according to his conception of beauty. The closest things to 'virtues' in Zmavlimu'e are 'the five desirables': beauty, efficiency, power, coherence, and truth; as compared to ugliness, wastefulness, weakness, dissonance, and falsity. Of these, Old-Paril was attracted to efficiency the most – he considered it to be more related to beauty than others seem to. He was very interested in arranging his estate and managing his drones in the way which minimized waste: to do the most with the least, every little piece contributing to a greater whole.

Sadly, this mental motion doesn't reveal where Old-Paril went, nor whether he's still around, nor whether it's possible or impossible to recover him.

The Lamb has a thought about that, actually.

Hey, crown. That doctrine of resurrection...

Her crown apologetically responds that coming here has completely severed them from their former Cult, its Doctrines included. And without countless centuries of tradition to build on, if they want to forge new Doctrines here, they're going to have to put in some serious dev time. Counting from the point where they have Followers whose energies can be used for this purpose, it will probably be months before they can begin to feel out the space of possible directions such a Doctrine might take, and the crown really genuinely doesn't know where to find resurrection on that map, or whether it will even be possible. It should be? Eventually? Very, very eventually? But as for when... well, certainly not anytime soon. And there's no guarantee that Paril would be resurrectable.

(And, the Lamb silently adds, if they *did* resurrect him, at that point, probably centuries after taking all of his stuff and repurposing it to their own ends... well, then what?)

Then what indeed. They could Convert him! He would probably not be amenable to that. ...though maybe if they were really, really impressive with what they accomplished using his resources...

The Lamb resists the urge to pat herself on the head. No, she really doesn't think Paril would be up for getting Converted. And it's true that it would be incredibly awkward to resurrect him under those conditions, even if it were possible. But... she just doesn't feel like it being incredibly awkward is a good reason to plan to never do it.

They can cross that bridge when they come to it, though. In the meantime, she's... surprised to find that it seems Paril agrees with her crown about what she should do with her/their life. If she's going to inherit his legacy, then... the obvious way to build a maximally efficient and beautiful household is to Convert all the drones and make them into an efficient, beautiful Cult of efficient, beautiful Followers.

Now if only she could decide how she felt about that.

Old-Paril doesn't have any memories of Conversion, so he can't comment on whether he would want that or not. Old-Paril was quite interested in drone psychology though, and the reason Old-Paril was friends with Damin is that Damin taught him hypnosis. If there existed some even more efficient and powerful way to bind and control drones, well, that would be delightful! Old-Paril's memories suggest that he would have felt that way, at least.

She paces and frets and combs through borrowed memories and tries to figure out what she wants and can't figure out what she wants and paces and frets some more. By dinnertime she's feeling pretty dispirited, and it's hard to keep up the outward appearance of a thoughtful, distracted, placid Paril.

Her crown shyly nudges her mind.

(She's not sure she's ever felt the crown being shy before. Has she? It feels pretty strange...)

What is it?

Well... her new body has some features that the crown has been exploring, and it thinks—thinks—that, if she lets it operate some of those features, she might be able to sleep tonight. Restful sleep, with dreams and everything.

...the Lamb is immediately torn between suspicion and longing. Features?? What features???

The crown clumsily attempts to point her in the direction of some Paril-memories.

Body control! Remna have nerve clusters distributed all around their body that allow them to consciously control what would normally be autonomic functions. You can use these to diagnose and treat diseases and injuries, but one of the uses of body control is to induce various types of dormancy. Old-Paril's memories will have the time he tried aestivation and hibernation for the first times, as a child. No one does that anymore, even back then, because they have good shelter and enough food for everyone, but it's considered Culturally Important that children still be taught body control dormancy techniques. Aestivation and hibernation protect from hot and cold temperatures, and also greatly reduce the need for food and water while dormant. It's not without risk, though, the body is at risk of infection during these times, so it's important that the place where people go dormant be kept very clean. Also, they're going to be really hungry and thirsty and tired for hours to days afterward as they recover.

Sleep is the simplest type of dormancy, and is the only mandatory one. Remna must sleep at least for some portion of the day: usually six, but can go as low as four if you've done little thinking or moving in the day, or up to twelve, for drones doing grueling work like pulling carriages quickly by running. People can also sleep longer than that to recover from disease or injury, in which case they may remain in sleep for most of the day, waking only to eat, drink, and relieve themselves. Sleep requires no complex technique – if you get tired enough you'll actually go to sleep against your will – but you might need to do something extra if you have to sleep under adverse conditions, such as changing your sleep schedule, or the room being bright or loud.

Unlike other body control techniques, this one doesn't require poking and prodding, and instead only requires mental motions. Old-Paril will have many memories of his favorite one to induce sleep.

The crown explains that, although as its bearer she can't sleep normally, and that would by default include sleeping as a remna, it thinks it can get around this limitation by taking over her body control and applying the dormancy techniques to her.

She's so, so torn. On the one hand, she misses sleep desperately. It was the worst thing about a very bad situation, that she couldn't go to bed at night and wake up refreshed in the morning, couldn't take a nap to work herself out of a bad mood, had to just keep going and going and going and endlessly, endlessly going. But. It's... a lot of trust, to let the crown screw around with her brain like that? What if it messes something up?

(The crown promises to be very careful!)

In the end, the longing wins out. After dinner, and another walk through the flower gardens and the closest part of the orchard, she goes to bed and (reluctantly, fearfully) lets the crown apply Mandatory Cozy Time.

This just in: dreams suck.

She does wake up rested in the morning, though, and (somewhat grudgingly) admits it was worth it.

Thanks, crown.

It's so glad it could help!

Fels will, just like yesterday, ask Paril whether he wants to have breakfast here, or at the table.

"Please be reminded that Sir Damin will be arriving later this afternoon, Controller."

Today she feels adventurous enough to have breakfast at the table. She tries to be less distracted, and also to immerse herself more fully in the role of Paril, though these goals trade off against each other somewhat because it's distracting to always be checking what Paril would do.

[Old-Paril ate at the table when he felt like eating more than he usually did.]

"You seem tense, Controller," Fels says. "Is there anything this drone could do to fix that?"

(Old-Paril, context? The Lamb strongly suspects you did not destress by gardening.)

[Old-Paril's destressing methods by decreasing order of commonality:

Sleeping.
Eating.
Taking a walk.
Being massaged by a drone.
Being "massaged" by a drone.
Punishing or torturing a drone.

In this respect he's quite similar to the median Keeper.]

Wow, she could take a nap. That's a thing she can do now. She's so grateful to enormous alien biology and also to her crown.

It wouldn't actually solve her problem, though, since her problem is that she's stressed about impersonating Paril successfully. And a massage sounds mildly horrifying to her non-drone-accustomed instincts, and a "massage" sounds even worse.

She makes a noncommittal noise and says, "Maybe I'll take a walk after breakfast."

"Yes, Controller," Fels says. "Sir Damin said via teletype that he has set off and expects to arrive here around noon.

There are no other scheduled tasks or events for today or for tomorrow."

She gives an acknowledging nod and tries to focus on her food in a more natural-seeming way, with mixed success.

After breakfast (so much breakfast, why do these enormous aliens need to eat such enormous amounts), she goes on the indicated walk, some distance into the orchard and back. It does help clear her head a little, and brings her borrowed memories into slightly better alignment with her conscious mind, because she feels some kinship with Paril when she walks among his trees and thinks about the fact that they're her trees now. They're good trees.

Perhaps by the time Damin arrives, she'll be capable of acting... reasonably normal.

Damin will arrive with six drones on a carriage, which is giving a rococo aesthetic, except with yellow and blue as the main colors rather than yellow and white. Two drones are pulling the carriage – with their replacements in the back when they get tired – with two attending to him directly.

He's going to go up to the gate, whereupon one of Paril's drones will let them pass through, since it has been told to expect them.

Damin will ride all the way up to near the front of the house, where he will park the carriage and wait for either Paril himself or one of his drones to attend to him.

He's wearing a similarly blue and yellow patterned garment seemingly made of a few long pieces of cloth draped and wrapped around the body, like a sari. His drones are wearing similar wraps, but only on their torsos – they're wearing regular pants.

"Paril", in a red and black outfit that the crown picked out, will—

No, it's going to be unsustainable to think of things this way. It's not like she even has a name anymore to begin with. Let Paril, then, be the name for what she has become: an amalgam of who she was before all this, with the presence and influence and assistance of her crown, with the memories of the alien whose body she stole. Unified under a single flag, under a single name, under a single luminous red eye.

Paril, wearing a red and black outfit that goes very well with their strange new hat,* greets Damin personally and accompanies him into the house through the massive main doors set in what was once the castle's outer wall.

"Good to see you. Have you been well? When would you prefer to eat?" they say, with customary levels of abruptness, mild distraction, and conscientious thought for the future.

*Their strange new hat is doing such a good job impersonating an inanimate object and will be getting pats later.

"Thank you, and yes. I'm not very hungry right now."

Damin flicks his tongue – a little bit off to the side, not in Paril's direction – and vigorously oscillates his aftendrils.

"The air here tastes so fresh. It's absolutely delightful. You can smell the fruit tree flowers."

Damin will follow Paril or his drones inside, presuming that Paril or his drones will lead him inside. He'll dismiss his drones – [he's come over to Paril's house enough times that there are already arrangements for his drones to be accommodated by Paril's].

"I love your outfit. And that new crown – it looks splendid on you. I didn't really peg you for a hat person, but clearly you have excellent taste." He smiles.

They smile. "It's a very good crown," they agree. "Thinking of taking a new aesthetic direction. Not sure of details yet, but the crown is a good first step."

They do in fact lead Damin into the house, and around the corner and into the main living room, at the bottom of the old keep. Their gaze darts around the room as they consider their redecoration plans.

"It's a very pleasing direction. A good first step indeed."

Damin will look around as much as Parilamb does.

"Are you planning to do a metamorphosis ritual, given your desire to change your aesthetic? I know you don't really go to church, but I have acquaintances in it if you feel like having someone help you. Or buy supplies for it."

...hey, stolen memories: metamorphosis ritual? What??

And in the meantime, to give her time to process whatever results she turns up, "Not sure yet if this is change or... refinement." Hopefully that lands well.

[When someone feels like changing something significant about themselves, they conduct a metamorphosis ritual to banish or say goodbye to the old self (depending on one's relationship with it) and welcome the new. Usually the figure of Zasybix is invoked, the exemplar of flexibility, adaptability, change, and resilience, unless one seeks to change bad habits, in which case Jitbad is invoked, the exemplar of steadfastness, protectiveness, borders, and separation. There's more to it than that, but that's the extent that Old-Paril remembers – he doesn't really do rituals generally. People vary in how much they use them.]

"That makes sense. You don't really have to do one if you don't want to, regardless of the extent of your change.

Is there any particular reason why you want to change your aesthetic, or do you just feel like it? I know your family has had this keep for a very long time."

"Do you have a lot of experience with these rituals? I have little."

As for the question, that will need more consideration (and more internal consultation) to answer. (How did Paril relate to this keep's aesthetic? How would he have related to the question of whether to change it? She thinks she can see a possible shape of an answer—that Paril has been mildly dissatisfied with this aesthetic for being insufficiently specific, but has been unable to come up with a more tightly coherent and expressive aesthetic that he finds sufficiently satisfying to be worth the change, and was recently inspired with the seeds of an idea that he hopes to eventually grow into... well, in the end, the aesthetic here is going to be the crown's.)

(It doesn't quite consciously occur to her, yet, that a ritual of metamorphosis might be a practical way to both memorialize Old-Paril and account for the differences between old and new. The thought is floating in the back of her head, just out of reach.)

"Somewhat? I've done a bunch of them, but if I'm being honest with you, a lot of the time I just use them as an excuse to throw a party afterwards or before. Which technically is a ritual in and of itself but it's not centrally one. And yes, I know you're not supposed to do rituals like that, but whatever."

Paril kept the keep's aesthetic partly because he didn't feel the need to change it, and also because he did indeed find maintaining the same aesthetic that his predecessors did to be compelling, to an extent. He didn't do a lot of introspection as to what sort of aesthetic he himself would find compelling. 

"What's your opinion on industrial fertilizer? Do you think you'll start using it?"

"Don't think so." Partly because the crown will probably be better at growing things than—no, actually, they should check that, not just assume it. But not urgently. "Perhaps someday. Not soon."

The Lamb's instinct here is to joke about Damin just suggesting the metamorphosis ritual as an excuse to have Paril throw a party with Damin as sole attendee, but Paril was not much of a joker and it turns out to be very difficult to get the idea across in his usual speaking style. But maybe...

"A ritual as an excuse for a party," they say musingly, with a little of the very dry amusement that Paril did sometimes indulge in. "A novel idea. The guest list would of course be... short." And then, a little more seriously but also in a more friendly tone, "Either way, you'll see the castle when renovations are complete."

"I see! I think many people are waiting on seeing how industrial fertilizer changes the soil conditions long term before trying to use it themselves." He makes a thoughtful noise.

"Ah, I have cheerful rituals as excuses to throw parties, given that parties, in and of themselves, are usually cheerful. A metamorphosis ritual is a tranquil ritual and is almost always done alone." He tilts his head at Paril. 

I look forward to it!" He smiles.

"You know, your orchard would make an amazing ritual space when the trees are in bloom. Didn't you use to rent the space out for events?"

"I have done that," they agree. "And might again. Not sure if the change in decor will make the space more desirable, or less. Perhaps you can offer an opinion, after I redecorate?"

"Of course! Feel free to hit me up on the teletype network once it's done, and I can go take a look."

Damin will stay with Paril and make smalltalk unless Paril wants to pursue specific conversational topics, and then he'll want to eat.

Paril is mostly content to let the more outgoing (and better possessed of context) conversational participant steer the topic. It's... less harrowing than the Lamb expected, which is different from not being harrowing. Damin seems like an all-right friend to have, though.

(Eating in this body is still weird and feels somehow inappropriate to do in company, but the Lamb will do her very best to display none of this reaction and act exactly as Paril would have.)

Damin does not notice anything strange about Paril's behavior, or is otherwise concealing it very well.

Paril's drones serve the more 'presentable' dishes with more effort put into making them look good. There will be cake with fruit, juices, meat dumplings, and savory puff pastry.

It's sort of interesting how they're putting more effort into aesthetics when there's a guest to impress. Makes an amount of sense. The Paril gestalt is not, on the whole, sure how they feel about it, but they in any case don't feel that it should be urgently changed.

After the meal, Paril says thoughtfully, "Joking aside, it does seem appropriate to invite friends, not to witness a metamorphosis, but to greet the new self. And perhaps say goodbye to the old, if the change is drastic enough."

...wait, shit, they were just trying to say the kinds of things that the old-Paril persona would be likely to say in this scenario and they accidentally came up with something really profound and meaningful and potentially applicable to the current situation?? Help.

The drones put effort into aesthetics because there's a standing order about that!

Damin makes a curious face. "Interesting. Most other people would say they want no other people – perhaps not even drones – observing them do it, because observation constrains you. People have implicit expectations of you that are built up as they spend time with you, and they will often exert a nonzero amount of pressure for you to maintain your current shape, even if most of the time that is unintentional. It is common for people to change their name and move away if the metamorphosis ritual they did is strong enough and they want to change a lot about themselves.

There's also the reason of – if the old self has died, then there is continuity with the new self, but it's not the new self, now is it? If someone dies, I'm not going to be friends with their children just because they have some connection with them. Your take on it is really quite unusual. I suppose them coming to say goodbye to the old self makes sense, although I bet most people would still avoid that because it's likely to induce guilt, and it's already hard enough to kill the old self to make space for the new."

They spend a moment considering this.

"Many deep questions here," they conclude, after some thought. "What is death? What is self? If I undergo... refinement, carrying forward some parts of myself and abandoning others, what is the relationship between the before and the after? Maybe my perspective is strange because I have few friends, and do not feel much constrained by them."

(She's sort of uneasy about just how much they are channeling Old-Paril when they add,) "If I did make a drastic change, I think I would like you to meet my... inheritor. To see whether it suited you to be friends with them."

"Yeah, probably. I personally don't really think about it much. Not as...a conscious choice – I just don't care very much. Hah.

And yes, I'd be willing to meet your successor."

Damin leans back on the chaise longue he's sitting on and continues eating.

Paril thoughtfully takes another nibble of pastry.

"It was good to catch up with you. Would you mind if I sleep now? I don't want to wake up too late tomorrow. The food was wonderful."

They shake their head, indicating no, they do not mind. "Rest well."

Damin will thank Paril again and go to bed. The guest rooms are large enough such that all his drones can fit on the floor – Paril's drones have laid out sheets for them to sleep on.

This seems like a sensible time for Paril to also go to bed.

Suc...cess??? A potentially viable excuse to exist? A potentially viable way to present the change between Old-Paril and... New-Paril... as something that makes sense within the context of this world without introducing any tough questions about head injuries or terrifyingly powerful alien beings? And, at least as far as they can tell, they didn't fuck up at all in playing this part?

Okay, as soon as they're fully alone yes fully alone as in not observed by anything else with a brain, the crown is getting such pats. It did such a good job pretending to be an inanimate object for that whole visit!

The crown, with that odd touch of shyness that it sometimes shows around the Lamb, flows into her arms in the form of a tasseled cushion for her to hug. She hugs it very much. Good crown. So good at doing difficult important things like pretend to be inanimate. Luckily Paril's social calendar is barren enough that they shouldn't have to do that much in the medium-to-long term, once they've renovated the castle and settled the question of Converting drones into Followers and can start relaxing properly at home.

Damin will eat breakfast and make more smalltalk before going back home. It was a very Pleasant Visit.

Paril is now alone and will have no commitments basically indefinitely. [Aside from the surveyors from the tax agency, but they won't come until nine years from now.]

The drones will clean up the plates and also clean the room Damin was staying at. It wasn't dirty, but that's Standard Procedure.

Over the coming days, Paril will:

- spend an uncharacteristic amount of time actually-alone, because the Lamb still isn't willing to display obvious supernatural effects in front of their drones yet and the Crown is more comfortable when it's allowed to move
- get more accustomed to acting and speaking in the gestalt-Paril persona
- dig deep into old-Paril's memories for more context on that metamorphosis ritual
- having done so, put a lot of thought into how to adapt the basic concept to satisfy both what old-Paril's sensibilities would've been, and the Lamb's sensibilities which, having been formed in the world she came from, are highly suspicious of invoking exemplars because it smells of gods and she is so done with gods
- also put a lot of thought into architecture and interior design, and make a lot of preliminary sketches
- dither endlessly about what their Shrine statue should look like, in particular whether it should resemble the Lamb's old body or their new one or some sort of uncanny hybrid, or whether they should just give up and depict the Crown directly even though the Crown is nebulously uncomfortable with this
- try to think about what their post-metamorphosis persona should look like, how much of old-Paril to keep and how much of the Lamb to add, who the Lamb even wants to be in this new alien world, which personality traits should be omitted for being generally weird and suspicious...
- await the drones' survey of the house and its immediate environs, so they can move forward on planning the renovations