She was a frog in my estimation; small and colorful but toxic to touch.

In your infinite wisdom, you looked beyond the worm I brought you to the least of the leeches that infested Fundament. Shaving thin my gift, you infected them with conquest, and now they see themselves as artisans of the final shape.

My place is not to understand you, my Witness, but to serve that final goal you see more clearly than I. But now, your gold-leaf parasites call themselves gods and carve out their divine homes. And I am to watch the sniveling frog.

Was this castigation? The toll I pay for my failure with the Ahslid? You have cast me and my ego once more into the cold depths of an inconsequential world.

I recall stepping into her realm, and her face twisted to betray restrained delight. She thought herself mistress of this domain you leased her. She did not—could not—appreciate the precarity of her situation. So sure of her dominion, she could not recognize her jailer, or that she lives within a prison formed from her own ego—one I will put to work for you, my Witness.

The capture of her race will flow out from this realm—each self-satisfied smirk will forge a new link in their chains.

Had I known then what my current quandary would be, I could have heeded my own insights on ego. Regardless, even in this predicament, I am unbowed.