I didn't sleep so much as relax my mind and let it drift a while before I decided to mentally project myself and see what I could sense. It was hard to work out the sort of distance limits I'd felt when doing the same thing in my father's bedroom. On Earth, there was a limitation, I believed, somewhere around a couple of miles from my body. Beyond that, the projection became rather noisy, as if there was a buildup of small interactions which swamped my ability to identify individual pieces, sort of like the way ripples in a pool interact and it becomes harder, further away, to see the ones you'd just made by jumping in the water. I wondered if this was a real limitation, or if it was happening because I hadn't fully mastered the way the projection worked. I suspected the latter, but several trials over the preceding days had yielded no greater range for my projections.

However, in the sanctuary, I felt no noise as I reached out. The further I pushed, the more my range expanded.

I became aware of other beings, and at first, they were just warm auras in my senses. But like I'd done on Earth, being able to differentiate squirrels from birds from humans, I found myself able to detect fundamental differences in those I sensed in the sanctuary. I couldn't really classify those I detected. Some had an edge, a sharpness, others felt much softer. I didn't exactly hear anything, but some beings were 'loud' where others were 'quiet.' My mind tried to draw analogies for the impressions I experienced by mapping them back, not always successfully, to my basic senses.

I could feel hundreds of others. Some were grouped together fairly tightly, and I wondered if those might be the bird-like creatures, or something like them. Others were much higher up, in a sense, perhaps a different creature, or some other being flying above. I could sense a little bit of emotion if I really concentrated. Or, rather, did the opposite, actually. Concentrating seemed to be the worst way to pay attention. It interjected my brain's filters and expectations and made it difficult to maintain the relaxed awareness needed to tap into the projection.

Dad turned over and I could sense him watching me, even getting a strong impression that he was wondering what I was doing. I smiled from his attention, continuing my projection and trying to classify the living things into categories based on basic descriptions from my senses. This one feels hot and rough, that one is warm but dense. Another smelled like elderberries.

I felt my mouth begin to water as I detected sweet and tart fragrance in my nose. Where had that come from? Elderberries?

I opened my eyes and I could see that Dad's gaze was showing surprise. "Dad...?"

"You opened... something... between us..."

"What?"

"I don't know," he replied, blinking, "it was like... I could feel you opening something... in my head. Like... I just had a conduit in which to pass you an idea... a sense of something."

"Elderberries," I gasped.

He nodded, "Random, I know... but yeah."

I hadn't sensed the impression of fruit when I'd pushed my awareness into him. It wasn't that I'd detected it in his thoughts. Instead, he'd somehow pushed the idea of elderberries into my head. "Can you do it again?"

He shook his head, "No... whatever you opened is closed now."

I sent my projection the same way as before. "Now?"

Hamster.

"Hamster?"

"Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I'm sure we've watched it together."

"Ah," I replied, "right. Dad, that could be really useful. Can you push more than a single idea at once? How fast can you send it? Can I send it to you?"

We tested ourselves for long moments. It turned out that, no, he could not send me more than a single thing, and the more complicated the idea he wanted to convey, the less likely it seemed to come through as anything definable. He could send it almost as fast as he could think it, but again, simple ideas flowed somewhat quickly, maybe one a second or so, complicated ideas much, much slower, often taking him a great deal of effort and as much as a minute or two to finally push through something I could interpret.

The final question was easily answered: Yes, I could send him information. But if I did more than the very briefest of ideas, much like the simple ones he sent me, Dad's head ached and we had to stop until it calmed down. He told me it felt like being submerged in hot lead for an instant, leaving a dull burning behind which only slowly drifted away.

So we had a conduit of a sort between our minds. I had to open it and keep it open, and we had to be careful about the complexity of the ideas we exchanged. We quickly began to create sort of a catalog of ideas. The sort we could exchange in emergencies. We both recognized how useful this could be if we were otherwise unable to talk or see each other.

"We need to test if distance has an effect," Dad suggested.

I nodded. "You wait here? I'll go off and open the connection."

"We'll send a couple of ideas then you close things down, move further, try it all again. Test all scenarios."

I headed out of the chamber and down a long row of high hedges. As I did, I mentally projected out to detect others in the sanctuary. None felt terribly close. We hadn't talked to Theresa or Tristan about what to do when encountering others. We'd been lucky to that point, I thought, given that our only random meeting was with Sasha and Simon at the cave, and though Sasha had been rather terse, they hadn't seemed to wish us ill. But Dad and I had been warned that others would be in the sanctuary who might not have good intentions should they find us and recognize who we were.

I had closed my eyes, finding that the mental projection provided me plenty of input to effortlessly find my way even as the path turned, entered irregularly-shaped chambers, or led me around obstacles such as benches or tables. It wasn't quite that I could 'see' where I was going, I just had a fairly distinct sense of where to set my feet, a sense of openness or blockage or challenge to my intention to move forward. Even the inanimate objects, such as chairs, were distinct if muted, less defined in my senses than living things.

I stopped after a few minutes and opened myself to my father's presence. I could sense him, by far the closest living being to me, and sent him a single idea: Safe.

Happy, he returned.

Moving, I replied and closed the connection.

Three more stops, three more successes. I felt no growing distance between us even as I moved away several chambers and hedged-passageways each time. It was like the bridge between us didn't travel the same paths between us. I got to a point where I could detect another living being roughly the same distance from me as was Dad, and tested again. Once more, we sent our ideas and had no trouble communicating.

Just before I closed it and started to head back, Dad sent me, Theresa.

In a blink I was back with him and the woman was seated nearby. She wore an apron as if coming from preparing a meal.

And nothing else.

Rounded edges of the woman's breasts were showing easily around the apron, her nipples barely hidden, her outer thighs bare and inviting. She smiled at me, "Good to see you learning things, Tera. Are you both well?"

I nodded, sitting next to Dad, "Great. I've figured out a few things." I told her about the mental and physical projection success, as well as our ability to communicate.

"Yes," she said about the last, "that's how it feels to me when I call to you when you're on Earth. An open connection of sorts."

"So," I replied, "I don't really need to speak aloud for you to hear me, then..."

"I suspect not. But it sounds a little different. You say you can only pass ideas? Simple ones?"

"So far, yes," I answered while projecting myself to sense others nearby, nothing warm passing into my awareness except the tight grouping I thought might be the little bird-like creatures. "Not full sentences. Anything terribly complex seems not to work so well, and it gives Dad a migraine of sorts."

Theresa said, "That could be a difference in his ability to receive your projection. It's an energy of sorts. You can likely communicate with any being, Tera, but those who aren't capable of tuning in fully would feel a pressure of sorts, which certainly could manifest in pain."

Dad scrunched up his face, "Wait. Tera can cause me pain while I'm in the sanctuary?"

Theresa's eyes shot to him. "Apparently... she can..."

I looked at Dad, understanding immediately the implications, "That means..."

"The rules are different for you... or they've been changed..." Theresa breathed. "Oh, dear..."

"Maybe this is just because the gods don't think this is real harm," I suggested, "maybe a headache doesn't qualify."

Theresa shook her head, "No. No way. I've never seen anyone encounter such a thing before. Even hangovers bring no pain here. Fogginess, yes. But no headache. No pain. This... this has never happened that I know."

I felt more than heard her call Tristan's name, the woman's voice less directed at me than when she called for me, but I knew she'd called him just as clearly.

The man appeared wearing his usual outfit. "Hmmm?" he said, drinking something from a small bluish-white crystalline glass.

"Something has changed. Tera can cause pain here..."

Tristan eyed me a moment with an even expression. "Prove it."

"How?" I asked.

"Hurt me."

It was an impulse I'd had once or twice during previous conversations, born more out of frustration in the moment than any real anger towards the man, but what I did was walk to him, draw back my hand, and deliver a solid smack to his cheek.

Tristan's head rolled to the side, an imprint of my hand right reddening on his cheek. "Ouch."

"Real ouch or sarcastic ouch?" Theresa asked.

"Real ouch..."

"Oh, dear..."

- - -

For the next hour, or the sanctuary version of an hour, Theresa and Tristan debated the possibilities while Dad and I mostly listened. They went around in circles. They tested each other, slaps causing nothing more than a sensation of impact, no real pain. They had me test to see if my physical projections could cause harm, and I burned the tip of Theresa's finger, causing her to yelp, then healed her immediately after.

It was clear that I was an exception to the rule there. "Intent doesn't matter, clearly," Theresa mused at some point, "Quinn's headache proves that. Tera didn't intend to cause him pain, yet it happened."

Tristan had suggested it might be something about the essence itself, that maybe it had mutated or was otherwise able to exploit some property of the place to not be bound the same way.

"An essence shouldn't mutate, Tristan," Theresa protested mildly, "gods don't change."

"How would we know?" He replied, his crystal glass never needing a refill as the man drank freely throughout our talk, "They have said it is so, but can a god lie? I have no doubt one can. Maybe there is more that they fear in the essence being free than we understand."

"Saying that some of them are trying to protect reality? That some host with a rogue essence might endanger them in some way?"

"Plausible, though I give no moral credit to the gods I've met. Their motives are rarely... what was the Earthly term... humanistic. Terrible word given that the vast majority of beings are not human, but you understand my point. I think they are all selfishly trying to find the essence. If reality isn't destroyed in the end, that's just a happy side effect."

"But how many gods have you met?" I asked.

Tristan shrugged, "Hard to say."

"Why's that?"

"Not all gods wish to let it be known that they are such. They often... mingle... And since they are gods, they can disguise their powers quite easily from the rest of us."

"So," I replied, "how many do you know you have met?"

"Only three. Briefly, each one. I believe Theresa might have me by a great few on that count."

Theresa nodded, speaking quietly, "I've met a dozen or so... I... I sought them out for many several years... trying to bring justice for my father."

"Justice was done," Tristan said surprisingly gently, "when I ripped that asshole's power from him and encased his mind in stone for all time."

"I meant... I want my father back. You all know that. I thought... I thought that if I pleaded my case, one of the gods might grant me my wish. It is such a small thing in their power. Yet, one and all denied me. Most simply dismissed me at first sight. A couple heard me out, but the result was the same. Dismissal and frustration."

"Can we meet one?" I asked, "One who might know why things are different for me?"

"No way," Tristan growled. "Put the host right in the presence of a god? Not intentionally, no way. The essence would be ripped from you in a heartbeat. And not a human heartbeat, either. So fast you would be dead... or worse... before you could sense that you were near to one so powerful. No, if a god ever figured out that you were the host this would all be over and the the Third Revolution would finally be upon us. Gods willing we never see that..."

Dad spoke for the first time in a while, "Third Revolution?"

"Ages pass," Theresa explained, "ages that anyone but the gods cannot survive between. An age demarks the points at which only gods remain. All mortals, demigods, anyone who isn't a literal god perishes in the violence that comes from gods waring with each other. It has happened twice before, we've been told. If one of the gods gains the power of a second essence... there is little doubt that the fight would begin immediately to see if this... double-god could control all the others as many believe would be so."

"Jesus Christ..." Dad whispered.

I didn't particularly want to think about the end of all things, nor about what might happen if a god understood I was the host. "So the essence... the one I hold... it would not protect me from a god?"

Tristan answered, "Truth is, we don't know what it might do, Tera. It has a... well... you can say it has a mind of its own, but that's a rather poor way to describe it. The essence has intention. An awareness of itself, so the philosophers believe. It has goals, unknown to any but it. Perhaps it seeks to reunite with the fallen god. Perhaps some other result is sought. Maybe it can protect itself, and possibly you, but perhaps its goal is to be consumed and joined with another essence. Perhaps it has been working for hundreds of years. Thousands. Aeons, for all we know, to do something like that. If a god recognized the host and determined to take hold of the essence within, who's to say the essence won't be joyous? We just don't know..."

I pressed on, "But it is part of me. In many ways, it is me, right?"

Tristan rocked his head side-to-side, then said, "Sort of. It's hard to really know what the essence is when it's in a host. Like... when you dissolve sugar in coffee. The two are clearly separate until the sweetener is dumped into the cup and the hot beverage is poured over it. For a while, you could probably still tell the two apart. But once fully dissolved, how does one separate out the sugar again? The result is a new thing, combining parts of the original disparate pieces, but new all the same."

"But," Dad protested, "there are ways to separate out the sugar again if you really wanted to."

"Yes, but at what cost? What happens to the coffee in the process? And has the sugar been changed so that it is now different than before? Look at the energy and time required for that to happen. The end result is not wholly equivalent to the two separate things which went into the mix. I suspect, in some ways, the essence and the host are similar. Sure, under a microscope of sorts, you can see sugar and see coffee as still not a single thing, but so what? To the one drinking from the cup, there is only one entity: sweetened coffee. And that is how you appear now, Tera. Delicious, sugary coffee."

- - -

Skip. I saw myself sitting, alone, in a booth at Moe's, the pizza parlor I liked so much. Dad was at the hostess stand, talking with a woman.

Skip. Dad and I eating pizza when a waitress walked up, the woman looking rather happy. It was Molly, the woman who'd save Dad by hammering a pizza peel across Curt's head.

Skip. Dad and Molly drinking wine at a neat looking bar with metallic grape vines lazily draped over photos of wineries and European seaside landscapes.

Skip. Dad filling Molly's mouth with his salty cum.

Skip. Skip. A pretty dark-skinned woman and Dad doing some sort of line dance.

Skip. The same woman, bent over a bed, Dad fucking her from behind. He pulled out and slid into her ass, soon emptying his load in her butt.

Skip. A young dark-skinned girl, perhaps an early teen, naked and riding Dad's cock with her ass. It was clear that he was orgasming from the way he jerked his body up against her as she slammed down.

- - -

"She's back," I heard Dad say from a distance before I was able to open my eyes. "Everything okay?"

"Uh-huh. More visions of you..."

Theresa and Tristan were still there, sitting close together on low, cushioned bench seat, talking quietly. Theresa's eyes came up and she nodded at me as if to acknowledge I had returned.

"Which?" Dad asked.

"Molly first... then a black woman... and a black girl."

"Mira and her daughter, Keisha..."

"Looked like you rather enjoyed both..."

He nodded, solemnly, "I did..."

"How long was I out of it?"

Dad shrugged, "Hour, maybe? Hard to tell. My sense of time here is not so great."

"Any breakthroughs since then?"

He shook his head slowly, "None. Talked in circles a while, but right now, nothing. Everyone is getting rather hungry, but I wanted to wait on you and those two said they could wait, too."

My stomach felt rather empty and I agreed a meal would be nice.

In a blink we were somewhere rather new. Instead of an open-air, hedged chamber, we were inside what could have been the most upscale stone-age kitchen ever designed. I saw what must have been considered the stove, carved out of a large boulder, gas or gas-like burners on top, flames already dancing. It looked to be more of a grill, really. I saw utensils which couldn't have been made in hundreds of years. Rustic forks, spoons, long knives which had rough metal handles. Near the stove was a large metallic basin, water running in from a very antiquated spout. The sink, I expected.

A large, mostly round stone table was uneven and rough nearby, along with a dozen seats of dark wood which appeared handmade. The whole setup looked rather uncomfortable.

"Welcome to my kitchen!" Theresa told us as Dad and I followed her to the rustic stove/grill. "I know it looks a mess, but I just adore it, really. Sometimes, instead of ordering conjured food from the attendants, I rather enjoy actually cooking a meal for a change, like I used to do for my father. I hope you'll indulge me just a little while so that I might prepare a favorite? There's fresh bread and preserves to tide you over."

"Sounds good to me," Dad replied. "Can we help?"

"Nope, thank you. I'll have this all set and ready in a bit. Please, relax."

Tristan was already seated at the table, head hung down as if praying. The chairs looked rigid and uncomfortable, but as soon as I slid into the seat, the wooden support felt surprising soft and cushioned. Like the stone from Hypnos' cave, it was also warmed. If I'd needed sleep, I believe I could have knocked out right then from the luxuriousness.

"The attendants," Dad said, turning in his seat so that he could talk to Theresa, "who are they?"

"What are they? is a better question," Tristan muttered without raising his head.

Theresa ignored the man and replied, "I suppose you might liken them to Jinn. I know only rumors about their origins. Some think they were a lesser beings from one of the mundane realms enslaved here by the gods, others believe they are the partially-embodied spirits of powerful beings who have passed. No one really knows. Perhaps Tristan has studied them."

The man offered no insight, his head still hung, his eyes closed.

I asked, "Do you ever see them?"

Theresa shook her head as she dumped a handful of something into a wok-like pan, sending an explosion of steam sizzling up from inside, "Never. You can interact with them much like you to communicate. But you have to sort of... tune to them. They don't have minds like you and me. Here," she said, turning towards me, "Let me see if I can pass you the sense of them."

I felt her pressure as the lightest of taps on my senses, and I let it in. My mind was passed a sort of multi-sense object. A rich, fractal hologram, of sorts.

"See it?" she asked.

I nodded. I didn't really 'see' what she'd sent. It was much more complicated than that. But I understood her point.

"Map that in your mental projection. Then push it out until you get a response."

I did just that, and almost immediately I felt tension explode inside my brain. It wasn't pain so much as surprise. I jerked in my chair.

"Tera?" Dad said with concern.

"What was that?"

I saw on Theresa's face that she hadn't expected such a response. "Oh, dear. What happened?"

"I don't know... I projected and... it was like my mind just... tensed up."

"They don't like you," Tristan muttered, finally looking up. "They don't trust you."

"What?" I replied.

"You didn't come here as a guest. You just showed up. You never registered yourself. The attendants are sticklers for the rules." Tristan leaned back and adjusted the smoky goggles in front of his eyes. "You just showed up, a stranger, and opened their front door. So they slammed it in your face."

"Why didn't you say something, Tristan?" Theresa said with clear frustration.

"Because the girl needs to learn that not every being she encounters will be so taken with her wits and her cunt that they'll send her roses and puppies just to sniff her panties."

"Jesus, Tristan," Theresa muttered, "you can be so crass sometimes."

He looked at me, the goggles turning to thin spectacles as if he wanted me to see his eyes. "I didn't warn you out of malice or ill-wishes, Tera. I let you feel that response directly because this was the lightest of such reactions you're going to face. You can't just assume another being is open to you just walking right into their awareness. You have an ego. You have your own boundaries. So does everything else. The attendants might not be like many other beings, but they are not automatons. They are not simply here for your pleasure. Don't ever assume any being can be so contacted without asking nicely first."

I heard Theresa sigh, but I actually thought Tristan's point was valid. "Fair enough. I did assume. Can I apologize to them? You know... maybe send a telegram instead of opening the door?"

Tristan watched me a second, and I didn't miss the lightest of smiles slide onto his lips. "Instead of just kicking open the door like you did, instead, take that sense of the attendants and guide yourself gently towards it. You can feel them, Tera, I'm sure of it. You just have to learn how to identify them... the same way, I believe, you've learned to identify the bennu?"

"Bennu?"

He smiled, "Winged things, always pecking for food in the grass."

"Oh!" I thought a moment. "I don't know that I've so much identified them as figured that they were too densely packed to be humans or anything our size, but also clearly not so tiny as the worms they catch. I don't know that I can pick one out on its own."

"Can't you?"

I thought again. Perhaps he was right. "They do have a... I don't know how to describe it... color-sound... which is unique... if that makes sense."

"It does from a certain perspective."

"How do you know, Tristan? That I've been able to figure this out?"

"Because I, too, can do some mental projection. Nothing on the scale you can do when you really get a grip on the power of the essence, but I get by. And, I can also sense it when others are projecting. Not to the point of tracing it back. But I can feel when I've been... scanned. Few can detect such things, and when I felt myself being repeatedly marked earlier, I suspected it was you."

"So you were close, then. Close to where we were?"

"Hardly."

I was confused. "They how? I was only pushing out and aware of a pretty small distance, I think."

"Aware, perhaps, but your range is likely to be practically infinite in the higher realms, including here. Mundane realms don't have the inherent energies needed to be so expansive, but here you probably will not find your limit, if you have one. My own range is limited, I'm afraid. Unlike you, I didn't get a host to fill me with his cum and grant me my powers. Though," Tristan said, looking at my father with a sly grin, "I'm not opposed to letting him give it a go whenever he wishes..."

Dad cocked his head and replied, "Flattered. Not exactly my type."

"Types," Tristan spat, though still grinning, "don't be so suburban, Quinn. Anyway," he turned back to me, "you were going to apologize, Tera. I think you know how to do so, yes?"

I'd already been holding onto the sense of the attendants throughout our diversion, and I relaxed myself, letting the projection move on its own, less solidly this time, as if hovering out hesitantly.

For a moment, there was no response, but I was certain I was sensing attendants all over the sanctuary. Hundreds of them, in fact. Unlike other beings I'd detected, they didn't give off a sense of warmth. They weren't cold, either, it was more like they were more pronounced, and better analogized, by describing them as more or less hollow than the reality around them. Gaps in reality, in a way. Beings, yes, but less solid. Except where they were more solid. It was hard to grasp the paradox, but it was a unique signature I was certain I could identify anywhere.

I let the projection pass near the closest attendant and waited. I felt a small tug as if to acknowledge my presence. Sensing that I had been given an opportunity to communicate, I pushed through the sense of my apology as well as the sense that I would not disturb them again with new requests unless it was allowed.

An acknowledgement was just a twist of the projection. I knew instinctively that the twist to something equivalent as 'to the right,' the one I felt, was acceptance. Its opposite would have been rejection. And then I experienced a rather odd sensation.

It was like an invisible closet had just closed around my body, shutting off the movement of air and muting sound for me inside. It lasted only an instant. Then the closet was gone and I got a sense that the attendant was now willing to listen to my requests. Since I hadn't really wanted anything in the first place, I passed through a sense of thanks and closure.

The acknowledgement received, I let go my projection.

"That was... interesting..."

"They processed you." Tristan said, leaning back in his seat.

"Huh?"

"I registered you both... as guests of me, and of Theresa. It will... help... should you need anything."

"But I can conjure up anything I need, right?"

Theresa turned back from the sizzling wok and said, "You can, yes, but your father cannot. Should he need anything, he need only ask."

Dad shook his head, "But I can't do this projection thing."

"Doesn't matter. There's a sort of... phone line, here. You may not be able to talk to them from your inner monologue, but you can simply talk to them and they'll hear, such as," Theresa cleared her throat, "Attendants, I require paprika, smoked, of origin Hungary." Right beside her on the counter, a vial of brick-red powder appeared as if from nowhere. "For those of us who cannot conjure, or are limited, this is the next best thing."

Dad looked at me, "Attendants. Beer, an ale, Scottish. Of origin... err... Scotland." He was pleasantly surprised to see his request fulfilled and Dad downed half of the mug's frothy liquid in a couple of swallows. "Mmm... Damn, that's great!"

"They never disappoint," Theresa smiled. She turned back to her wok and tapped a healthy measure of the recently arrived paprika into the mix. "Almost ready. Everyone hungry?"

- - -

"So... what do you two... do," my father asked after we'd finished Theresa's meal. It had been absolutely delicious. Spicy, salted prawns mixed with an assortment of green, red, and orange peppers, onions, cabbages, with ginger and garlic and a hint of citrus. I don't think the perfect meals made by the attendants could have been any better.

"Do?" Tristan said just before belching and grinning at Theresa, the woman showing no offense, "beside eat and drink and fuck?"

"Right," Dad replied. "Besides the time you spent around us, what are you doing with your time? You've lived, what, a couple hundred years, Tristan? How does one pass the time with no job or other such responsibilities?"

"By eating and drinking and fucking, mostly the latter." Dad patiently waited for the man to drop the sarcasm and answer more directly. "I tinker with things. I created a workshop, of sorts. Most of the things I build are mundane, but sometimes I get to work with more enhanced materials."

"Like the cock ring?" I asked.

"Exactly. Made that myself."

I wondered if I'd regret his answer immediately as I started to speak, "And what does it do for you?"

"Want to find out?"

"No... I'm just asking."

He grinned. "I suppose it's something like taking a normal orgasm and breaking it up into layers, so that I can experience it in a million brilliant pieces. Like a rainbow is boring white light broken up into its constituent parts. Orgasms with my cock ring make the regular sort feel like... nothing."

"I don't believe that," Theresa told him, "I still remember making love with you before you made it. I seem to recall you seemed to find mundane orgasms quite enjoyable."

"Oh, I did, my dear, especially when it was you giving them to me, whether with your pussy... or you cock..." He cast the woman an especially seductive glance a second after his goggles turned to spectacles again. "But the ring... it... bends things... Enhances the effects. You know how every time you cum, you feel waves and shards and swelling tension all together until you explode and everything flows out at once? Orgasms are fractal in nature, just like all ecstatic or horrifying experiences. Imagine isolating every one of those pleasurable sensations and then experiencing all those things, individually, single threads woven into a grander fabric. Fully experienced, each one, but in a sort of many-part harmony of harmonies. I cannot truly explain it, but I'd be happy to let anyone try it for themselves... so long as I get to be the one bringing you to orgasm."

"Not me," Theresa waved her hand and shook her head, "mundane orgasms are quite good enough for me, thank you. I'd rather not experience something which might make those seem... well... mundane."

I considered trying the cock ring, if only to see how sweeping an exaggeration Tristan had given in his description, but like Theresa, I didn't particularly want to ruin my regular orgasms. Dad simply shook his head to the request but didn't say why. I decided not to start peeking behind his curtains, reading his mind and violating his privacy, just because I had the power to do so. It sort of felt creepy, to be honest, especially after the reaction I'd gotten from the attendant.

"Your workshop," I asked, changing the subject, "is it here, in the sanctuary?"

"Earth," he rumbled, voice taking on weight, "I don't want the light-fingered morons around here messing with my things."

Theresa chuckled, "Tristan isn't a big fan of such... communal spaces, at least not when he has cause to dislike them."

"Thing is," the man continued, "if a thing is not your own, and it is a thing, not a nothing: if you do not own it, then someone else does. Why is that a difficult concept? Why must I lock away in mundane spaces things which should not be pinched here?"

"Tristan has had things... disappear... here. Most recently, a device he created was once left in the sanctuary," Theresa explained, "and it was never seen again..."

"Goddamned thieves!" The man growled, "If I ever find out who took it... things will get rough for them..."

"That was almost five Earth years ago, Tristan. It's not likely to be found, nor those who took it identified. I miss it, too, you know..."

"What was it?" Dad asked, keeping one eye on the steaming man muttering under his breath nearby.

Theresa looked a little sad, "A memory well. A way to store your memories. Wholly. Whatever your brain still held about the memory. You could store it there and relive it in whole any time you wished. I had... placed within the well memories of my father. It really was my fault it was left. Tristan entrusted it to me and I spent almost five days straight stashing every memory I had of my father. I set it aside... somewhere... I was rather weary, not sleeping, so caught up in remembering everything about him. When I came back to retrieve the well, it was no longer here. Tristan, poor man, spent weeks trying every trick he knew to track it down."

There was nothing but a low, growling muttering coming from Tristan a moment as the man's anger boiled lightly. I decided to change the subject again. "Do you need sleep here? I've noticed I don't seem to feel as sleepy when I'm in the sanctuary."

"You can't do without, not for long periods, but there is a... softness... of sorts which does seem to make it easier to go without for a day or two or three without effects. Being highly stressed reduces that effect. Though, I do not know how you, as host, might react. For all I know, you can do without sleep here forever, but I certainly would not advise testing that hypothesis."

"Tera's visions," my father said, "the ones where she sees what happened in my time loop... what's causing that?"

"I have no idea," Theresa replied, "never heard of such a thing before you two."

"Do you control them, Tera?" asked Tristan, his demeanor a little more calm. "Can you move around? Can you pause the vision, or revisit them?"

I shook my head. "No. Er... at least... I don't think so. I'm just... watching. I suppose I've never really tried to do more. I can... observe or look away, in a sense. That's all I've done so far."

"Try to manipulate it if it happens again. Something small. You don't want to go messing with reality itself by making big changes. Make it something your father would know was changed, though..." Tristan removed the spectacles and scratched his chin, "if you do change something, you might just change his memory of the event. Say... you changed his shirt from red to green. Right now, Quinn would tell you his shirt was red. After the vision... after you change it... he would swear it was green. And everyone here but you, Tera, would agree he'd said it was green... Hmmm... Pick something. I understand these visions are coming in temporal order, the order your father experienced them?"

I nodded.

"Quinn, tell her something small about the next one. Something you think she can change without destroying reality, if you can..."

I cut in before Dad could answer. "I only get brief glimpses, a minute or two at most, usually much less, before the scene changes. Even if I know ahead of time a detail, I might not get a chance to see it."

"So pick a couple. Surely, there is a pattern to the visions, yes?"

"Err... yes, how do you know?"

"A theory I'm working on. This is a test of whether I'm right. Quinn. What visions will she see next?"

I saw Dad lean back and ponder things a moment, "Kacy..."

"And she is...?"

Dad turned to me and aid, "The girl from the hot tub. Remember her?"

I nodded, "Of course," I replied, remembering how both Dad and the girl had brought each other to orgasm with their feet, "she wore a blue... light-blue... suit."

Tristan said, "Change it to red. Or something dramatically different. Something we'd all agree is not light-blue."

"Red. I'll try red. I... I don't know how, though. It's like," I thought for a moment, "it's like I'm stuck behind a foggy window, just watching, like I'm not really there."

"Doesn't matter," Tristan shook his head, "you won't be limited just because the mechanism bringing the visions appears so."

Dad looked really concerned, "Wouldn't that put her at risk, though? You told her not to use her powers to ever affect the mundane realms unless threatened. Seems this is doing very much that."

Theresa nodded, and Tristan sported a determined expression. "I have a theory."

"Care to share it?"

"Not yet."

Dad was the one growling now, "If you put Tera at risk on some guesswork, I sw—"

Tristan held up his hand. "If I'm wrong, the chances are that what she's seeing is not reality, is not really the mundane. It could be a reflection, a ripple of spacetime, of sorts. But I don't think that is what's going on. Make the change, Tera. But... if it makes you feel more secure, do so from here, not from Earth. At least if you somehow, despite the odds, leave a mark by using your power, it will only trace somewhere outside of the mundane, not directly to you. Like throwing a rock in an ocean and someone on the island off the coast trying to find you based on it's effect on the waves reaching shore."

Something in Tristan's logic was broken, but I couldn't quite spot it. I chewed on it a moment but eventually nodded. "Fine, if I see her suit, I'll try to make it red."

- - -

Whatever was triggering the visions of my father's experiences in the time loop, I couldn't seem to call them up on command. I tried, but nothing worked. Tristan and Theresa were amorously kissing together in a setting which resembled what I'd heard described as a chalet. Sort of a mountain feel to it, wooden supports which reached up endlessly to the 'sky' above, heavy beams running between them, twin fireplaces with dancing flames, a dark-brown fur rug on the ground which seemed to be some sort of low, lush living carpet, not quite grass, but I could feel that what looked like artificial fibers were actually leaves of some sort of plant.

We'd traveled there after I'd given up on trying to call up the visions. Tristan and Theresa had no clothes on their bodies as they nestled together on one side of the large, soft fur rug, his single penis in her hand, lips pressed together and both of them moaning softly.

Dad and I were resting together on the other side of the rug, me in front of him, our eyes enjoying the lovers beginning to grow their touches and movements with urgency. I felt Dad's cock rising against my buttocks, and I reached back, took hold of him, spreading my legs slightly, and guided him into my body, my cunt stretching around him, a soft moan escaping my lips as my father penetrated me from behind.

We mated slowly, no urgency of our own, as Tristan rose over Theresa and slipped his cock, ring and all, inside the woman's pussy. Her knees drew up, pressing against his hips, her hands on his face, pulling the stocky man down for a kiss.

It was rather odd to see Tristan without his steampunk attire. Sure, I'd seen his naked body a time or two, but under much different circumstances. This time, there was a softness to him which had always been missing in earlier interactions. He actually seemed to be a very gentle lover, at least when it was Theresa spreading her legs for him.

And the woman was really enjoying herself, too, softly kissing his lips, his neck, pulling him down over her so that she could slide hands down his back to caress his buttocks and urge him deeper into her body.

Dad and I rocked together, his lips on my shoulder, kissing me gently, his penis hard and moving just a little in and out of my pussy. I was slowly creaming around him, my vagina becoming slick and wet, surely coating his shaft. I loved taking Dad inside my body. Shuddering, I ran a hand down between my legs so that I might touch my clitoris, not really attempting to orgasm, just enjoying the sensual sensations in my pussy and the arousing couple mating just a few feet away.

I heard Theresa giggle and saw her nod, whispering something to Tristan. The man pulled back, his bulk making him look more round against Theresa's slender frame. In an instant, a second penis appeared, one over the other, and Tristan then slid down, dropping his head between Theresa's thighs as she rolled back her hips and raised her legs into the air, clearly letting the man lick her anus to prepare it for penetration.

"Dad," I said quietly, "do you want to try that with me?"

"What, lover?" he purred as we slowly mated.

"Licking me back there... and then... two cocks..."

I felt Dad's penis swell and jerk, "God yes..."

He pulled out, and I felt that sense of loss which always came from my father withdrawing from my body. He slid down and I rolled to my back, doing the same as Theresa had done, raising my lower half so that my lover could access my tight butthole.

Dad's tongue was soft and gentle, just teasing my wrinkled flesh there a while. "Oh, Tera... Oh, God... you taste so good!"

I wasn't sure exactly what it meant for my asshole to taste good, but it turned me on anyway. I continued to cream myself as Dad's tongue pushed through my tight ring and began to tease me just inside. It felt unlike what I expected. I don't know why I thought it might feel weird or, perhaps, uncomfortable. I'd half-expected to experience embarrassment, honestly. I mean, my own father had his lips and tongue on, and in, where I defecated. Just knowing what that hole was used for should have made it a little gross, I expected. But the reality was that it felt quite nice, warm and soft, very naughty and exciting. The longer Dad licked me there, the more my pussy creamed, even drooling my juices down onto where my father's tongue danced in and out of my anus.

I turned my head to see Tristan over Theresa, her legs still in the air. Carefully, gently, I watched him penetrate her holes. Two hard cocks sliding slowly into two lovely wet holes between Theresa's legs. The look on her face, and his, was of intense pleasure, perhaps a touch of discomfort on Theresa's face, but her hands grasped his waist and pulled him into her, the woman gasping as Tristan's dual penises sank deep into her pussy and ass. They began to mate slowly, looks of ecstasy on both faces.

I physically projected and in an instant, my father's penis became two, just like Tristan's, one over the other. I felt him jerk back in surprise, his tongue pulled from my anus as he looked down. I heard him chuckle, "Well now, isn't that something?"

"What's it feel like?"

Dad grinned at me, "Like I'm about to fuck my daughter in two holes at once like the luckiest damn father who ever lived."

I giggled, spreading my legs half-way, keeping my hips rolled back, legs in the air. Dad moved forward, my ankles over his shoulders, and I felt the head of one cock slip between my silky labia, pressure against my anus signaling the intention of his other. I gasped when he pushed forward, causing the head of his lower penis to pop inside my tight ring. Slowly, so wonderfully slowly, Dad penetrated my pussy and ass until he came to rest with his balls against my buttocks, his groin against my clit, and we kissed passionately while he held still, my vagina twitching in pleasure, my anus doing the same with a measure of delightful discomfort.

I can't explain exactly what it was like to give my father a second penis and then feel him enter me with both, filing my pussy and butt with his erections. It was definitely different than when I'd had Dad and Theresa inside me in the hot tub. There's been different bodies moving with me, different rhythms, wonderful but clearly not working in tight unison. When Dad began to mate with me again, both penises moved together, plunging deep, stretching my holes, then pulling back, my labia and anus trailing down his flesh, one slightly tighter and stretched more than the other.

Dad seemed overwhelmed, and I imagined he was having a very hard time not releasing. I wondered if he would ejaculate from both holes, then I smiled to myself. Of course he would. That's how I'd designed his new genitals. Both were connected to his balls. Both would fire hot seed into my body. I shuddered at the thought and started to raise my hips with each thrust of his body into mine.

I heard Theresa orgasming, her ankles locked behind Tristan's back, his cocks plunging deep into her, more urgently than before. They rutted, the man humping her with well-placed thrusts, his twin cocks spreading Theresa's holes wide. His face was a mask of pleasure and concentration. He leaned to kiss the woman's cheek as she came, then I saw him whisper something to her and she nodded and breathed, "Yessss... cum in me... cum in me..."

Tristan's buttocks clenched tightly, and the sound which came out of the man had a resonant depth that could not have been human. Or even mortal.

"MmmmmmmmmmmmAaaaaahhhhMmmmmAaaaaaahhhhMmmmm... Ooooooooooooohhhhgggggggrrrrrrrrmmmmmm..."

It was like Tristan's body had concentrated a dozen orgasms into one moment, a flurry of jerks and shudders, appearing as a blur to my eyes. I thought maybe it was just that my father's own movements had picked up speed and my vision was becoming less focused, but no, Tristan truly was a blur, his body appearing to shimmer with urgency as he released. Theresa held onto him as if he was wholly solid, though, and all through his climax, she kissed his neck and squeezed him against her.

"God, that's hot," Dad whispered, "God, Tera... I'm so close... I want to make you cum when I do..."

I was close, as well. "Start filling me, Dad," I breathed, my father's motions becoming urgent, his penises swelling in my wet holes, "as soon as you do... I'll cum, too..."

"God, Tera... Oh, God... Oh... Oh... Ohhhhhhhhhhhh... Ohhhhhhh..."

My enhanced senses felt him swell and then the most amazing sensation crashed into me. I felt Dad's hot seed splashing deep in my pussy and in my butt. I could feel every single sperm in his semen start swimming as soon as his cum hit my body. In my pussy, Dad flooded me, spurting with a strength I'd never felt before. Dad throbbed cum into my ass, too, and it was like it happened in slow motion, every drop of his seed a scalding mark against my bowels. Every single sperm tickled me, pussy and ass, and that made me convulse, tightening, tightening, clenching around Dad's throbbing cocks, and a million shards of brilliant sunshine exploded between my legs.

"Uhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnn... Uhnnnnnnnnn... Oh, Dad... Uhn-uhn-uhnnnnnn... Ohhhhhhh! Ohhhh! Ohhhhh! Mmmmmm... Mmmmm..."

I clawed at Dad's back, trying to press every inch of his flesh against my body, desperate to take every inch of his spurting penises inside my wet, slippery holes. I could feel cum leaking from my pussy as I came, more trapped behind the tight ring of my anus in my ass. I could feel it pooling, hot and slippery, barely held back by the tight hold I had around my Dad's shaft.

He emptied himself and we kissed passionately, my cunt and ass twitching, his cocks randomly spurting small jets of his cum into one hole or the other. I could feel every single drop of his semen inside me, and I doubt I'd had any experience more raw and pleasurable than that one with my father.

- - -

Skip. I saw my father in the hot tub again, the preteen, Kacy, seated opposite him, her light-blue suit tight and showing her budding breasts tantalizingly pushing out the fabric. Dad leaned forward and whispered something to her.

I vaguely remembered I was supposed to do something, but whatever it was felt thick, as if trapped in sap, the trickling thick fluid slowly-consuming my thoughts. I struggled to slow and stop the flow, wrestling with the idea of something important stuck therein. I unraveled every molecule of the barrier, tearing each one away. It seemed to take an eternity.

Then I remembered.

I saw Dad leaving the tub and I watched Kacy's eyes as they followed his steps towards a hallway nearby.

The suit.

I was to change its color.

How to go about that, I wasn't sure. I knew I could do it instinctively, but it felt like trying to catch a ball while being wrestled to the ground by two strong opponents. I fought my way free, grasping on to the idea of the change, and pushed my demand into reality. I swear something was screaming in disbelief somewhere deep inside my mind.

Just as she rose from the water, the light-blue fabric of Kacy's turned a brilliant red.

Skip. The red suit was drawn aside as Dad began to lick the girl's pussy. I saw her soft fur there, first hairs only recently sprouted over her previously-hairless Mons and around the upper folds of her thin labia.

Skip. Dad emptied himself into Kacy's pussy, the girl's eyes showing both excitement and nerves, but I could easily sense that she was aroused beyond anything she'd ever experienced, my father's seed filling her with warmth and pleasure.

Skip. The suit was righted on her body, still bright red. I knew Dad's cum was leaking into the crotch where it pressed tightly against the girl's pussy.

- - -

"I did it!" I exclaimed. I was on my side, Dad behind me, his hands slowly caressing my puffy pink nipples. Theresa and Tristan were similarly cuddled together, their eyes looking pleasantly relaxed, gazes drifting over my body from both of them.

"Hmm?" Dad purred behind me.

"The suit, I changed it!"

Tristan said evenly, "You turned it blue?"

"Yes," I replied, then caught his words fully, "Err... no. I turned it red, just like you told me. It was blue before."

Tristan shook his head, "No, you told us it was red and you would change it to blue..."

I felt confused. "Dad, it was light-blue before, right?"

"No... Kacy's suit was red. I remember it quite clearly..."

I leaned up in confusion, turning back to him, "No... It was light-blue. I saw it. I turned it red after you'd left the hot tub."

Tristan rose to his feet, instantly clothed in his steampunk attire, spectacles instead of googles over his eyes. "You're absolutely sure? I recall our conversation, Tera. Your father told us the suit was red..."

"That's what I heard, as well," Theresa agreed.

"I'm certain!" I exclaimed, frustrated and unsure of what was going on. "It was blue. I turned it red. Just like we agreed!"

Tristan's face was serious and his words direct, "Then my theory is correct."

"What is going on?" I demanded.

"Was it a struggle? Did you have to really concentrate to make the change?" He asked, ignoring my demand.

"Yes... It took time and a lot of effort... Why?!"

Tristan began to pace, "Then, I suspect, the essence has affected your physical being. Your body. Your mind. It has, accidentally or intentionally, granted you powers, powers which are... separate... from the essence itself."

"I don't understand..."

"I'm only beginning to do so," The man said, twisting his spectacles in his hand. "It's like how your father still holds the power to affect time though he no longer holds the essence. He may not yet know how to tap or control it, but the power is within him. I suspect that now, Tera, you have been changed. Just like your father, you're no longer simply a mortal host for the essence. You've become one of us by manifesting your own powers."

- - -

Tristan muttered to himself while pacing, and though I tried to get him to explain the confusing theory, he ignored me a long time. I'd clothed myself and Dad again, the two of us seated and nervous on a low bench, Theresa similarly covered and sitting cross-legged nearby.

I had no idea what Tristan was talking about, nor had I gotten even the most basic explanation for what was going on. I'd changed the suit from blue to red, yet the three of them had remembered things differently. I recalled Tristan making a comment suggesting this might be the case, that if I changed reality itself, it would change the memories of any being associated with that changed thing, even if only hearing a description of it. To all of them, the suit had always been red, even to my father, the one who had experienced the suit and the girl wearing it firsthand.

And what did it mean that I had my own powers? Wasn't the essence really just me? It certainly wasn't a separate thing. I'd figured that out days earlier. It was as much me as my fingers or toes, my liver and my ovaries. My inner monologue. There was no separating the essence from me any more than considering my eyes or belly button to be some different entity. How could I, under this version of I, have powers outside of the essence?

Finally, Tristan's pacing stopped and he knelt down in front of me, lightly touching my knee with one hand. "I believe you, Tera. I believe the suit really was blue before, that you changed it to red, and that you, and only you, are aware of this change. I think this proves what I hypothesized."

"What does it prove?"

"The visions, Tera. The visions are the essence looking for something. Essentially, that means that you are creating the visions from the time loop yourself, but remember, the essence has an intention, a sort of mind of its own. It leads and you follow. You create the flashbacks so that the essence can search for something within those scenes."

"What?" I asked, breathless. "What is it looking for?"

Tristan shook his head, "I don't have a clue. Something happened in your father's loop. Something important. Remember, the essence was within him for many years. It should have passed to you when you were born. All the signs were there based on the pattern the essence took many times before. But it didn't pass to you until you gave your father your virginity. He was the host for decades without manifesting any powers or awareness. The essence was there in the time loop. It experienced everything your father experienced. It should know every detail, and yet... Something has been missed. Something important. Something the essence needs to remember. Something it needs to understand."

I shook my head, "I'm truly having a difficult time following you."

Tristan smiled, "You, young woman, are not the first to tell me this. I'm having a hard time following myself right now. The crux of this is that the essence missed something. How that could happen, I don't know. Maybe... maybe what it seeks is a change made... by you, by someone with the power to do so. Maybe it is aware that reality was twisted after your father escaped the time loop. You changed the suit, against the wishes of the essence. That's why you struggled. It fought you. That you won out and made your change... I'll have to think on that for some time. The implications... well... they seem rather profound."

"But," he continued, "the point is that you really did change reality, to the point that even your father's memory has been changed. This is a power only the gods themselves can wield, Tera. The other abilities you've manifested, those, while not all common, have been held many times over by lessor beings than gods. That you did this, with the disapproval of the essence, is astounding.

"My hypothesis is that the host is no longer a passive shell, used by the essence and then discarded."

Tristan looked at me, the most clear signs of his awe in his expression. "You can control it, not just to use the power of the essence, but to become it, manifest and complete. To consume it utterly. To become it in whole."

Tristan glanced back at Theresa and I followed his eyes to see the same expression on the woman's face, her lips pursed and open slightly, her eyes wide.

"What I'm saying, Tera, is that, if you fight for it, if you battle the essence and win, you can truly, truly, become a god."

Tera, Female, 15

	- Narrator, 
host
 of the 
essence
, daughter of Quinn

	- 5'7, pale-beige skin, 135lbs, shoulder-length bright copper-orange-red hair

Quinn, Male, 41

	- Former 
host
, father of Tera

	- 6'0, beige skin, 190lbs, wavy blonde-brown hair a few inches long

Theresa, Female, mid-40s

	- Former mortal

	- 5'10, beige skin, 155lbs, shoulder-length wavy golden-red hair

Tristan, Male (Morph), 40s

	- Former mortal

	- 5'4, tanned-bronze skin, 155lbs, wiry, tangled dark-brown hair

Kacy, Female, ~12

	- Girl in the hot tub

	- 5'1, bronzed-white skin, 120lbs, long dark-brown hair