Do you think... God right now is laughing at us?

What on earth are you talking about? You mean your crusade for immortality, to play god yourself?

Well, she wouldn't consider herself to become god, but wouldn't that be something special? Imagine crushing all those little ants in her way. But to do that, she can't be alone. She can't do this alone.

Then, the first step is admitting—

"—that it's boiling out here!" Queenie gasps, flapping her transfigured wings. All does is pick up the hot winds onto skin. The sun beats down onto her back seemingly worse than usual, probably because of the height. Where the fuck are the coordinates supposed to be?

She sees the remains of the burned safehouse from Pasta Night—or thinks she does. It's hard to see charred wood and stone from this high up, even more so as time went on. The winds surely eroded them away and the sands buried it underneath.

Queenie looks down at the compass in her hands and veers right. It takes several more minutes of flying around until she finds one lone figure in the desert. She squints, the long and straight black hair and business shirt says Auntie, but those pants—

Her wings disappear, as does Adelais, the moment feet touch ground. Decidedly, she lands a short distance away, far enough to confirm it really was Farah, but not so that the Leviathan had to wait for her to be in earshot.

She's not too sure why Adelais bristles at that smile.

"Hi Auntie." She raises her left hand in a small wave. The silver chrome prosthetic flares under the harsh sunlight. "Yeah, scrying helps a lot."

The smile wanes, both of them. Queenie frowns, unsure why Farah reacted the way she did or why Adelais rings the warning bell in her ears. Did she say something wrong? Oh, of course, duh—

"Okay, I wasn't really scrying—you know how, like, you kind of just use terms interchangeably even though they don't mean the same thing, or like, using a brand name—"

Her wayward explanation is interrupted with a cutting "never mind" and Queenie zips her mouth shut. The corners of her mouth curl up, delayed in a weak smile, as if she remembered how to be a good little barista, and she lets it go.

There's no further elaboration on why the Leviathan decided to drag her out here in the middle of the desert; not when they stood here exchanging words, nor when Queenie apprehensively follows behind Farah.

The sun really sucks. It makes the day too hot, it gives you sunburn, it gives you wrinkles and sunspots. And while they're nowhere near the beach, the grains of sand sneak their way into the crevices of Queenie's clothes and shoes, and forces her to blink the irritating dust away from her eyes.

Farah still had yet to say a word about their circumstances here or anything else—clearly it's a cue for Queenie to ask the million dollar question here, isn't it?

"Auntie?" she starts, jogging slightly forward to catch up to the Leviathan's side. "What...?"

She trails off in a daze, then shakes her head and starts over.

"I don't want to die again."

Queenie almost winces. The monotone Farah speaks in teeter uncomfortably too close to rejection; she's not going to console her—she may be 'Auntie' but her familial love is not warm. The seconds tick by, and it appears that Queenie is actually considering how to word it.

I need to come back in Hydra, for reasons. No, too roundabout. I can't think of anything else but serving Hydra. No, too placating. Farah shot back with a direct question—so logically, the best answer is to be just as direct:

"I want the Philosopher's Stone."

The sea serpent stares, and she stares back for a brief moment before averting her gaze and furiously rubbing her temples.

"Ah, you think I'm crazy, don't you?" she says, almost like whining. This isn't the first time she's told someone she's searching for immortality, but it is the first time that she's said it so seriously. Adelais would bet that Julius and Rex thought that she was joking. Well, maybe not Rex—she's just as insane as Quynh, he feels.

"What I mean is—" Her hands are still clutching her head, fingertips drumming away as Queenie tries to figure out her words again. "—it can only be Hydra."

Hydra is the way.

Free magic.

Utopia.

But what if you have to die for the cause? What then?

Adelais hopes that the Leviathan doesn't ask that question.

Jaw slack from surprise, her eyes slide back over to the Leviathan. Queenie has never heard Farah even chuckle before, let alone break into a full blown cackle. For a moment, she's deciding whether to feel offended (even though she already knew her proclamation was blasphemous), or laugh along (but something about that option doesn't sit right). In the end, her fingers stop drumming against her head and drop down to her sides. She can't do anything else but feel the heat creep up her neck.

From the sun. Obviously.

"Uh... Yeah," she replies dumbly, before Adelais probes her mind a little more for a better answer. "Hydra... won't judge me. I think. That's what we're all about, right? To have free control in the magic we choose?"

Her words stumble. They're clumsy. It feels foreign to her, to flatten her energy like this, to somewhat sound like a normal career witch clawing her way up to the top—ugh, who on earth would want a corporate job anyway—but her sentiment still remains steadfast.

The Leviathan's gaze never leaves her, and this time she peers back, blinking. Adelais nestles comfortably in her mind, and this time, he doesn't help her with the next question.

"Well, that's not—" she starts to protest, defensively, but sighs, conceding. "I don't know... I can't imagine myself without that fear since—"

To know what happens on the other side, to see where her heart weighed on the scale, terrifies her.

"Dying like a dog doesn't sound fun anymore, Auntie."

It takes a moment to drop the dry smile off to something neutral. She wants to believe that, but she can't help but feel the middling doubt in her assurance. She was judged for her behaviour at the docks. She was judged for her lack of composure at sea. She was judged.

She was judged.

Of course she would be.

But in the grand scheme of things, Hydra as a concept, didn't.

Isn't that enough?

What's a mob to a queen anyway?

So she accepts the platitude, and then Queenie blinks, brows creased in confusion.

"Who—? Wait, I need to do it again?" she gapes, before scratching her cheek. Oh. Right. Technically... she did get kicked out, life returned. So returning to the the fold clearly requires giving her life back to Hydra.

Argh, she's not too fond of the idea. But Farah says something interesting—Queenie doesn't answer to her father this time.

"So you mean... I get an actual handler? Who is it?"

Hard pressed to call her own father a handler, Queenie's eyes were wide with intrigue.

Ah... well. Jokes don't always land on everyone. Not that she was joking about her apprehension of dying again, but anyway—hey, wait up!

Queenie almost stumbles from the soft footing of the sand dunes, but eventually she picks up her pace again to catch up to Farah's side. It doesn't take Adelais' guidance to tell her that the Leviathan isn't going to be entertaining any other questions, so the girl wordlessly stands there with her hands defiantly on her hips, staggering back slightly, startled at Amelie's appearance and hostility.

She smiles weakly and waves hello at the crocodile. Whatever the hell is going on here, it must be above her paygrade.

Not that she's getting paid at all here.

Greenery lights up in Queenie's eyes, and she recognises the carriages as part of the Cad. Subconsciously, it all clicks together, specifically when Farah praises her—genuine or not.

"Whoa!" Queenie gasps, with hands squeezed tight against the other woman's. "Tiur! Look at you! Still pretty as ever! How are you?"

Her eyes dart around the oasis, finally taking in the scene properly before returning it to the Leviathan and the other Hydra Head.

"What's all this?"

Dumb question. What she really means is what is her role in all of this now? At least with Tiur, she would humour Queenie a little, no?

"Huh?" Queenie sounds nervous, but not embarrassed that she doesn't recall what Tiur said to her—because she said nothing of relevance to her directly. It takes a while to think about the burned safehouse and for the girl to supplement:

"This is... Operation Nexus?"

But again, what does the illusion-alchemist herself have to do with the desert? Tiur continues on; Queenie almost stumbles at the sudden guide against her shoulders. Her gaze flicker behind her to the Leviathan. Obviously, she provides nothing back. Should Queenie be expecting anything else?

Suddenly, Farah is gone. And it fully clicks in Queenie's head.

"Not gonna lie, Tiur, I hate the beach because of the sand and the desert sure has plenty of it—" she mumbles, not wanting to outright say no. It's a precarious time right here, right now, returning to the fold. Queenie wants the Philosopher's stone far more than sand in her shoes.

That doesn't mean she can't sprinkle in a tiny bit of complaining, right?

"Aww... When you say it like that, it makes me think you're not my handler."