“Tell me something, Juniel,” John opened a new conversation as they walked along the road. “What are you being treated like in your home domain? Your mother reacts exceedingly violently to all things tainted, so I’m wondering how elementals like you are treated there.”

The mention of this topic immediately caused discomfort to radiate off the two present water spirits. In the case of Undine, flowing by his side, literally through their connection. When it came to Juniel, it was a bit harder to grasp. Her posture became rigid and her fluid movements a little off. Shuffling along her steps, it seemed as if she was recalling past pain. It was pretty clear that she had gone through a similar experience to what Undine had.

The Gamer evaluated whether he wanted to keep pressing the issue. It would have been rude to remind her of past pain, but she had gotten on his nerves enough that he felt he could repay her in kind in some fashion. More importantly he cared for Undine. If there was something that could have persuaded him to drop the topic, it was her protesting. Nothing of the kind happened. On the contrary, she seemed willing to face whatever remaining trauma she had from her limited stay on her plane of origin. Since they had a feud going on with the oceanic medusa that was the strongest water elemental, John insisted on continuing the topic. Knowing was half the battle, as they said.

“Tell me, Juniel,” he insisted.

“Mother speaks not her name and her children should be obedient,” the ice woman answered with some cryptic phrase. It felt more like an idiom that she mumbled to herself as a reminder than an actual response.

“Analysis: she is weak and afraid,” Beatrice went straight for the proverbial jugular. “Further details: phrase indicates that the Mother of Water and her children have a deeply unhealthy relationship. Suggestion: seek professional therapy.” Another hiss momentarily interrupted the passive maid, who continued in her straightforward sass unabated. “It is clear that it would be difficult to get one of the strongest Abyssal entities admitted to therapy. Alternative suggestion: seek therapy without her. I recommend talking to Master about it.”

“You’re upsetting for a servant,” Juniel voiced her annoyance. “And you speak ill of Mother.”

“Fact: I do not serve you, I serve John Newman, a charming individual with good dental care,” Beatrice returned. “As for the Mother of Water, she deserves to be spoken ill of.”

Noticing the beginnings of movement, John took a step to the right. A gust of cold air drifted by him as the tainted ice elemental whirled around her right arm. The trail of icicles that was created this way covered the floor, but ended before it could rise into an actual attack. Not for a lack of intent on Juniel’s part, it was just that the movement of her arm was stopped by a nonchalant smack of Beatrice’s spear. Moving with greater speed and precision, the short-haired maid had slammed the shaft just underneath the bladed tip against the water spirit’s wrist.

“Recommendation: Do not,” the passive maid stated and pulled back her weapon. “I could have just as easily dismembered you. You are no threat.”

“Really showing off your charisma,” Metra commented.

“The intent of my actions is to remind Juniel of her situation, not to make myself popular,” Beatrice returned. “Ultimatum: if Juniel does not wish to answer Master’s question, she can be returned to the plane she does not wish to inform us about.”

“An excellent point, Beatrice,” Aclysia nodded approvingly. “Inviting herself to Master’s domain and immediately causing a ruckus, only to refuse to answer some simple questions, it is obvious that such a guest could be demoted justifiably to trespasser.”

John heard the crunching of snow and the cracking of ice. The sounds were immediately followed by several icicles falling out behind the raised sleeve of the tainted elemental. “Well?” the Gamer asked, finding no fault with the reasoning of his maids. “Are you willing to answer my questions?”

“That depends on the questions,” Juniel responded. “Mother does what she has to and her acts of necessity and kindness do not deserve to be repaid with betrayal.”

“She tore you apart,” Undine disagreed immediately. “She tore and tore until only a sliver of you was left and put you back together, trying to take a little bit of what was wrong out in the process. Again and again and…” She stopped only when John exuded his soothing influence on her mind.

“She cleansed me,” Juniel insisted with a warning hiss. “Mother might not be perfect and it may have hurt, but she does what she has to for the good of us all. Thankless child, do you wish our oceans to choke in filth and our ice to become tainted? The purity of our realm is the envy of all others.”

“You’re in support of your mother tearing apart your siblings?” John was aghast at the idea. The mere echoes of memories by Undine made it entirely unappealing to him. “Having been through it yourself?”

“I had become something else and Mother helped me return to who I was. Much of the damage the summoner that had tainted me had done was undone. In time, she will clean me completely.” Juniel narrowed her eyes of cracked ice at John. “No one loves her children more than Mother. Do you think she takes pleasure in having to purge one of us? When a limb rots, you cut it off before it can spread disease to the rest of the body. A decision that has to be made swiftly and Mother has the will strong enough to make the decisions. She makes the decision over and over again, yet doesn’t tyrannize us with overprotectiveness. The seas turmoil under the storms of her never-ending sadness and wrath. She allows us, her foolish children, to make contracts with you, because she knows it is our desire to know the greater world. It fills her with grief, knowing that some of us will be ravaged by the filth of your actions.”

The Gamer and Undine were at a loss for words. It would have made everything so much easier if what Juniel said there sounded entirely unreasonable. Framed as she did it, however, there was a compelling case to understand the Mother of Water. A parent that had to let their children go would justifiably be angry at those that hurt their offspring and they would try to fix what damage had been done.

Still, knowing just how much pain had been caused to Undine, John couldn’t find it in him to think of the Mother of Water as right in her actions. There had to be a better way to go about things than just purging any sort of corruption by means of violent cleansing and outright annihilations. Plasia and Tempesta didn’t run their realms with such a focus on purity and those planes hadn’t collapsed.

“Maybe her anger is justified, but your obsession with purity leads to more pain than is necessary,” John told her.

“I would have hurt thousands of my siblings if I hadn’t been cleansed,” Juniel remarked in an amused tone, which slowly transitioned into a dark chill as she continued. “The scars on my mind were vast, creating a sadism I cannot quite explain. Even now my patience is compromised and my aggression unnecessary. The damage to your land came from my tainted feelings finding their outlet in fighting Gragoth. Would it not be better if I had them removed and found my way back to reason?”

“Did you choose to subject yourself to this cleansing?” John returned a question of his own.

“I was in no state of mind to choose, I had to be forced,” the ice woman asserted. “Now that I have been cleansed enough to make the choice, I will gladly accept Mother’s offer. I wish to be pure again, even if the price is pain.”

John gnashed his teeth. Principally, he was against forcing anyone to undergo any painful treatment without their consent. Emotionally, he wanted to disagree with what the Mother of Water did on every level. Realistically, however, there was a definitive case here. There were people so mentally deranged that they had to be stuffed into an asylum as a preventive measure. On the rare occasion, it was even justifiable to lock away people who were sane of mind. There was the case of Typhoid Mary, a woman that herself wasn’t sick but was a permanent carrier of the disease. She hadn’t agreed to be locked away, but was it wrong to force her out of public life?

Ideals and practical reality rarely got along.

“For the sake of argument, let’s say that I agree that you were in a deranged enough state to justify such actions,” John gave some ground. “I wasn’t there, it might very well be. How would that make fine what was done to my Undine? She doesn’t hurt anyone, she isn’t unreasonable, she is in no need of a violent cleansing.”

Juniel didn’t have an immediate answer to that. “Mother’s wisdom far exceeds yours or mine,” she eventually said, which wasn’t exactly an argument. “I will not claim to know what spurred her to take such hasty action.”

“Obsession with purity,” Undine asserted, her singing tone filled with notes of dark judgement, “and frustration, when she failed.”

“You think ill of Mother, it saddens me,” Juniel noted, her tone genuine. “You are made in her image, more so than I am. The way you handle your emotions reminds me of her. A serene pond if you want to and a vengeful ocean when appropriate.” About to interject with something less than friendly, John was interrupted by the tainted ice elemental presenting a simple question. “Don’t you find it telling that Mother has not told her children to ravage your land, John Newman?”

John was realizing more and more that his anger towards the Mother of Water had left holes in his reasoning that he did not like. That question was indeed a good one. Even without the Water Island as part of the Guild Hall, sour relations with the oceanic medusa could have hurt Fusion in subtle and direct ways. “Why hasn’t she, then?” he asked.

“I do not know, I can only tell you that no such order was given. I would not presume to know the complete answer, but it might yet be that she does not hold you in contempt. It is admirable that you care so much for your Undine, perhaps Mother can find it in her to forgive you for your mistakes,” Juniel lowered her sleeve and showed off her nightmarish mouth of now cracked and damaged icicles. “Rather than outright condemn them, you should perhaps ask yourself why Mother took such drastic measures.”

John closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Everything inside him rebelled against that suggestion, which was a very good reason for considering it. Being driven so strongly by emotions led to rather poor performance in this discussion. “I’m not willing to forgive your Mother, but I will reconsider her rationale,” he conceded and looked over to Undine. The abysstide elemental looked about as unhappy as he was, but the points were solid and so she nodded as well.

Juniel raised the sleeve back to her mouth. “Perhaps you should send Undine to talk to her, then?”

“Don’t stretch it,” John growled, as the grass and pavement under their feet turned to ice and snow. They had finally reached the base of the Water Island. “If you want us to get along so badly, go to her yourself and ask her why she tried cleansing Undine. Depending on what we hear, we will make our decisions.”

“Mother is busy,” Juniel told them. “In the interest of mending the relationship between her and the latest prodigy among her children, I’m willing to heed your request. However, it might take me months to gain an audience, let alone an answer. If you yourself went, I’m certain she would take the time immediately.”

“Last time she noticed, she tried to crush my existence,” John pointed out. “You will excuse me if I’m not too enthusiastic about meeting someone with that little patience.”

Giggling continuously, the ice woman stated, “You ask of her an emotional calm that you yourself fail to attain. Perhaps if you knew what you truly did to your Undine, you would understand the wrath aimed towards you?”

‘I hate how much sense that makes.’ The Gamer was well-aware of his own proclivity to anger when one of his loves was threatened. “Just go ask her when you find the time,” he pleaded with a sigh, admitting defeat in this argument. He absolutely loathed it, it went against every bit of his pride, but it was unquestionably true that there were some things that he was guilty of. That didn’t mean that the Mother of Water was now innocent, just that he should try to not make the same mistakes.

“I will,” Juniel assured. “I will be here, whenever I find an answer.”