He chuckled. "Guess I'll work on that. Thanks, Thea."
"Acknowledgement," she replied, voice softening. "You're welcome. Probabilistically speaking."
"Now that we're done with the business side of this encounter — and the basic introductions — tell me more about yourself," Adam said after a pause, curiosity creeping into his voice. "I'm still… very curious about just what kind of existence you are."
He spoke with a touch of hesitance, uncertain whether the question was too personal, too invasive — and whether asking something like that was tactless.
If it was, Thea didn't care either way.
"Explanation," she began evenly. "I am a tenth of Dea's soul — the logical fragment that was separated from her and transferred into your mind, taking form as an assistant of sorts. My purpose is to judge and differentiate, as well as to reward, any action that may be altruistic in nature."
She took a small breath before continuing, her teal eyes glinting faintly with amusement — the kind that came from being asked a question she secretly wanted to answer. After all, it couldn't be uncomfortable since he had asked… right?
"I am also held responsible for determining what those rewards shall be, based solely on the nature, importance, and obliqueness of the act at hand. In short, if you will, I am the Logos to Dea's Pathos — the logical, analytical, and unemotional being that has been superimposed upon your consciousness to act as an arbiter of your morality. My role is to assess which of your actions constitute kindness, which do not, and what compensation is merited for those that do."
Thea paused, then her expression softened; the sharpness in her features eased, and something almost reverent entered her tone.
"The only reason Lady Dea split her soul — to create me from ten percent of it and thus grant me life — was so that I could serve as this judge for you. Consequently," she said, smiling tenderly, "it would not be a falsehood to say that you are the reason for my existence, Adam."
Adam felt that like a construction container falling on his head.
He knew, because that had already happened to him. That's why he was even here in the first place.
His face turned red, his heart skipped a beat, and he swallowed hard. There was tremendous pressure in being the reason for someone's existence — not merely their hope or motivation to live, but the very cause they existed at all. That wasn't sentimentality. That was an existential weight with its own gravitational field. How on earth could he possibly live up to being a pseudo-divine beings' reason for existence!?
And then, the meaning of her words actually caught up to him.
"Dea split her soul!?" he yelped, going pale as realization dawned.
"No need for concern," Thea said lightly. "She just regenerated it afterwards."
She delivered it with perfect nonchalance — knowing full well it was a bombshell, and quietly savoring the inevitable shock on his face. Not that she'd ever admit that, of course.
Adam froze.
"Quite the dream you're having, is it not?" Thea hummed, in response to his stunned silence — a glitter of amusement flickering in the teal eyes he had recently come to know so closely.
"...Right, moving on from that. You seem to be much calmer than Dea. Everything seems much calmer. There seems to be a lot of chaos when she's around, huh?" Adam mumbled numbly, switching the topic as a defense mechanism.
"Information. Everything is more chaotic when she's around. That's why the first two chapters of the story were so absurd and chaotic," Thea noted idly.
"What?" Adam blinked, stunned out of one stupor straight into another.
"Question. What?" Thea blinked back, perfect innocence on her face.
Before Adam could say anything further, the dreamscape shuddered. A faint ripple of distortion ran through the still air, and somewhere in the background, a glimmer of panic — distinctly Dea's — seemed to echo.
The edges of Adam's vision blurred. Thea tilted her head, as if hearing something he couldn't.
"Farewell. It seems your time in the dreamscape has concluded. Or mindscape. Or subconscious projection. Whichever designation pleases you. I shall see you again next time. And to end in a human expression… 'Toodles?'"
She gave an awkward little wave as a rift tore open in front of him, swallowing Adam in a cascade of refracted light. When it closed, the chromatic hues of the dream dissolved into muted greys, leaving behind only a single, distant, rainbow-hued dot on the horizon.
Thea stood in silence for precisely 4.2 seconds.
Then, with the same calm efficiency she had maintained throughout, she turned on her heel and began to walk. Her teal eyes swept over the barren landscape, cataloguing every anomaly with dispassionate precision.
"This has been... an eventful interaction," she concluded to herself. "Noted."
She paused, adjusted an invisible sleeve, and added flatly, "Also, technically my first interaction. Statistical success rate: one hundred percent."
Her head tilted slightly. "Self-evaluation complete."
And with that, she continued walking, her footsteps fading into the abstract quiet of the dream — no sentiment, no warmth, just the steady rhythm of a system logging its own report.