"Do not take him seriously on that," Claudia chided. "Your bravery is your strongest quality. Your bravery is what subordinated me to you. It was through your bravery that I connected with your desire, and I share a piece of you, just as you shared a piece of yourself with both Ingolsol and I.
You did the brave thing, with two foreign wills in your body, you took the both of us, and you fed and clothed us, for that, you have our loyalty."
"Well, not for that," Ingolsol said again. "For the future – only there you have my loyalty. The moment you show weakness, I will take over. I will claim your throne. I will not serve a weak Lord."
"Earlier you did not seem to serve me at all," Beam noted. He also noted the manner of his speech. With the deference that both Claudia and Ingolsol were treating him with, he felt inclined to speak more regally. The words were foreign on his tongue, as though he was unpractised in saying them – but at the same time, they were familiar, like the recovery of an ancestral secret.
"Do forgive me for that," Ingolsol said, bowing his head again, and smiling, such that his cat-like fangs protruded from his lips. "It seems that I still do not know the depths of my Lordship's desires. You have intruders in these halls, intruders that far dwarf both Claudia and I in terms of power, yet even as they wound you, they could not break your will.
I think myself a clever man – or fragment, if you will – so I do hope you'll forgive me for failing to foresee such an outcome."
"None could have predicted such a thing," Claudia said, in vehement agreement with Ingolsol. "None." This time the word was spoken firmly. "This grand hall that you've built, that golden throne. These are grand things for a mortal. But still, they are not who you are. They are not what you are.
The earlier discomfort, the earlier disorientation, and the earlier lack of knowing, it all faded away like a bad smell in the wind, and he viewed his problems – those mocking giants, imitations of grand Gods – from the height that the steps of his throne room offered him, with the back of a solid chair to support him, and two soldiers armed for his sake.
Claudia too wielded a spear now, a spear of silver-tipped with gold. Her hammer was nowhere to be seen. The divine fragments watched the two of them warily, from their place at the top of the stairs.
Without Beam's attention on them, they had hardly moved. Their faces seemed even more lacking in emotion than they had before, and they were stuck halfway between robotic imitations of humans, and mere reflections, incapable of speech.
"Your unified halls do much to constrain their power," Ingolsol noted. "But what little monsters do we find, mm? Are these not our own Hobgoblins, Claudia? How amusing. To be presented with a battle of the same type that made us pledge ourselves to the Lord in the first place."
"It is not often I find myself agreeing with you," Claudia said, her smile appearing rather menacing on her pretty face. "A chance in the spotlight ourselves, at times, it does not strike me as such a bad thing. Perhaps we too are growing more human."
"Perhaps," Ingolsol said with a smile, as he brought his arm back behind his head, pulling his spear with it. "I suppose that is the game the mortals play at – the slaying of Gods."
And then he threw his spear, commencing the battle. His projectile flew at Ingolsol's divine fragment. It struck Beam as odd seeing it, two beings, that were technically the same being, eyeing each other with such malevolent intent. It was like going to war with one's reflection.