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It was so bizarre to watch, Danacha thought. Like something from another world.

She supposed it really was from another world. None of the native civilizations had invented computers. They were all as foreign as the people who'd brought them across the Ocean.

But even her owners had never owned a computer. How alien it was to her still.

Sasfsets was seated in her rolling chair, hunched over the keyboard. Her fingers spidered across the keys with a delirious mixture of practiced motion and blind anger. A cascade of incoherent symbols poured glowing across the hot surface of the black screen.

She was just sitting there, pressing buttons.

And yet, she was, somehow, at the same time, arguing with her cousin, far across the Ocean.

It was too much to accept as reality.

"... is it going poorly, mistress?" Danacha ventured.

"Yes!" Sasfsets shouted. "Biviri won't release funds so we can hire guns so we can go back and kill that auroral god." Her owner slammed her palm on the heavy iron slab of keyboard for emphasis. "Fuck that hurt, fuck. Fuck if I break my fucking hand, fuck, ouch."

"Why is it," Danacha started, then thought better.

"Why is what," Sasfsets grumbled, although she didn't look away from the screen.

"... why is it so important that we kill the god and take that island?"

Sasfsets threw a dismissive glance back at Danacha. "Because we have to justify our expenses to the board. So we have to find an island to set up a new port on. So we need to kill that god, so we can take that island, so we can set up a new port, so we can justify our expenses, so Biviri gets off my neck about it!"

"Yes, but. But why that island? That was just one of them. Was it really the best island?"

Sasfsets stopped typing. The auroral coils of her limbs fumed and writhed in a frustration at odds with the stillness of the rest of her body. "It. It was the best island."

"... yes, mistress. It's just. If we have to kill a god to claim it... that's, that's a detriment that should be considered as part of the island itself, shouldn't we?"

Sasfsets spun around in her chair. "Are you! Danacha, are you in on this now? You're seriously just taking now as the time to go from a little whinging slave to Big Ideas Girl? Is this your first contribution as a Big Ideas Girl?"

Danacha could feel humiliation burn in her chest but she let the black weight of her Void suck it empty and hollow. "Yes," she said, although not as firmly as she had hoped it would be, "yes, this is my Big Ideas Girl contribution."

Sasfsets chewed on her lip and stared down at her slave. "Well. It has existing infrastructure. It would save on expenses."

"But you need to hire people to help you kill the god... which, is an expense?" Danacha tried.

Her owner chewed on her lip more, really rolling it around between her teeth. "Yeah. Yeah that's what Biviri is saying too. It's just. It's."

"... it's something you feel is the right thing to do," Danacha said. "A feeling welling up from deep inside you."

"Yes."

"... mistress, you told me not to make the Void my enemy. To not make it an opponent I could lose to. To, to set healthy boundaries with it."

"You have successfully remembered something I told you. Congratulations at basic cognition! Now can you make this relevant to the current conversation?"

"... sometimes I feel urges, not always good ones... that I think come from the Void, and not me. Or... they come from some part of me that is the Void, now. And you're. I don't want to overstep my place--"

"You're Big Ideas Girl. I'll punish you for wasting my time with dumb ideas, not for giving me them at all. So. Make it a good one."

"Do you actually think that island is what's best for what your cousin wants, or is it just the auroral beast within you wants to win at some game of Ocean god politics?"

Sasfsets turned around back to her computer. "... half."

Danacha paused. "H-half, mistress?"

"Half right," Sasfsets said. "About half right. Which isn't bad, for your first go as Big Ideas Girl. Not bad. Keep it up."