It's worse that it's beautiful.

She sits, drinking in the scene with eyes closed. Air, dripping with scentmarks, heady, strong. Music, tickling at her ears. The electric whine of a charged esoteric.

And she knows that opening her eyes will bless her with--

It's like, she doesn't have the words to describe it? Like drinking nectar after chewing cardboard your whole life. An insane burst of flavor, of texture, of meaning made more potent by the surrounding drabness. 

It's only been a few hours, and already it's a relief.

It's worse that it's beautiful, because how can she stare at this and not make the comparison? How can any of the new,  uplifted, not make the comparison?

How is it fair--no, wrong word. How can it be right that they--the Azura, humanity, servitors, anyone with biomancy--can stand on the precipice of this, and determine who is or is not worthy?

At the same time, Mosaic's words ring strong in her ears. 

That's the issue, then, isn't it? Is that somebody's sitting on the gateway, opening the door only in the way they imagine right.

But--

But the alternative, right, is--

You can't demand that someone be given free access to the tools to destroy themselves, and at the same time demand that they only use them in the way you approve, right? Not in any kind of self-coherent way. 

She doesn't want them to biomance themselves into servitors. Or to biomance themselves into what Aphrodite showed her--into eternally happy seekers of bliss.  What's the middle? Is the middle even the answer? Is the answer to let people do what they want, or is that just the lotus eaters again?

For now, she resolves that, even if she doesn't have the answers, it's important to ask the questions. And, you know, more important to focus on the immediate, the esoteric, the presence of the shadow-hunters.

She tastes the scene again, but this time for a different presence--of the shifting, the invisible. She's looking for the partially uplifted, the ones who are able to see, able to smell, able to see. There will be more than a few, she's sure.