Once upon a time, Liam had visited a carnival in a small town. It involved all the stereotypical things: overpriced deep-fried everything, cheap and squeaky rides, carnie games meant to separate you from your money under false hopes of big plushies, and it even had its own roving theater. Most of the shows were music in some shape or form, with a couple of clowns doing physical comedy and a handful of mildly impressive stunts.
Doeta’s musicians and acrobats gave more or less the same kind of vibes, just switched up to something that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Renaissance fair. Liam was vaguely aware that the various artists were trying to impress, and most of the crowd felt wowed, but to him, it felt… eh.
His home world had been spoiled for choice when it came to entertainment of the daring variety. Gymnasts and magicians could purchase far more expensive and specialized gear. Stunts could be practiced in safer environments, with better-equipped medics just one call away if something did go wrong. By contrast, in this world, there existed magic and enchanted tools, but most everything was so monumentally unaffordable to the common citizen that they might as well be myths.
All of this combined into a singular truth, that the most “intense” thing to happen upon any of the three stages Liam visited that day was when one of them threw a fistful of flour into an open flame to make a small fireball.
By contrast, the music was a better source of amusement, though here too there was a bit too easy to feel spoiled. Another point for the homeworld, with playlists several hundred songs in length, all the variety in the world at the click of a button. By contrast, here there would be two, maybe three, musicians beating drums and flute to a rhythm. And though the tunes were decent, microphones and speakers would’ve made it actually possible to listen to them.
Or maybe everything interesting was happening near and around the procession. In which case it might as well not be happening at all.
Maybe he was just having an intense case of first-world problems; he certainly missed having internet access.
In the end, the shows were more enjoyable for the ambiance than anything else. The people laughing and dancing, the children trying to copy them, the mostly awkward teenagers milling about working up the nerve to ask someone else to dance… It was a hundred tiny stories unfolding, each contained within their own little pieces of the world.
Calm.
Nice.
The juice was the true MVP of the event, keeping his focus on the here and now rather than on the guy singing songs weaved with jokes that flew over Liam’s head. Something about fishing and shellfish and lonely time out when the waters are calm? He suspected they’d been making puns, but the translation was not able to get it through.
Liam felt as if he was forgetting something important.
“You look bored,” Bunny whispered into his ear.
He held back from visibly flinching. “Must you sneak up on me every time?” He asked, glancing over at Bunny’s
‘human’ form as she cheekily grinned at him.
“You would’ve noticed if you weren’t so distracted,” she grabbed his arm. “Come on, there’s not much day left, and if you’re going to do nothing, then you might as well do nothing with your best friend in the world.”
“In this world,” he emphasized.
Bunny stuck her tongue out at him. “We’ll see who ranks highest when all is said and done.”
Tomorrow. He blinked at the word as they walked down the street. “Aisha, the Amil, is important to me.” Why had he said that? But now that he had, he felt it was the right course of action. “I thought I might tell you first.”
The aspect visibly twitched. “As your bestest friend, my opinion on the matter is that you can do better than her.”
“Maybe, maybe she can do better than me,” he shrugged. “Just thought to let you know, and hoping you'd tell the others since I can’t.”
“When you say ‘important’, how much are we talking?” Bunny asked hesitantly. “Is this just some random fun, or are you looking to start a lineage?”
“It’s definitely very premature to ask that,” he laughed, poking at her shoulder and drawing an annoyed sound out of the aspect. “For all I know, this could just keep going until we find out we’re incompatible in some important way.”
“That can be arranged.”
“What?” he asked.
“What?”
Bunny looked at him with an innocent smile hiding devilish intentions. Liam flicked her nose, watching her fluster and pout as she turned to look away. “Don’t make me invent spray bottles.”
“All I’m saying is that maybe you should satisfy your mortal urges before you let your hormones do the thinking for you. Don’t just jump at the twelfth pretty face to look your way with fun intentions.”
“Twelfth?”
“You’re exotic and walked around a packed city. Someone was bound to notice sooner or later. I noticed their noticing,” Bunny took a step away from him, keeping out of his reach. “All I’m saying is that I can be your sniffing-Bunny. With me at your side, we can find you some pretty thing that also happens to get hot every time she sees a bucket of goat milk. Then it’s just a sweet word here, a wink there and BAM! Your head’s all cleared up and you realize you were just pent up!”
“Keep it up and I am going to demote you.”
“Pshhh, you’d need other friends to be able to demote me,” Bunny waved him off.
“Grauch could take the spot.” He didn’t intend to sound hurt, but it came out that way.
“The servant lizard!?” Wide-eyed and indignant, she punched his shoulder hard enough to nearly make him trip and spill his juice cup. “You take that back.”
“Ow, ok, ok,” he rubbed his shoulder, relenting at the sudden seriousness in her eyes. “But he is a great dude overall.”
Bunny looked at him tentatively and pouted. “He’s a servant; he can’t really be anything other than nice.”
“And that’s not your situation?”
“Totally different,” she quickly countered. “Being your best friend is useful to Origin. You having an invested personal attachment to her goals and wellbeing is considered a boon in her books. I won’t deny that.”
“But?” he prompted.
“There is no ‘but’, Liam, other than mine,” Bunny answered with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “A servant is forced to be nice out of fear of punishment. I am nice to you because I want to be nice; that doesn’t mean I won’t tell you that I’ve seen malnourished trees sturdier than you. Because I have.”
“Mhm,” he gave her an unamused look. “And you want to be nice because it’s useful, and as an aspect, you want to be useful.”
“Unlike you mortals, I was made with a purpose, and I want to fulfill it,” Bunny huffed. “I want to be useful… to a certain degree at least.” She rolled her eyes, spinning on the next step. “I could be a lot more useful and nicer, buuuuut you don’t want that.”
Liam’s smile became a little brittle at her proclamation; it wasn’t a surprise, just not exactly pleasant. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a little vindictive. “And what happens if being my friend is no longer useful to Origin? What if she deigned I’m not worth it?”
“Well, of course, I’d-” Bunny froze mid-step. There was a brief moment of panic as she looked at him. “I-” Swallowing hard, she reached out to grab his hand, squeezing it. “I won’t… I-” she whispered so softly he almost missed it, voice faltering.
“Ok, that was a little mean of me,” he patted her turban. “You know what? I’ll tell you another of those big secrets as compensation. But it’ll have to be away from prying ears.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
She immediately lit up with a million-watt smile. “I know just the spot.”
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Getting out of Doeta was easy enough, though Liam noted that the guards appeared reluctant to let him through. Perhaps it was because he was carrying the Amil’s token, or maybe it was something else. Whatever the case, they didn’t push the subject and let him through when a small group of fishermen marched straight out.
Bunny made an offhand comment about a cow being jealous but didn’t elaborate on what she meant by that.
Doeta’s port was anemic; clearly, the city wasn’t a bustling center of trade. The beak-engulfed city had a small cobblestone road, half a mile long, leading down to what could be argued to be a fort. All the stone and hand labor the citizens had saved on walls for the city had been spent in creating a large block of rocks in the rough shape of a squat castle.
This castle was built around a "bite" of water, where Liam could only spot two ships and dozens of tiny personal-use boats. There was barely any activity, with just a few lights moving back and forth as the day approached its end.
Bunny did not bring him toward the fort but instead curved down the slope away from it, towards an odd rock formation that had a west-facing cliff. The orange sky reflected on the lake, creating an odd shimmer that left Liam covering his eyes to avoid getting blinded. "I guess I did need extra vitamin D," he muttered under his breath, feeling the warm wind and biting sunlight.
"It’s not too far, and I can guarantee it's a safe spot; just don’t ask me how or why," she said, pulling him away from the cobblestone road, leading him with a bit more enthusiasm.
Looking at the formation, Liam tried to make sense of it. At first, it looked like just any other conglomeration of rocks, but as he watched closer, he noticed how the stone had a very peculiar look about it, as if... "This thing came out during the fight with the giant worm!" It was a rock, just a rock, but one that had been part of the soil, with its many layers. Except that rather than follow the layering pattern of everything around it, it was sticking out vertically.
As if it had been dug out and dropped by something gigantic. The rock formation was large enough to fit a shopping mall in it. Liam stared in awe, wondering how much larger it had been before the millions of years' worth of erosion. It gave him a shiver, just trying to think of the scale of the battles deities could get themselves into. He could throw numbers all day, but nothing compared to standing next to a literal chunk of debris left behind from such a cataclysmic encounter.
Bunny gave him a minute before poking his ribs.
“You promised a secret.”
Liam’s eyes had not left the rock, caressing it, feeling the rough surface, barely able to grasp the weight of the thing. “Ask away. I reserve the right to tell you I can’t or won’t answer, but think of me…” He gave her a cheeky grin. “Well, think of me as the creator of this world. What is the biggest question you can think of?”
“Look at you, pretending to be all high and mighty. You’re not the god of me!” Bunny poked him some more, rapidly tickling his ribs until he let out a snort. “But very well, I shall thus ask you about the greatest secret mortals have: death.”
“That one… hm. How much about death do you know? How much has Origin told you?”
“Wait, she knows?”
“Too many death-cults and necromancers work with secrets for her not to have a pretty good picture of what happens when a mortal dies,” he shrugged.
“Ugh. Fine.” Bunny crossed her arms dejectedly. “Give me the brief version, and I’ll ask something else.”
“The super brief version is that when mortals were first made, they weren’t quite that mortal. Their souls had been made out of chunks of a God's body, so in a very vague way, they were aspects. Aspects that could reproduce without supervision,” he chuckled darkly. “Things didn't go well for the Gods of that Age, and when the next group showed up, they learned their lesson and worked to implement mortality, which was not easy. It took several attempts to change the mortals enough for the concept to stick, but true resurrection was discovered an Age or so later, which wasn’t appreciated when some of the God-defying heroes could just come back over and over. So they built the Infinite Vault, which is where all mortal souls end up,” he shrugged. “Then the Librarian was left in charge, and they’re basically the oldest entity in this world since no one’s been able to take the title from them ever since.”
“And Origin knows them?”
“She knows of them,” he nodded along. “For anyone alive, God or mortal, to get to the Infinite Vault, you need permission from the Librarian. Which they do not like to do, since every time they’ve let someone in, something went down.”
Bunny perked up. “Oh! I think I know what to ask. What happens in the Infinite Vault?”
“If you catch the Librarian’s attention on the way in, you become a Keeper and help protect and maintain the place,” he answered. “If not, you just spend most of your time asleep. Souls are not where most of the consciousness emerges from; without a body, you’re mostly a bundle of memories without direction…” His gaze trailed to a blotch of soot on his left palm, one in the shape of an arrow pointing at his forearm. “Hm?”
He’d been about to pull the sleeve up, but Bunny’s hand clamped down on the cloth, her grip tight.
“Bunny?”
“I need you to trust in us, Liam,” she spoke emphatically, squeezing. “This is really important. You have to trust me on this.”
“But-”
“I know that when you trusted Origin, things didn’t turn out too well; she broke that trust.” Slowly, she let go, amber eyes regarding him carefully. “I’m asking you to trust in me, as your friend. I swear it on everything that I am.”
A creeping feeling rose up his spine. “And… bad things happen if I don’t.” He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, feeling like he’d been hit by a wave of nausea. “I’ve erased my memories, haven’t I? Repeatedly.” Because he couldn’t run around with the awareness that they were planning something. Every second spent with that knowledge was a moment risking some stray thought making it out to someone with telepathy or some other means of special perception.
“You told us about the Weaver, how she operates, who she is,” Bunny leaned closer. “Of her design.”
“Shit.” He pawed at his face, closing his eyes. “Then you know…”
“That she is an imagined ideal you’d conjured up when you were at your most toxic,” Bunny sat down, crossing her legs, carefully putting her hands on her knees. “I’m not going to forcefully erase your memories about this exchange, Liam. But if you can’t trust us, or trust me, then it’s better if we make a run for it while we still can.”
“When is everything going to go down?”
“I don’t know, and even if I did, I couldn’t tell you. Not knowing is how we planned for it, how we win this round. We need to be genuinely caught by surprise; we can’t fake that, not to a God. Only Origin could fake it, which is why only Origin knows the details.”
“Because if the Weaver doesn’t feel like she’s in control, she’ll cut her losses and wait for a better opportunity,” he stomped his foot down. “At least tell me Aisha-”
“I’ll tell Origin you’ll be angry if she’s a target, but I can’t do much else. If we stay, if we proceed with the plan, we both need to forget this exchange happened,” she gave him an apologetic smile. "There’s no middle-ground. We can’t do this without your trust. Either we stay or we go.”
Liam’s gaze lingered on his covered sleeve, scowling at it. “Tell Origin that this sort of plan isn’t going to work out next time. Once I know we’ve tried it once-”
“She knows.”
“And I really need something to block out telepaths-”
“She knows.”
“And-”
“Liam.”
“At least…” Liam gritted his teeth. “At least ask Origin, I need to know. Was me and Aisha… planned? Did I know about her, or…?”
Closing her eyes, Bunny let out a begrudging sigh. “Fine, give me a moment.” There was a slight wiggle in her turban before she looked up at him again. “She says that you knew Aisha existed because she was a footnote in the collector’s background, but not much else. There was no plan for both of you to…” Bunny grimaced, as if tasting a bug. “...hit it off.” With a grumble, she petulantly crossed her arms. “That’s it, no more. Time to choose.”
Swallowing, he closed his eyes. “A leap of faith, right?” he muttered, reaching to his boot and pulling out the knife. “I’m really not suited for this sort of plan.”
“We know. You’ve been intentionally leaving the knife empty as a way to give yourself hints. Repeatedly,” Bunny muttered in irritation, pulling out a marble of aether and handing it over. “Now come on, we both need to erase this exchange, hopefully it’s the last slip-up. If you think it’s hard dealing with memory loss, imagine it for someone who remembers everything. I can see the holes, and I’d rather keep them at a minimum.”
She rubbed her finger against his left palm, erasing the soot arrow; a tingle in his arm warned him she’d likely done the same with the rest of whatever he’d left there.
“That makes two of us.” With a flicker of thought, and using the sunlight upon the blade, Liam braced, focusing on deleting everything since discovering the arrow of soot.
A flash of light as he sheathed the knife again, and a sense of release washed over him.
Liam’s thoughts muddled, and he blinked as he regained his focus, staring up at the orange clouds.
He felt as if he'd just realized he hadn't been thinking about anything for the past while.
“I said you still owe me an answer,” Bunny said, cuddled into a rabbit form upon his chest. “It doesn’t count if Origin already knows.”
It took a moment for him to regain his train of thought, a momentary slip as he wondered how long they’d lain there looking up at the sky. But as he did, his gaze caught a singular red star, bright enough to shine even though the sun had yet to fully set. His lips curled into a smirk.
“This one is a secret only one other person knows about.” He raised his finger, pointing at the red star, as he chuckled. “The meteor is actually a God. A very angry and very old god. Old and powerful, so much so that the current pantheon will only be able to weaken it, but not stop it.”
“No way!” The aspect excitedly vibrated on his chest, gazing up at the red twinkle far overhead. “Wait, you created him as a way to kill the Weaver, didn’t you?”
“It gets the ball rolling in that direction, so to speak,” he chuckled, though his smile became brittle. “Because one of the best ways to counter someone with control over the coin-toss is to smack them with a meteor.”
They shared a laugh, even as Liam’s mind dwelt on Thalgrim. On the kind of person he’d been when he’d written her into existence, the unconscious self-loathing and insecurities that to this day still gnawed at him. The two of them spent the following hours just talking about nothing, watching as night fell and all the other stars twinkled into existence.
“Time to go,” Bunny called out once a chill had settled in.
Neither of them moved. Some part of Liam didn’t want to go, a trepidation clung to him, as if something terrifying awaited if he left the safety of the rocks. Yet he could not bring himself to stretch his time there either.
The aspect walked him to the estate through dark streets, saying her goodbyes before vanishing into the city. Liam was greeted by weary guards, too late for even Grouch to come and guide him to the guest quarters.
Even Imani was nowhere to be seen, most likely having retreated to her own room.
Quietly he washed himself, and though he couldn’t shake off the anxiousness gripping him, eventually he grew too tired and fell asleep.