Earlier in John’s life while in Nibbur, a city between Babilim and Oruk, he was told of a time the place was overrun with rats. A priest had an idea of how to solve the city’s rat problem, and it was to have the rats themselves take care of it.

Ten or so rats were placed in a cage. The rats would get hungry and attack each other. When only one rat remained, it would be marked, and ten or so more rats would be put in the cage. When the same rat was marked three times, it was considered to be the rat king and released to do what it had learned to do.

Soon after, Nibbur no longer had a rat problem.

John heard similar stories throughout the years and throughout his travels. As he looked at his wife, Lilitu, for some reason he could never articulate, she once again gave him the feeling that she was like a rat king. Or queen, in her case.

Lilitu smiled at John. The joy and excitement on her sweet, little child’s face nearly broke his heart. The trust. The love.

John put some thought into that word – love. It wasn’t around when he and Lilitu were together. There was a similar word for how a mother felt for her children. There was no word for its other modern usages, such as how a man felt about his wife, or lustful desire and passion, or deep affection. Such feelings would be expressed by saying, ‘I think of you a lot,’ or something similar.

John thought it felt good to have someone feel that way about him again. To feel he was worthy of being loved. To know he didn’t have to go it alone, as there was someone tied to him by both oath and deep feelings. He missed feeling such more than he realized.

The helicopter’s loud noises hurt John’s ears even with the hearing protection of the headphones they gave him. He reevaluated the game Team Human was playing. He couldn’t figure it out. Usually, the motivations of rulers were clear to him, but he was at a loss. He thought Team Human was winning whatever game it was they were playing.

Lilitu reached out and held John’s hand in her own tiny hand. He then got a feeling, like a tug, pulling him. Lilitu nodded her head. He let himself be pulled. The world blurred and flashed by.

Assuming he entered Lilitu’s Mind’s Eye, John looked around. It seemed much the same as his own did when he had Pixie, besides the missing tabs and other UI elements. He had no body, but his Lilitu had one, and she looked exactly as she did back in the old days, other than being adorned in a modern way.

Lilitu looked a few years younger than John. She was extremely beautiful – exotically and sensually so. She had long, raven hair, pale olive skin, all the right curves, but was less plump than he preferred. She exuded sexuality and had always been a consummate flirt and seductress.

His wife’s hair was full, shiny, and billowed around her shoulders. She wore long, purple gloves, red shoes with very long heels, and a sparkling-red dress that went down to her ankles but had a long slit along the side that went all the way up to her hip. The dress had no straps or cinches holding it up but the top of it somehow only covered her chest and belly and nothing else. She also wore many pieces of jewelry.

The joy and excitement and love that showed on Lilitu’s face as a child still showed on her real face, and it warmed John’s heart to see it so. She said, “Oh, my dear heart! I meant it when I said not a day passed without thoughts of you filling my head. I’m so sorry I left you. Our creator can’t be denied. How I wish I could hold you in here.”

Lilitu spun around slowly, arms above her head, showing herself off. “Do you like seeing me as I was? I’ll help you form a body in your own mind, and you’ll be able to keep it in here too.”

Giving John her secret smile, the smile she reserved only for him, Lilitu said, “Wait until my new body’s old enough I can start cultivating. When I open my upper core, I’ll have access to my Mind Palace. I dedicated it to you. A shrine to my Adon.”

John always disliked that name. Adon meant lord, but Lilitu never once called him lord until a trader from far east of Elam, probably one of the further kingdoms of Burata, went to Babilim with monkeys, and the trader’s name for that type of monkey was very similar to adon. It was the first time Lilitu ever saw a monkey. After, she would call John her Adon, and her pretty little monkey.

“You’ve hardly said a word, my dear heart. Aren’t you excited to see me? Oh, please don’t be mad at me for leaving you. I had no choice. At least let me explain,” Lilitu said while pouting.

“Lilitu, please call me John. You know I dislike being called Adon.”

The pout turned into a serious look. “Then call me Lilly. You know I dislike Lilitu. Lilith is fine too. I’ll never understand how you could tolerate having a completely different name every five seconds. It gets so confusing.” She made her pouty face again, and added in, “My lord. You’ll always be my lord.”

John nearly laughed. Lilly always did as she pleased, and always managed to get her way, and saw him as her lord in the same way a pet cat saw its owner as one. He said, “The humans usually decided what name I was called back then. And I think I’ve gone by John, or some form of it, for some time now. But first, never again call Amber a coarse name, or imply she is loose. She is my good friend and companion, and I won’t have her treated disrespectfully. She’s never even been with a man.”

Lilly chuckled. “Oh, you sweet, poor fool. You’ve learned nothing since I’ve been gone. Still always ready to lap up whatever poisoned honey some trollop with a pretty face drips from her tongue. That’s the game. Always has been, always will be. Is it any different than what I used to do? Promise men everything, lead them on, and never once let them touch me? Is there any better way for a woman to get what she wants? How did that end for those men? Why insist on being such an easy mark?”

“She’s not like you. Just…please. Please don’t do what you do to her.”

A smile John knew well spread across Lilly’s face. “Your wish is my command, my lord husband.” He had trouble believing the sincerity of those words.

Lilly’s face became serious again as she said, “I didn’t want to say anything in front of the peons, but your soul…I’ve seen soul damage before, but nothing like this. I assume you know it’s damaged as I’m guessing you’ve been trying to heal it with vigor?”

Stolen story; please report.

“I do. And I am.”

“Well, I’d stop doing it so much. And not at all the rest of Copper tier. It’s being reinforced far more than healed. If you keep going it will be too tough to heal at all and will remain forever stunted. It may not seem like a big deal now but that won’t be true for long. Did you know that sl…your pretty friend is a Natural? Do you know what Naturals are for?”

John wished he had a form so Lilly could see the warning in his eyes. “I do know. And that is not an option. I’ve given my word to protect her always, and to spend my life defending her own. Any harm to befall her will be avenged tenfold. Leave off, woman. Don’t try me with this.”

Anger flashed in Lilly’s eyes. “Is that not the same oath you swore to make me your wife!?”

John couldn’t deny the truth of those words, but it wasn’t the truth. “I intended for you to be my wife, and you know it. You know how it worked back then. Amber isn’t my wife. Neither is Hubaba. I wouldn’t have you play your games with him either. Amber’s story is not mine to share, but she will never have a husband, and she’ll never know a man as a wife does. Put your fears to rest, and just treat my friends well. No games!”

“She’s…” The anger left Lilly’s eyes as she rolled them. “Okay. No games. How are you going to heal your soul? Oh, how I wish I could hold you, my dear heart! If you don’t fix your soul, it will limit your growth. Our master might intercede, but we can’t rely on that. If that Natural is truly your friend, and isn’t playing her own games with your heart, wouldn’t she volunteer to heal you? I would. You know I would.”

It was John’s belief Lilly would sacrifice much to save him. But her own life if it meant she truly would die? She often couldn’t be bothered to even help if it required her to exert herself. He remembered how much joy she took from starting trouble that would require a great slaughter to fix, and she’d stand back as John fixed things, claiming she didn’t want her clothes to be spoiled with blood or viscera.

John nearly sighed but stopped himself. Lilly would see a man sighing as a sign of weakness and sulkiness. He said, “Even if she volunteered, I would say no. Treat her well. She has been by my side since all this started. She’s saved my life many times. I haven’t seen you in thousands of years. She is far doughtier than her appearance in human form would lead you to believe. If you play your games, you’ll only reap what you sow. I’m telling you for your own good and protection.”

A familiar look of anger and disgust showed on Lilly’ face. “You’d side with that dumb slut over me? I am your wife! You’d stand by and let her kill me? Have you no honor? Does your word mean nothing now? Your oaths? No! Let me continue, as you think I left you on purpose. I didn’t.”

Letting out a deep breath, Lilly said, “Just listen. You’ll see I’m still your wife, and that I didn’t leave you. Truly. Will you hear me?”

John replied, “I will.”

“I knew I was close. You’d never listen to reason. You’d never harden your heart enough to see things clearly. You’d never even drink from a newborn to see the life essence within them is different. You saw plenty of proof I was onto something. I had results. I couldn’t even talk to you about it without you becoming hysterical and womanly.”

John tried to interrupt but Lilly talked over him. “No! Let me finish. Just listen until I’m done. Please. I couldn’t talk to you, so I had to plan behind your back. I didn’t want to. I wanted us to do everything together. It was always us. Standing against everyone. Against the world. Just us, always.”

Lilly gave a sad smile and lowered her eyes. “I know you thought I was mad. That I was heartless. I never was. If I had to live forever, why wouldn’t I want to cure my boredom occasionally? You hate to admit it, but you know as well as I do, killing humans is more often the humane and benevolent thing to do.”

Lilly looked up and held John’s gaze steady. “You know the life of pain and meaningless desperation they all endure. Most of them don’t even qualify as sentient beings. When a mother hardens her heart and begs her husband to kill their sickly newborn, knowing it is the only compassionate thing to do, the only way to save her child from a miserable and short life of pain and suffering, do you name her mad and a murderer and heartless? Of course not. It’s not like she condemned her child to the cold-dark. That would be evil.”

A few tears left Lilly’s eyes. “Is what I did so different? Sure, I didn’t love those newborns as a mother does, but every one of them I saved from a miserable and short life of starvation, pain, and suffering, broken only by very few moments of joy when they’d rut and such. And that’s only if they grew to adulthood. How many didn’t back then?”

As she spoke and cried, Lilly posed in many ways that highlighted the curves of her figure and showed her shapely leg through the slit of her dress.

Continuing, Lilly said, “I knew there were more to the visions we were granted. A way to get our souls back and avoid the cold-dark as our fate. To make an omelet you must break a few eggs. You said I was wrong and a monster, but I wasn’t. I was right!

“There was a test. And I passed it. Our master’s been around since the beginning, and he never thought what I did was even a possibility. He said I was a genius. While cut off from the Tree of Life and self-cultivation and essence, I found a source of it. I pieced together a working ritual. I escaped the confines of this world,” said Lilly as she dabbed away the tears from her eyes with a cloth she slowly removed from between her cleavage.

“His reward for me was a permanent, immortal soul. When I die, I don’t go to the Wheel. Everything I earn that marks my soul is kept. I even keep our dark gift. I just need to find a new host and take over the body. It only works on the very young, but for the most part, I truly am immortal now.”

Lilly’s face turned from sad to tortured. “I begged him. I fell on my knees and begged him to bring you to me. Or send me back. I couldn’t be without you. I wouldn’t be. He told me to forget you. To move on. I said never. He refused to tell me how to return to you. Since then, all I’ve done has been only to return. For thousands of years, I’ve clawed up the bloody climb, I reached the fourth Tree twice, I’ve fought across countless universes, I’ve gave up so much, I’ve suffered so much, all to return to you.”

Lilly’s face brightened with a wide smile. “And I finally found you! This hidden planet. Not since the beginning had our master spoken to me directly. He did then. He told me I couldn’t return. I said nothing would stop me. He killed me and took my Divine body. I returned fresh, but he didn’t stop me from returning that way.

“I took a new body on this planet in the early fifties. I found you nine years ago. That priest and whore nun you lived with tricked me. They got very lucky and killed me. I followed when they moved you. I took a body and even managed to get my father to move across from you. You’d watch me play sometimes.

“You visited me once, you know? I wasn’t fully me. It takes time to become me again in a new body. I was so frightened. I knew you were the most important thing, and I needed you, but not why. You asked about my soul and then forgot you were talking to me. I’m glad your mind was fixed because you were…it killed me to see you that way. When you recognized me earlier, even in this body, my heart nearly burst with joy. I had my husband back! Finally!”

Lilly cast her eyes down again. “So, you see, I never left you. Not on purpose. And all I’ve done since is fight my way back to you.” She lifted her face and smiled; her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. “And that’s my story, my dear heart, so never say I left you on purpose. I’ve always been true to you. I never stopped being your wife.”

John was never sure whether Lilly’s tears were true or not. It did lift his heart that she didn’t leave him on purpose and fought so hard to return to him.

Though John never once thought his wife left him on purpose – he thought he killed her. He became a little hesitant and nervous. He knew she wouldn’t take his news well.

For a long moment John considered not telling his wife what he needed to. He asked himself what good could come of it. ‘Plenty,’ was his answer. Lilly had to understand there were limits to his tolerance, and he feared for Amber’s life, and the lives of many others, if his wife didn’t truly understand the consequence of testing those limits.