“Honestly, I don’t think that could have gone all that much better.”
There may be some truth to this statement.
Nathan stood once more within the starry void, that light-speckled backdrop to his interlife existence which defined his metanarrative. He raised his eyes—for now he had them, or something like them; a vague impression of corporeality rather than existing in pure liminal nationality—up to unfamiliar stars in an unfamiliar universe, and he sighed.
“I was kind of a dick to them at the end, wasn’t I.”
There was a pause, a moment for the collection of self and the indulgence of recollection. With the increased presence of something like a physical body came the slightest hint of carryover of the emotions and stressors of the life Nathan had lived—and moreover, the death he’d not experienced had happened too fast for him to take notice. There had been no transition, no process to it, and he needed to decompress.
Figuratively speaking, of course. While there was tremendous majesty and wonder and glory in the vista his interlife was set within, it would have ill served his purpose or that of anyone whom our narrative is concerned with to have him suffer from literal decompression.
“Actually,” Nathan said after a few moments of contemplation, “I wasn’t really. Maybe a little bit, but it was in a context where they were well aware of it as a possible outcome. And maybe they also just… expected it? They were, I guess probably still are if time is linear across universes—is time linear across multiverses?”
No.
“Yeah, okay, I don’t see why it would be. Anyway, they were and maybe still are this weird mix of titanically powerful and immature jerks. So maybe they didn’t actually expect me to sort of break when they pushed me that hard, but I’m guessing they did. And that’s why Tanya just pulled the ripcord on the whole rest of the scenario; she could tell, she expected it. So why did she set me up for it in the first place? Growth, I guess. A parting gift, fucked up as it was.”
To survive breaching one’s limits can be to surpass them. A pause. The probability of this is increased by the investments you have made into the processing of traumas and the mitigation of emotional harms.
“I guess.”
A few moments passed while Nathan stared into the void, taking in the way that it was just slightly more corporeal than it was abstract, thinking about what that might imply. Not thinking in any concrete way; he simply let the feelings about it mix with half-formed, inchoate thoughts as his mind churned the implications and possibilities into a mélange of proto-meaning.
He opened his mouth after a few moments, then closed it again.
You lived a short life, the voice in the void preempted him as he tried to muster the emotional wherewithal to ask the question, but a rich one. It was a bounty, as lives go; there is no rush.
“Thanks,” he murmured, or conveyed in a manner that was much more like murmuring than he would have been able to manage in any of his previous interlife interludes. “I guess I didn’t want to ask it, because asking it implied the need for it. Which suggests that I need to take that time and unwind, huh.”
It is so. There was a pause, almost like a hesitation. I will endeavor to ensure that your next life is not as dense with violence. It is within my remit and power to… shift the constraints and circumstances to some degree, and that has grown with your pursuits in the Dungeon. But it is difficult to put into words, or even into coherent communicable considerations.
“Something with books, maybe,” Nathan sighed. “Well, good. I’m glad we’re not in a rush. You know, I remember this… web serial, I guess. I don’t actually remember the name, it definitely wasn’t Interlife Crisis but it could have been something like that. Why am I rambling about this?”
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
To decompress. Continue.
“Oh.” Nathan blinked a few times. “Anyway, the context of it was a sort of interlife, one that was more social and had these progression elements based on the past lives of the characters. It was good. The reasons why I’m thinking of it are probably obvious. But yeah, they always had this dynamic balance of wanting to cram in as much as they could while not wanting to be in a rush, of not wanting to waste time while also trying not to be stressed out about the passage of it. And they had infinite time, which I know I don’t—a million isn’t infinity—but it basically feels like I do, sometimes.”
It may, in time, be possible to extend the million. It remains to be seen. Perhaps I will know the truth of it in a hundred thousand lives; perhaps not.
“Sure.”
Nathan stared at the stars hanging in the sky, taking in the vastness of it all, the majesty and grandeur, the incomprehensibility of everything. Slowly, his thoughts began to move instead of churn. He let them flow through him and outwards rather than having them just circle themselves, though they kept coming back in much the same form afterwards. Still, even that began to slowly change as new thoughts made themselves known and entered circulation, thinning out the mental mud until things were clear enough to be experienced as individual concepts.
He had done… a fair amount of that sort of thing, on and off, in the time he’d worked at the golf resort. It had been on a beautiful Pacific island, which made it quite agreeable as a venue for such practices; and there had been people who felt it their job to guide others, because it had been their job to guide others.
“I hope Dani made it out,” he said suddenly. “Chef Jacobs couldn’t have, nobody in the kitchen staff could have. But Dani would have been done with her shift, unless someone talked her into working late for some reason.”
All things are possible in the manifold universe. Both that she lived, and that she died. In time, we may even know with certainty.
“Because it might be possible to pierce the veil or whatever and look at a different universe, one where I’ve already been? Or because I might get Millionbirthed onto Earth?”
I must admit to a lack of certainty and a paucity of knowledge. But that very admission is at the center of the possibility itself.
“Because you don’t know,” Nathan realized. “So you don’t know if those things are possible, and you don’t know how many things we’re not thinking of. But we’ll have a million of my lives to figure it out.”
Just so.
“I don’t know what’s next.” He cracked his neck left, then right, then arched his back as if popping it. Nothing happened, because while his interlife had gained some measure of physicality it had certainly not acquired a detailed simulation of bodily functions that included gas pockets in the liquid cushioning the vertebrae, which was Nathan’s best understanding of what caused one’s back to make popping and cracking noises. “Do we talk about gains or whatever? What do you think I’m lacking?”
Everything. There was a long moment of silence, and then a sense of a shrug. What good is perception without the capability to act in time? That capability, without the might to see it through? The might without the dexterity to apply it, the acuity to aim it, the resistance to survive long enough to land it? The strength of mind to not be deterred, the strength of spirit not to be crushed? You must become more in every way. More capable, and more yourself, so that you do not lose who you wish to be in the crucible of a hard life.
“That… makes sense,” he admitted. “You’ve obviously got a better handle on this than I do. Oh, speaking of handles. You didn’t have a name last time we talked. Do you have one now? It had better not be something like Jeeves. Way too stereotypical.”
You should attend to your newest offering.
“Are you trying to dodge the question by distracting me with a new shiny? Well,” Nathan admitted, “it’ll work. It’s working. What’s the new offering? What do you mean by offering? I don’t—oh.”
A book appeared in his hands, surprising him. He opened its pages, eyes sliding over the abstract concept of a gilded cover without being able to pick out any details, and read two names.
“Oh.”
Blessings.
“Blessings,” Nathan agreed softly. “My second gift out of three. Saucer’s the first, and this is number two. A blessing each from Honeydew and Tanya.”
There was another long silence, and Nathan settled himself into the idea of a resting pose. He sat, or inhabited the concept of sitting, and watched the stars as he let that trickle through him.
“I have no idea what to think about that,” he said eventually. “But I still want to know about your name.”
The silence stretched, and he was not the first to crack under the pressure.
Aide, I told him. My name is Aide.