Indifference.

I’m at war with indifference. Inside myself, no less.

For years, decades, centuries, I’d dedicated myself to my craft.

And then I made a stupid mistake.

Who would ever think actually becoming a god would obliterate your existence?

Of course, I don’t remember that happening, not that specifically; at least, not from my own memories. Or are they…?

I don’t know. I can’t tell anymore. What I can tell… is that the spark I’d felt, the joy of continuing to exist if only for the next amazing thing I’d create – no matter how simple – would be a piece of art to myself if no one else.

But now, I just feel indifference. Cold, gray, indifference.

Sure, that doesn’t mean there aren’t things I want to feel, things that aren’t the hole in my chest once filled by my goals, my passions.

I want to love. And to some extent, I feel a shadow of what is supposed to be or maybe actually was a deep fervent love.

For Izzy.

Just for Izzy.

She’s loved me at least since I stole her from her god, since I replaced him. Since I saved her and gave her both a new chance and a new purpose.

Protect me.

Fight for me.

Serve me.

BE.

MINE.

I didn’t understand that drive for possession at the time… it seemed lopsided, nonsensical. Didn’t I only need to feed?

I shake my head in confusion, causing Arty – or, Artemis? What should I call all these people around me? All these… other gods? I’m a god now, after all… or always was somehow, I think…

Nemesis.

I am Nemesis. This I know, clearly, distinctly.

And I’m pretty sure that I used to be Nyx at one point, and still am… No, I’m Nyx now.

…

Aren’t I?

I was Astraea a long time ago, I know that too…

The old den on Gramr is long gone… replaced by some trendy side-door coffee joint, so I couldn’t even drop in on my old friends.

The satyrs are long dead, and their children’s children’s children’s children don’t know me.

How would they? I was never in their lives.

The academy is even more confusing now, although at the same time much less.

But I don’t want to teach these literal little monsters.

Or do I?

I can’t tell anymore, too busy being at war with myself.

It’s then that my wife’s mournful expression, worry upon concern upon worry, catches my attention. So I offer her a facsimile of a smile, honed through more than a thousand years of mimicking emotion, and pat her hand in an attempt to reassure her.

But it does not in fact reassure her, and I know why.

Because I can feel her, in my mind. Her presence, and her worry and fear. She is terrified of what’s happened to me.

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Of losing me again.

Her pain is deep. Losing me almost destroyed her, sent her into truly feral madness.

Which would have been… bad to say the least, considering her Mantles.

I won’t destroy her like that. I won’t let her be.

I need her, and she needs me.

Even if she only needs me because she’s obsessed with me. Being fae sucks, probably.

Ah, there’s her puppydog eyes. Pleading. And so I pat her head, continuing to smile.

…

Didn’t I used to smile genuinely?

…

…

I can’t even tell if I miss it. Instead, I simply feel like something is absent, a shadow, and echo of something I’d seen or heard or felt a long time ago that I can’t fully remember or understand.

I suppose it’s more proof that I’m not who I used to be.

Nyx.

I was Nyx.

Or…

…

What was my mortal name again?

Maybe my sister would remember, but in my current state I’m far too vulnerable.

To everything.

They’re all at war with me, all of them. The pantheons.

Giving up on my creative pursuits, or at least taking a break from them, surprised Markus far more thank Vulkan. The possessed book doesn’t seem to understand why I can’t simply overwhelm the new-old self that’s invaded my mind… or that I’ve invaded in a sense I suppose.

No, my mind was definitely invaded. I’m Nemesis after all.

And the Queen of Hunger.

I am hunger.

…

Well, if nothing else, the list of credits for anything I can motivate myself to make in the future will be shorter. I only have to list one of me. Er, us.

…

No, me. Just me.

I pull my fox wife into a hug, continuing to feel that distant tug on my soul toward my other wife.

Visiting her soon should be toward the front of my agenda, but I’ve been putting it off.

She can tell I’m not who I used to be. Or I am, but I’m more, and different… I wouldn’t entirely know how to react to her presence now, although I suppose I could just release the pressure I’ve been using to hold back the effects from one of her Mantles.

But would that be fair to her?

I probably wouldn’t have asked myself that before, but now I’m not so sure. The feelings in my chest are definitely implanted, and not my own.

But maybe it’s alright. After all, I do want to feel… those things.

All of them.

For her.

…

And for Livvie.

I wrap my feelers around the woman seated to my side on the lip of the old stone fountain and press her against me, channeling as much of my feelings toward Izzy as I can toward her as well. It feels a little bit easier than before, especially since I have many, many more memories of emotion now.

Real emotion. More than just implanted love.

How did I even experience those things if I’d always been this… thing? Did my other incarnations experience emotions? Owyn once told me that I’d been reborn many, many times.

If I… if ‘Nyx’ did, then that would mean good odds my other past selves did as well.

So why don’t I? Why can’t I?

…

I don’t have to think very hard about it to find an answer as the seemingly demure fox woman leans into my embrace, sighing softly against my chest.

It’s because I’m different. The others had Egos formed through… ‘normal’ processes, I suppose. Mine though? Spontaneous, traumatic formation.

Mine didn’t get the delicate handling the Record would normally provide, and as a result I awakened missing a great deal of the basic characteristics a person would have. Even a truly sentient wraith would have had them.

…

Why do I know that?

…

…

It doesn’t matter. Not at all.

What does… is picking up the pieces.

…Again.

I can’t be upset with Mnemosyne though. It’s not her fault – well, I guess in a way it is, the current mess anyway. No, I mean how my soul was sundered to begin with.

That was Erebus’ doing.

My beloved older sister.

…

Time continues to pass as it always does… I suppose by now we’d be facing the sunrise, if the sun even existed on this plane. A group of passing shades does a doubletake and stops to bow reverently, to which I simply offer a small wave and half-hearted smile.

There’s more of them every day. The shades, I mean. I did, after all, create a heaven for them. Every sentient monster passes through here when they die… unless they don’t want to I guess, but I’m not sure why they wouldn’t. I don’t even force them to reincarnate, so they can just wander if they want to. They don’t hunger or thirst so they’re not a drain on my resources, and they’re mostly incorporeal. I’d previously been of the impression that ghosts could actually hurt people, and they can… but shades aren’t ghosts.

Shades are literally what’s in their name: shadows. They’re shadows of who they once were, and afterimage of an Ego transiently tied to an Akashic Self, missing body and Anima.

The only thing keeping them here… is me. I said they could stay here, and so they do.

Divine will, ha. Mortals don’t necessarily think about it beyond some strange distant concept, something they’ll never witness let alone possess in their brief lifetimes.

Not all of them are ambitious like I am, although to be fair… being an ascendant to begin with is already a stretch. I used to think they were everywhere, and everyone had the opportunity. It turns out that was just a side effect of who I knew and where I was… places with a lot of ascendants, places where they congregate.

After all… why would a mundane mortal bother with an adventurer’s guild, or delve a dungeon? They’d just die while accomplishing nothing.

Nope, absolutely nothing.

I give my wife another squeeze. It’s still a strange feeling to step into this life, my life, our life, with more than one of myself and yet only one… and I still can’t tell if I’m Nyx, or Nemesis, or Astraea, or all of them at the same time.

…Probably the last one, but I guess it doesn’t matter.

I’m one person.

One person, with two life partners and children and subordinates and a plane and… and all of this.

Everything.

I have everything I’d ever wanted.

…

So why does it feel so empty?