She should have launched a crusade against this entire city, then this province, then this nation. She could do it. She could melt their bones and burn their blood to ash. There must have been a reason why she and Ajax were called to Omicron right when the god of the demons had died. She should have destroyed this entire fucking nation.
She should. She can still do it. She should kill all of the nobility. All the so-called “heroes”.
The callous, remorseless descendants of countless generations of slave masters and reprobates, all under the auspices of a despotic god.
She could have done so much more to make sure that Ajax was protected. She would go that far, wouldn't she? To ensure that Ajax breathes once more, she would wipe out all of the powerful and wealthy human families within this nation.
Now, what should she do, what can she possibly do except repay them all for the pain they inflicted upon Ajax a million fold? Doesn't she have the power to do it? Doesn't she have the right? For not just Ajax, for the demihumans as well, for those who are still persecuted and made to be slaves in this era.
Shaula pauses as she faces a realization with Ajax’s head in her hands.
Isn’t that what this whole day was about? Isn’t that what it was a testament to? What other lesson did this day teach her specifically? All she saw today was the endless cruelty of those who were given a sliver of power over their fellow man. Well, now she has the power… and she is a cruel human, just like the rest of them.
A burning animus fills her heart as she comes to realize her desire for more destruction and death than she has ever pursued in the past. However, her spiraling hatred is interrupted as she notices Ajax's jaw.
Wait. This is…
She can see it.
Ajax's bleeding has completely stopped. His head is still in a state of disrepair but his jaw and his neck wound have stopped dripping blood onto her clothes.
"...Ajax?"
This is when she feels it finally.
"His… His jaw is… healing… It’s… It’s… restoring itself."
—
Ajax is currently in communion with his soul. This communion involves the sharing of memory. Ajax's soul, unlike his astral mind, has full reach over all of his memories. It can remember the moment of its creation by the Divine Limit and every single moment since then in perfect clarity. Though, it is still a being that perceives existence through the physical senses.
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It cannot see itself or remember moments of its life in the astral plane where it exists. It can only perceive the real world in any way that matters. Without the world around it, it would be nothing. Without the ability to see, to hear, to taste, smell and touch, to feel pain, it would be a black box of nothing.
In fact, its reconstruction of reality within the astral plane would not exist without the memories procured by its astral mind. All of the memories that the Ajax existing in physical reality forgot or regularly deleted remain within his soul. As a result, Ajax’s soul can imprint physical reality onto its astral space and force its astral mind to relive old memories in an unconscious state.
In this world of Ajax’s memories, the moon is white, filling the horizon with less eeriness during the night. The Earth is… what it is. His home, nothing more, nothing less. It is not a perfect place, but his memory isn't rose colored either, it is purely accurate in the same way a scientific measurement might be, unalterable, immutable.
Ajax doesn't recall his time in Omicron while reliving his unaltered memories. He doesn't feel any incongruity while living in the world of his past as he only knows what the Ajax of that specific moment in time knew. He isn’t lucid.
He spends time with his family as he has always wanted to since his separation from them. Though in this world constructed by his soul, he isn't conscious enough to be awed by his normal life in his home. He just lives as he normally would, for better or worse.
Yet, unlike a mere dream which is forgotten in moments, that which he relives in the astral plane will become cemented within his mind in the ‘real’ world. Most human brains, Ajax’s included, naturally erases memories rather than compile memory after memory into a database full of every little tidbit of experience.
However for Ajax, if, rather, when he returns to the physical plane, he will not forget a thing he experienced here. His physical brain will rewrite itself to incorporate all that was experienced by the astral mind.
Ajax hears the sounds of a Downy woodpecker outside his window during an odd Wednesday in the middle of fall. He smells his morning green tea on a Saturday at the end of January, the only moment of his life he actually made green tea for himself. He walks with his mom, dad and Rita in March. He sees the swaying of pine trees.
He watches the swaying dandelion fields in this public park. The sounds of various dogs barking as well as the sights of random children playing. He falls and bruises his left elbow while trying to catch a wide pitch from his dad. The pain should not be felt in a dream, even one of pristine quality, but in this astral recreation, it was as acute as he had remembered it.
It is all duplicated perfectly. Now, it will never be forgotten. Every single moment he relives in this world will be burned into his astral subconscious forever, always reachable to his consciousness whenever he wishes to remember. Every single face he saw on every easily forgettable walk to school, even if his human brain forgot them all immediately hours later.
Every single fragrance he inhaled for the briefest of moments, the gas fumes, the body odors of strangers, every drop of wet rain that fell onto his umbrella, every little crack he saw in his periphery while looking at the dry sidewalks…
Everything.
Including a certain incident during his last semester, one involving both Shaula and himself. Memories can be contextualized if they are remembered in their entirety rather than forgotten. Which is why certain incidents that Ajax might have completely forgotten about on Earth could allow him see a bigger picture of his current life on Omicron.
There is such one incident that he had forgotten about.