“Heh, so I see you still like hanging around here,” said Jack. She was visiting my clone on Nine-Clover with one of her own clones.

“Yup,” I said. Nodding as I looked down at the green, blue, and purple world below. Admiring the swirling white clouds that shifted across its atmosphere like frost over a pane of glass. Watching the countless lives and countless fates that flowed through the world’s metaphysical vessel and formed gorgeous fractals in the fifth and sixth dimensions.

Her clone had just come from space after annihilating one of the myriad minor foes we still needed to clean up now that the DSO was dead and a lot of their allies were running amok using the gap between the old and new regimes to try and gain some advantages for themselves. In her current combat-ready form, humanoid form, Jack strongly resembled a fadeling made of light…A thing I still found endlessly ironic considering her tenebrous nature. I also found this form a bit sexy, but then again several millennia after our first kiss, I was still head over heels for the woman.

“Well, I guess I can see what there is to like about this place…,” said Jack.

“It’s sort of like home. Our first home,” I said.

“Yeah…It’s like the Shattered World before we changed everything,” said Jack. Getting it, and making me feel very…understood. Very heard….and more than a little hard.

“I mean…It’s not like the shattered world sucks now…” I said.

“No, no…I get it. The place is more peaceful, and more prosperous than ever, but we can’t really…live…there now,” said Jack.

“Because of our status, both in the mortal and immortal worlds…” I said. Nodding.

“Plus, the whole vibe of the place is a lot more…futuristic to tech store lounge…than the way things used to be,” said Jack. Smiling gently.

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“Yeah! Totally…Some of the most requested items, for the Shattered World’s servers in the Empty Dream, like seriously the most requested across the board, for the humanoid races ‘and’ the beasts, are basically just snacks, and wearable blankets…plus, without the constant death, there’s so many people there…The cities keep getting larger, and taller, and louder, and I don’t know,” I said.

“And all that is fine, but it’s like…I’m almost nostalgic for the brutal dog eat dog Shattered World of my youth…Which is stupid…Right?” I said. Plucking some of the grass we were sitting on, and tossing away.

“Eh, nostalgia’s always a bit stupid…As advanced as they’re supposed to be now, even our brains still have the habit of focusing on some details of past stuff, and pretty much forgetting all the other details…" said Jack.

"I think, so long as you’re not completely re-inventing that time as some kind of idealized ‘good’ old days and pretending things were somehow objectively better back, when we knew less, and had less, I’d say it’s fine…between you and me, I still sometimes think about the Marrow estate…I don’t miss the people or the house, but there’s food that the cooks used to make…and certain smells… that I find myself thinking about sometimes…” said Jack.

“Really?” I said. Surprised that there was anything about Jack’s former life as the Marrow clan’s least-favored child that she could think fondly of.

“Yeah…I’m betting I’m gonna have some pretty weird, pretty particular, pregnancy cravings,” said Jack.

“Huh…Good to know,” I said. Idly wondering exactly “when” our family would start having kids.

“Well, I’ve got to head off…There’s still some work waiting for me back in the Shattered Heavens, and there are places I need to stop by before I get there…Alas, the rest of us, aren’t quite as good at multi-tasking as you seem to be…Thanks for showing me a good time, sug,” said Jack. Standing and giving me a salacious wink.

I blushed and smirked. Refusing to be outdone.

“Anytime,” I said.

Jack teleported away, and I was left alone in my mansion on Nine-Clover’s third moon. Wondering when the planet below me would advance to the Shattered World’s level. Quietly setting yet another ball rolling to make that progress happen a little faster, because I was well aware that it’d be selfish for me to let this planet stay stagnant just so I’d have a place to relax.