Dema had fixed things.

Brought everything back to its former state; or rather, to what she remembered of the former state, which, truth be told, was not a lot, but she had done her best. During their absence, Isobel herself had fallen into disrepair too, so Dema patched her up as best she could. Dema also played card games with little Bell for hours — always pretending to lose only to turn it all around at the very last moment, robbing countless victories from Bell’s desperate fingertips.

In other words, Dema was a little busy, and Theora spent her time tagging along but not doing much. Admittedly, leaving ‘Reality’ had been taxing, so while she was still in a fairly good mood, she didn’t mind looking over Dema’s shoulder as she reconnected with everyone.

Two days passed like this, and each evening they both went to bed exhausted and spent, then woke up the next morning from whatever new liveliness the house had concocted for them overnight.

It was during the third night that this cycle was finally broken.

Dema suddenly rushed up right next to Theora, waking her. Blankets and pillows flew around in the motion. Dema’s amber eyes glowed sharp through the dark, like those of a deer in headlights.

Theora blinked her sleep away. “What’s wrong?”

“Bun bun!” Dema let out, exasperated. “I just remembered!”

Theora slowly pushed herself up too. At least Dema’s tone didn’t indicate panic or fear — she seemed surprised and nervous. Theora smiled and reached for Dema’s thigh, to pull it on her lap. “What did you remember?”

“You kissed me. In that other world. You kissed my other me!”

Theora laughed. “And you kissed my other me.”

“Our other selves kissed!” Dema’s expression of wonder turned into a pout. “I feel left out!”

Theora nodded. “Yeah, they sure did. I remember it too.”

With a sigh, Dema fell back into bed, rubbing her forehead. She left her thigh right where it was. “Damn, our dream selves were really powerful. They just did that. They only just met, too.”

“They were,” Theora acknowledged. Reality-Theora had initiated a kiss. All on her own. It was amazing. Well, perhaps not all on her own, considering Dema had helped a lot, but still. And it wasn’t like their ‘smaller’ selves weren’t still in them — ‘Reality’-Theora was right there, remembering that headlights existed to be shone at deer-eyes at night, which wasn’t a thing in this world. Just the way ‘hacking’ wasn’t. And yet, being more now somehow still made certain ideas… more difficult than they used to be. Theora sighed. “Maybe we can one day become so strong too.”

“Yeah…”

The yearning in that soft ‘yeah’ cut deep. Theora swallowed. She reached out with her fingers, grazing over Dema’s hair, her nose, even touched her lips, and down her neck. Dema shivered under the touch.

Theora really did want to kiss her again, though. She braced herself. “Dema… Could you do me a favour?”

“Hm?” There was some sleepiness in Dema’s voice, almost as if she was ready to go back to the land of dreams. “Yeah sure, what is it?”

Theora took a deep breath. She wasn’t quite ready for dreams just yet. “That song you sang for me, about our ending. Remember it?”

Dema’s head shifted, her eyes darting up at the ceiling. “You mean the one about orcas?”

“N-no,” Theora wailed. “The one you sent me in a scheduled message. About how ‘some things never end’.”

“Oh, yeah! ’Course I remember.” Dema giggled.

“Would you sing it for me again?”

Theora readied herself for rejection so much she inadvertently flinched when Dema actually started singing a few seconds later. Goosebumps ran down her full body. She fell back down into the sheets, hearing nothing but that raspy and beautiful voice. She still held Dema’s leg, wanting to pull her closer so badly. But she didn’t want to disrupt the singing, either.

When it ended, Theora lay still for a minute or two.

“Did you really mean that?” she asked.

“Hm? Mean what? What’d I say?” Dema’s head shuffled against the cushion as she turned. “But I guess I probably meant everything I said.”

“‘Some things never end’. That things don’t have to go the way it was constructed for us.”

Dema stretched out a hand to grasp Theora’s. “Why, yeah, Bun Bun, I meant that. Of course. Why?”

Theora bit her lips. “It’s just…” She pushed herself to say it. “I know you have already been patient with me, but there is just one last thing. One last thing I need to sort out, to understand. Because I want to. But also — I’m already tired. I’m worried.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Dema nodded, stroking across Theora’s wrist. “So what’cha worried about?”

“Please don’t take this the wrong way,” Theora murmured. “But. I’m not sure I can go on forever. I feel a lot better now than I used to. So much better.” She smiled a genuine smile. “But forever is very long.” She played with Dema’s fingertips, one after another. “I was thinking, perhaps you could give me a bit of advice. How do you do it?”

Dema moved a bit closer and talked a little lower. She took a minute to answer. Then, she said a single word: “Reasons.” A moment passed. “That’s how I do it!”

“Reasons?”

Dema nodded. “And I was hoping to find some more together with you.”

“Reasons.”

“Yeah.” Dema’s voice was almost a whisper. “Iso, Treeka, Bell. Reasons to keep living.”

Theora blinked, laughing through her tears. A little rock dislodged inside her, threatening to break free a pathway she’d long-since thought lost. That’s right — she had reasons. There was no doubt in her mind that she could go on like this for a while, with her friends who cared for all of each other so much. Theora’s worries were all long-term. But then, long-term, Dema was right. They could always find more reasons together.

“Alright,” Theora said, nodding. “I can understand this. This makes sense to me. I do have a question.”

“Yeah?” Dema asked, trapping Theora in her big amber eyes. “What question? Ask away! You can ask anything!”

“Right,” Theora said, trying to withstand Dema’s intensity. She thought for a moment about how to word it, then went, “So, what about five billion years from now—”

Dema’s eyes went wide and her mouth fell open.

Theora clicked her tongue. “See! I know it’s a long time, but we are talking about ‘forever’ here, so… so, what about, five billion years from now, you wake up one morning, and you go, ‘Damn! I can’t believe Bun Bun forgot to put the lava loaf to dry on the windowsill again!’”

Theora was almost a little proud of her Dema impression there.

Dema blinked. “The what?”

Theora shook her head. “The ‘what’ doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about the ‘what’, Dema. I’m saying: forever is a very long time. What if you get tired of me one day? What if we get tired of each other?”

“I think it would be fine?” Dema said, scratching her head. “Like if that happens, we just figure it out?”

Theora blinked. It felt like Dema was giving the most obvious answers imaginable, and yet Theora herself could have never come up with them in a million years.

Dema went on: “Maybe you quit forgetting to put the loaf out or maybe I make a Skill for putting the loaves out myself or maybe I stop caring about the loaf so much. Or maybe we take a break?”

Dema grimaced, and Theora winced internally too.

“Like, I don’t wanna take a break,” Dema assured, “Like we already crossed that off my list when I died and all. I don’t think we’re gonna need another one but I also don’t think forever is so much longer than now. If we can figure it out now, why not later too? When it comes to it.”

“Right,” Theora let out. “We can trust our future selves to take care of future problems.”

“Yeah!” Dema said, beaming. “Exactly what I was trynna say. You put it so well!”

She pulled Theora into her arms with surprising strength, scratched over Theora’s head, weaved her fingers through her hair, and kissed her temple. They lay there for a while. Dema pulled the blanket over them.

“I never wanted to do it,” Theora eventually started saying. “I couldn’t find evidence of your misdeeds, and even if I did, they were so long ago. When I was young, I wanted to get stronger because I had — I had fun with that, I won’t deny it. But also, the other reason for it was… I wanted nobody to tell me what I can and can’t do.”

Dema laughed. “Wait, so we’ve both got defiance magic?”

Theora chuckled too. “In a way, huh? Well, I don’t always have it, just a little when something ticks me off.”

“Right. Your temper and all.”

Theora’s voice went even lower when she continued, “But eternity is a scary opponent. Like the System, eternity only needs to win once. One day of weakness is all it takes, and we’ll be gone.” And sure, they could support each other, if one had a weak day. But what if… what, in a thousand years, or a hundred thousand—

“Still such an overthinker, after all this time,” Dema said with indulgence and a soft smile. “Little rabbit, you know you don’t have to be good at everything, right? We can do things together.”

“I… yes. I know. I’ve… noticed that. While we were making music together. I understand we are not alone.”

“It’s fine! You’re like, the strongest being to ever exist, right? Or close to. Nobody’s gonna defeat you right now, right?”

“Right now, yes. Perhaps. I would think so, at least. But eternity is—”

“My thing,” Dema interjected. “My entire thing. Have a Legendary Skill made to screw it over, and been holding up pretty well so far. I’m older than you, too, by a lot, probably.”

“It’s your thing,” Theora repeated.

Dema nodded. “How about it? You take care of the now, and I take care of the later. And we just keep going like that forever.”

Theora’s eyes widened. “So…”

“So you don’t have to worry about ‘eternity’. Can leave that part to me!” Dema smiled. “Teamwork and all.”

They fit together. The one thing Theora couldn’t handle, Dema could.

Theora wiped the tears out of her eyes, and untangled herself from the hug, to sit back up. She sniffed a few more times, then fetched a handkerchief from the night table to clean up her face.

“So you did mean everything,” she finally murmured.

And Dema nonchalantly nodded, like it was the easiest thing in the world.

“That’s good,” Theora said, and found herself smiling. “That’s good.” She leaned forward, until Dema was under her. “Because if I don’t have to end you, I can do this.”

She picked Dema up. Dema yelped and giggled, but as soon as she realised what Theora was going to do, she struck first — wrapping her arms around Theora’s neck and shoulders, and diving up for their first kiss at home. As their lips found each other, they laughed, falling back into the pillows.

Dema tasted like colourful salt. Bitter like smoke. She bit Theora’s lower lip gently, breathed across her mouth with a giggle. Theora almost let out a little moan. Instead, she cusped Dema’s head, kissing along her cheek, the corner of her mouth, her temple — her lips finding new spots with every descent.

Dema laughed, peeling herself off. She wiped the messy hair out of Theora’s face. “That’s what was holding you back this entire time, huh?”

Theora gave a shy nod. “A little part of me is still telling me this might be a mistake. But I don’t quite want to listen to those thoughts anymore.”

Dema gave her another short kiss. “Why, didn’t you know? Some mistakes are good mistakes.”