Now, as I wake, I’m not sure exactly what has happened. The world around me is a monochromatic gray. My mother, older brother, and younger sister are sprawled around me as if they walked in and simply collapsed. A beautiful woman is standing nearby, humming to herself. “Ah, you’re awake,” she says quietly. “No surprise that you woke first. You always were strong.” I watch her carefully until my family stirs.
Turning, I scoot over to my brother. He sits up looking like he just walked out of a hurricane - which, in a way, I guess he did. A hurricane made of fire and gangsters and knives. I check him for injuries, but find him perfectly healed.
Mom wakes next. “Huh?” she asks blearily. “Wha-where- oh, good, my children are safe.” We offer her very slight smiles. Our little sister is the last to wake. She sits up and immediately buries her head in my chest, sobbing with what seems like a combination of fear and relief. She’s always been our gentlest family member.
I turn to the woman - I’m certain she’s some sort of goddess - and lift an eyebrow. The rest of my family looks with me (even my sister unburies her head). The lady smiles. “I will explain your circumstances in a moment. But first, allow me to take care of something.” She reaches toward me. “There should not be two of you in the same body; it just isn’t right. Let me fix this.”
I feel a slight tearing sensation before suddenly, I’m looking at a perfect copy of myself. “You are now separate,” the (now-obvious) goddess announces. She continues without a pause, “The reason you are in my realm is that you have died early deaths in your own world. I feel that you shouldn’t be dead yet and I would like to offer you a chance to live another life in another world. I can guarantee that you will be born in the same family, with the same age gaps - though the family you are born into may have other children between you - and genders. If you like, you can even keep your memories.”
We stare at her for a moment, taken aback by her straightforward speech. We take a step back and huddle together to consider her offer. We all look at Mom first. She gives us a sad smile and says, “I don’t think I’ll join you. I’m ready to leave and join the afterlife; after all, I’ve done my duty. There are people there I want to see, and I think you’ll learn more if I’m not there.” She pauses to eye us sternly. “However, I want all of you - yes, of course I’m including both of your personalities, sweetheart - to take this chance to live on. While all of you died far too early, I can understand why you older siblings would consider eternal rest as a good chance, but please think of your younger sister. If you won’t live for yourselves, live for her.”
We sit there in silence for a moment before nodding. My alternate personality speaks up suddenly, “Of course we will, but I hope you’ll hang around until we leave, Mom. Out of everyone in the family, only she” a nod toward the youngest “realized there were two of us, and I know for certain that she prefers Warrior.”
The goddess laughs a little. “That’s a way to keep you separate until you obtain your new names, I guess. The warrior, the lady, the healer, the protector, and the mother. Wonderful titles, they match you perfectly.” I suppose she doesn’t realize she’s interrupting, or maybe as a supreme deity she just doesn’t care.
Looking toward Healer, I offer a tiny smile. She beams and buries her head again - in my side, this time. The goddess continues, “There’s one other thing I’m going to offer you: the chance to control which traits, abilities, affinities, skills, and magic you will be able to learn, as well as some aspects of your physical appearance. I suggest you consider these as a group, and preferably before you decide whether or not to keep your memories.”
We contemplate her words in near silence. I lift a hand to gain everyone’s attention; when they turn to look, I lock eyes with a goddess and give her a single, respectful nod. She smiles. “You’ll go first? Excellent. How should I format this so it will make sense to you?”
Protector cuts in. “Maybe if you set it up like video game controls…” He trails off when he notices everyone staring. “What? It seemed like a good idea.”
Lady smiles gently. “And it was. If you weren’t the only one here who’s ever played one. Perhaps you’d like to go first to model it?”
He opens his mouth to object before realizing he is now officially caught and won’t be getting out of it anytime soon. “Fine. I’ll start first, but we’ll all work together, as a group.” I nod, Lady smirks but agrees, and Healer just snuggles closer to me.
Goddess steps over to him and touches his forehead, evidently reading his mind for a better picture of the control system on a video game screen. Soon enough, a profile just like the ones he’s used to manipulating shows up in front of him. “Whoa!” He exclaims. “It’s exactly the same!” He looks around like he’s searching for a controller. “Do I use my hands to control it?”
Goddess nods. “Now for the rest of you.” She projects our profiles, all of which are pretty much empty. We don’t have races, so no skills, attributes, affinites, or traits; we don’t even have magic or names yet.
Everyone looks to me and I remember that I volunteered to go first, giving me the honor of choosing our bloodlines and races, since we’ll all have the same mix. My eyes narrow as I scan the options. I glance at my brother, but most of the races are self-explanatory. Okay... Elf 30%, Shapeshifter 30%, Elemental 30%, Witch 10%, a perfectly respectable mix.
Looking around again, I see Goddess raise an eyebrow. “Interesting choice. Was your goal magical strength?”
I consider how to respond. Many of the races have severe disadvantages with their strength: elves meld into their environment when they run out of magic instead of dying; shapeshifters lose their identity from the constant changes; elementals fade into their strongest element; and witches go crazy from power overload (they have human bodies, which aren’t meant for channeling magic, so unless they’re mixed with another race, they self-combust). I mixed them all together to balance each of them out: elves are very firm and confident in their identities, removing the threat of losing yourself; the mixed blood covers the magic overload; and they all combine to remove the threat of fading away. In terms of physical strength, elves and shapeshifters are incredibly strong, though witches have strength equal to humans and elementals are actually slightly weaker. I refuse to say all of that, it takes too much time and energy. “No. Balance. Magical, physical, channeling. Safer.”
Everyone stares at me except Healer, and I suddenly remember that she was the only one who recognized Lady and I as being separate before Goddess pulled us apart. Lady is much more talkative than I am - I prefer to speak in phrases and sentence fragments to conserve both time and energy. In my opinion, I talk just fine; it’s everyone else who uses far too many extra words. Lady coughs. “I think what Warrior means to say is that when mixed, those races balance out each other's advantages and disadvantages; provide almost equal physical and magical strength; and create safeguards against possible bloodline issues, making the overall mix far safer. Unless there’s something about the process of mixing the blood that creates problems?”
Goddess shakes her head. “No, it’s an excellent mix. I just wasn’t expecting it. The last person I allowed to create her own profile was focused purely on magical strength - she tried mixing dragons, vampires, shapeshifters, and elementals and equal amounts, but in the end, her magic overloaded and she faded away.” Everyone winces. “You should all choose which abilities you’ll have and which magics you’ll be more proficient in, and then I’ll give you small boosts.”
“What kind of boosts?” Lady asks.
“I'll give you all the ability to read, write, and speak the ancient language straight from the beginning, and I’ll provide certain traits that are usually inherited in bloodlines. These traits often have disadvantages when inherited, but if given by a goddess or saint are perfectly safe. People with goddess- or saint-given traits are very rare and usually highly respected. I’ll try to make them correspond with the magics and abilities you choose.” We nod.
Protector says, “Then I’ll thank you in advance. Anything that helps me protect my sisters is highly appreciated.”
Everyone turns to me again and I sigh internally. I’m rapidly losing any desire I had to be the center of attention. Looking back to the ‘profile’, I start rifling through my options. Moving past things like bards and the various classes of tradespeople, I find a section more to my liking. Fighting, assassination, defense, compassion, leadership, loyalty, masking, magic (weapons, cold, moon, shadow, fighting, animals, water, earth > plants, healing), dancing, silence, singing… I smile darkly. Much better. I don’t bother looking around; I can practically sense the disapproval radiating off Protector from ten feet away, but I don’t care. I’ve made my choice.
I look directly at Lady, who offers me a nod as she turns to her own profile. I watch as she skips almost all of the same things I did, but Healer distracts me and I don’t see what she chooses until Protector coughs and I look up again. I smile slightly at my counterpart’s choices: fighting, offense, persuasion, love, leadership, loyalty, sarcasm, disguise, magic (fighting, warm, sun, light, plants, fire, air > animals, healing), dancing, sound, and singing. Lady meets my look with a smirk of her own, purposely ignoring our brother’s disapproving glare and turning to address Healer. “Little one, I believe it’s your turn. Would you like advice or do you want to do it on your own?”
Healer thinks for a moment. “I-I think I’ll give it a try, but you can review it with me after,” she says nervously. I offer her an encouraging smile and gently push her toward her profile. She gulps but stumbles toward it, scrolling awkwardly until she finds whatever she’s looking for. Lady and I are both looking away out of respect for her self-dependence despite our desire to comment.
“Done!” Healer exclaims. “Come look. What do you think?” Lady and I step forward. My eyes scan the list - healing, love, kindness, empathy, loyalty, sympathy, magic (healing, plants, animals, honesty) open, honest - and I give my younger sister a thumbs up and the biggest smile I can muster, leaning down to give her a hug. As I release her, Healer says brightly, “Your turn, Protector! What will you pick?”
Though Lady and I can still feel our brother’s annoyance with us, he ruffles Healer’s hair affectionately. He shoos us all away and starts muttering to himself, taking notably longer than any of us. Finally, he turns back to us. “Opinion?” He asks gruffly. My eyes slip down his profile. Fighting, defense, protection, loyalty, bodyguard, brother, kindness, steady, solid, magic (defense, fighting, weapons, earth, fire), safe, firm/stern, understanding… all of his choices are aimed toward guarding and protection, probably for Healer. I can’t say I’m particularly surprised.
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Goddess clears her throat. “Well, everything looks right,” she says. “You all certainly chose things that match your personalities. Now it’s my turn.” She starts fiddling with something in front of her and suddenly we hear a collective ding as our profiles update.
They now display certain “saint-given bloodline traits”, as I hear Protector call them, and some “affinities”. Mine shows siren traits, vampire traits, and moon affinity. Pointing to the last, I raise a questioning eyebrow at Goddess. She smiles. “It means you’re stronger in moonlight. You’ll notice I also upgraded your shadow magic to a shadow affinity, so you’ll be stronger in the dark or at night.”
Turning to the others, Goddess says, “You’ll notice that I also enhanced your light magic and gave you a sun affinity; to Healer, I gave Nature and Healing affinities; and for Protector, I simply enhanced his physical abilities. Protector, you’ll notice that Warrior and Lady will both likely be able to beat you in a match; you are physically stronger, able to wield more powerful weapons, and have more force to your swings both with and without weapons), but your sisters are faster, with a natural grace you won’t be able to learn. Your strength means nothing if you can’t hit your opponent. Therefore, you are excellent for guard duty, but full-out battle would be disadvantageous for you. Your sisters are better suited to large-scale fighting against multiple opponents than you are, but in a one-on-one match, they will be nearly impossible to beat, even before you consider the extra attributes I granted them.”
As Lady scans her own list, which says siren traits, succubus traits, and sun affinity, Goddess continues, “Warrior’s vampire attribute won’t negatively affect you in any way. She’ll have better night vision and olfactory senses and she’ll be able to move like the wind in addition to the transportation abilities provided by the other bloodlines. Lady’s succubus traits” Protector scowls “are not entirely sexual. They increase her mental manipulation abilities, mostly; something I trust she’ll use sparingly and with great discretion and good judgement.” She stops to give Lady a very significant look.
Shifting to face Healer, Goddess offers a gentle smile as she resumes her explanation. “For Healer, I decided on angel traits, fairy traits, and siren traits. The angel attribute gives her touch a purifying effect and stops black magic - yes, there is such a thing - from affecting her at all. The fairy attribute gives her wings and a bit of a boost to her nature magic, though it may also result in a more petite figure.” She pauses and waits for a moment to ensure that Lady and I are also listening. “The siren attribute that I gave all three of you basically allows you to sing magic into existence. It gives your voice a magical effect, and if used properly, a slight hypnotic effect. It may also give your hair a mind of its own. Once again, I ask that you use the hypnosis and mental manipulation effects very sparingly.” She barely glances at Protector. “To yours, all I added a little bit of giant blood to bulk you up a little. I apologize that I couldn’t do more, but most races aren’t built specifically as bodyguards.” She frowns slightly. “...I feel like I’ve forgotten something. Oh, yeah, I also added some dragon blood to each of you except Healer for an extra strength and magic boost. It will increase your control and toughen your skin a little, too.
“Now, I want all of you to pay careful attention to my next words. I am going to allow you to tweak your visages. Any changes that you make will not appear on your body until I send you into your next world. You may only modify your inside normal body proportions - no super-long legs or perversely oversized breasts, please - and some things, like height, cannot be changed. The tattoo-like markings are also permanent, though you can change their locations, because they are the symbols of your magic. Attempting to remove them would be like attempting to remove parts of your magic, though they may be hidden with illusions or in certain shapeshifter forms.” She gives us a grin and sets us loose with a cheerful, “Have fun!”
The profile changes from a list of our abilities to a 3D representation of what we’ll look like when we reach maturity on the next planet, not accounting for injuries or scars. I remove all colors and markings from mine after promising the system that I would put them all back, though not necessarily in the same places. After deliberating quietly for a solid five minutes, I spend the next probably half hour re-placing the markings and colors and modifying some of the body shapes.
The end result looks to be about 5’3” with long limbs, B-cup breasts, a small waist, slim hips, and lean muscles. I was aiming for small, agile, and powerful instead of beauty, though I still ended up creating a perfect hourglass figure. The skin is moonlight-silver, with purple eyes, light pink lips, and pitch-black hair. There are turquoise vines representing plant magic winding up the legs over slim, barely visible purple lines meant to resemble scales (the animal magic and dragon blood symbols combined). When threatened, these lines expand rapidly to cover the entire body with a shimmering, sheer, skin-tight armor. The arms are covered in swirls of turquoise and purple (showing water, dancing, and cold mixed together) and there’s a ring of brown around each ankle like a cuff to symbolize earth. Similarly, there’s a thin ring of light green around each wrist marking me as having healing abilities. The vampire blood contributed to overall paleness of the skin, especially when added to the pale silver of my moon attribute, and the siren doesn’t seem to have a marking at all. I turn to her and ask quietly, “No siren mark?”
She smiles, but it’s the type of smile you give to a small, ignorant child. “Sirens don’t have marks because their hair is their mark. It changes to become a magic conduit and absorber.” I try to ignore her condescending tone, but I feel a bit better when I see both Lady and Protector glaring at her from behind on my behalf.
In a distraction attempt, Lady drags me over to see her new form. The hair is a beautiful fire-red, with a sprinkling of freckles that come off as charming and playful rather than ugly or distracting and a perfect golden tan. She modeled her body to be almost identical to mine, except her markings are bright and fiery colors rather than my darker and cooler shades. It seems her succubus trait and sun affinity combine to create the golden tone of her skin, making her radiant, like the sun. We share a small smile in the understanding that our opposite/identical status is a mark of unity and support. We’re just about to discuss some of the finer points of the bodies when Healer cheerfully interrupts us. “Come see!” Dragging us by the hands, she asks with a beaming smile, “What do you think?”
Lady grins and I offer Healer a small but genuine and gentle smile, which seems to make her even happier. Her image shows hair so platinum blonde it’s almost white, with skin that one shade of pure-vanilla white that not even foundation and face powder can achieve. Her markings aren’t quite like ours, though, because she’s not a fighter. Instead of a shimmery dragon-scale pattern, she sports iridescent swirls over her entire body and a pair of snow-white angel wing tattoos. “I think they can become real wings if they need to, but I don’t know how the fairy markings will affect the coloration. Maybe my wings will be pink!” She exclaims. Instead of thin green lines around her wrists, her healing marks cover her entire forearms in light green swirls.
Her vines are a deep green color with - surprisingly - light pink roses. The presence of her flowers causes me to look back at my own vines; I didn’t notice before, but I have royal-blue roses blooming on my thorn-covered vines. Huh. I could’ve sworn the flowers and thorns weren’t there a few minutes ago. Taking a closer look at Lady’s markings, I notice that she also has thorns and blood-red roses. I turn my attention back to Healer’s image and notice that she doesn’t have any thorns, probably because she isn’t a fighter. I wonder what the flowers represent. I nudge Lady and gesture to the flowers, then to Goddess, then mutter, “Your turn. Ask.” She shoots me a dirty look but calls out to Goddess anyway.
“Miss Goddess? What do the flowers symbolize? We were just noticing that all three of us have them, is it because we’re girls?” Lady asks, overdoing the politeness in an effort to not be treated with condescension. It kind of works.
“Not at all, girls. The flowers represent your song magic, what you had before I added the siren blood, as well as the family line I’ll be giving you.” Goddess says with a sly smile.
“Family?” Protector asks. For the sake of our own modesty, we’ve all been avoiding looking at his image. “Will you tell us anything about the world we’re going into, or do you plan to send us in blind?”
“Sure, I’ll tell you things, but only after you decide how much of your memories to keep. This is an individual decision, but I highly suggest discussing it with each other before you decide.”
We look at each other. When no one speaks up, I sigh. “We keep. Healer lock. Impressions, feelings. Safer.”
Everyone stares until Lady translates, “All of us should keep our memory except Healer, for her sake, because she shouldn’t have to remember watching us all die. Instead, she should keep impressions, emotions, and feelings. That way she’ll still love and trust us as she does now, without the trauma of Father’s abuse and the death of our family.”
Healer opens her mouth to protest, then reaches up to touch her face. Her eyes widen in surprise at the presence of tears on her cheeks, and she reluctantly nods. “I’ll accept it, but don’t take away all of my memories of Mom. I don’t care if you have to merge her with my future mother in my future mind, but leave some memory of her, please.”
Mom muffles a sob with her hand and pulls Healer into a hug. “Thank you, darling,” she says, “but don’t make yourself miserable for my sake.”
“I’m not, Mom,” Healer promises. “All I need is a single picture of you, happy and healthy, like you are now.”
Mom smiles with tears in her eyes. “I love my children, you all care way too much,” she says, but she sounds proud. “All I want is that you all have a good life with a loving family. Don’t let yourself dwell in the past too much.”
We all nod in understanding. She’s telling us to enjoy what we’re being given. I force my voice to work. “Of course, Mom. We’ll use your memory to inspire us, and be sure not to dishonor your memory or your words.”
Everyone stares at me until Healer giggles. “I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say, Warrior!”
Lady smiles warmly. “Indeed, but you are correct.”
Protector rumbles softly, “I respect the idea, but if Mom returns to the reincarnation cycle, she won’t see it. I won’t argue with your plan, but how can we do things in her honor if she’ll never know?”
We all sit quietly, considering this idea sadly, until Goddess speaks up. “I could make her one of my attendants and keep her here with me. If you are amenable to the idea, that is,” she says, addressing the last part to Mother.
Mother gasps. “Y-You would be willing? I would greatly appreciate the chance to look after my children in their next life. What would I need to do as a handmaiden?”
“Not much, really,” Goddess says. “There’s not much work to be done up here, I pretty much let people do as they will. But if someone below were to discover a great evil, and invoke my name… maybe I could help…” She trails off meaningfully.
We nod, catching her meaning. The awkward silence drags on until finally Healer says, “So Protector, what does yours look like? I refuse to look at it until you cover its, um, manly areas.”
I relax a bit as everyone else releases nervous giggles. “Sure, Healer,” Protector smirks. “Here.” He places a loincloth over the image and beckons us over to view his figure. His lower legs are almost entirely brown with a scale pattern that is far more obvious than Lady’s or mine. His hair is brown with red tones mixed throughout and his eyes are storm-gray. He kept his body fairly simple - a bit bulky, but that’s probably the result of the giant blood. He’s tall, around 6 foot, with well-defined muscles and a narrow waist, forming a triangular abdomen that would make any Olympic swimmer jealous.
“All right,” Goddess says. “If everyone is finished, I’ll send Protector off. You’ll all be able to watch his first four years before Lady and Warrior are born, and then Healer can observe for another two. Everyone ready?”
We all nod affirmatives, and Protector drops through a swirling hole in the floor.