“Was I ripper?” the old man mumbled. “Din’t wanna be no galah ya know.”
“You were fair dinkum a diamond geezer, mate,” the man said again, though seemingly in a different voice. “I wouldn’t return from the gaffa just to fuck spiders! I’ll raise a stubby to ya next chance I get!”
“Really? I weren’t no bludger?”
“Na, mate, you were diamond! A right bonzer cobber, lettin’ me stick around! Come on, time to go to the great gabba beyond. I’ll get ya there, no worries. Can you see it?”
The chest of the old man rose and fell in faint jerks as the first voice returned. “Fair suck o’ the sav! Fair su…”
The man’s chest jerked once, and then fell, and he went limp.
The surrounding creatures, which had been murmuring softly to themselves, started wailing and chanting in mourning. Tears fell like rain as the community of karnakians raised their communal voice in song to the First Forgiver, The Steve.
They watched as the lights that marked his beautiful soul swirled upwards into the night sky, shimmering like a curtain of starlight, a soul as big as a world, able to forgive even the karnakians for their great crimes against mankind, he was canonized — as much as any human can be in an alien pantheon — as a Great Soul, and to see him depart again was pain beyond pain.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Legend had it that the man before them was two men, fallen in battle he’d been taken over by some great spirit from beyond the veil, some human hero that loved all creatures, great and small, felled by a being of the sea he sought just to show the beauty of to all mankind, he’d become more than a man, more than a mere symbol, he’d become legend itself until, finally, when the karnakians needed him most, he had returned.
And now? Now he was go—
“Ah, that’s the kitty. The Freo’s comin’ in an’ I got a whole new body t’ give it a burl in. Who fancies a tinny down the local?”
The communal song of mourning stopped like a wall as one of the attending humans — a medical technician — suddenly straightened up. In the firelight from the pit, it almost seemed like he glowed. He stood taller, somehow his medical garb falling away to reveal khaki pants and a simple shirt. His hair grew blond and his eyes blue… but his *soul*, his soul shone brighter than ever.
“[Is it… can it be?]”
“Strewth, you’re a beaut! Look at the markin’ on them feathers! Crikey!”
“[He… he has returned? Again?]” The karnakian female lowered her head almost reverently, pushing it closer to the changed human’s body.
The man opened his arms and took hold of the alien’s head, pulling it into a hug. “You know, where I live, if someone gives you a hug, it’s from the heart. I’ve got too much to do to chuck a sickie again. I’m hungry, let’s all go ‘ave a feed an’ get back to work! Fancy a Maccas?”
“[All of us?]”
“Yep. Let me just say goodbye to a true blue Strayan’! Gotta say thanks heaps for lettin’ me rage on.”
The new Steve leaned over his old host, leaned down, and said something nobody else heard, but when Steve stood up again, the eyes were closed and the dead man had a smile on his face. There was too much to do for The Steve to take his rest yet, far too many creatures to see and to wrassle. The legend of The Steve would live on, journeying to the stars.