“It’s so damn nice being allowed to freely shadowjump!” Kayel exclaimed as he leaped through the big shadow in the corner of his apartment. “I’ve saved so much damn money on fuel, you have no idea! Alright, kinda spending the savings on ammo to shoot pigeons if I exert myself too much, but still!”
Arkay wasn’t quite paying attention. Kayel expected him to be working, but he was just lying on the sofa, looking upset. Granted, Arkay always seemed upset about something, but this was a different kind of upset.
After putting all his stuff away and taking off his clothes, Kayel decided to drag his office chair over, spin around in it a few times and ask what was wrong.
“So, my dude, what’s up?”
“Eugh. I feel like I did something bad and am wondering if I should kinda go back on it…”
Kayel blinked. “Did you kill someone? Oh… wait… Did you kill someone you weren’t supposed to?”
Arkay sighed. “No, no, nothing like that… The other day, while you were out, I got a call from Litvir… and Retvik… Wasn’t quite ready for that but oh well… I… I said to them that they need to move on, that we kinda can’t be boyfriends any more.”
“Oh…” Kayel immediately felt bad. “You didn’t… say that because of me, did you?”
“No. You said you don’t want anything more than friends with benefits, and I agreed to that…” Arkay sighed some more. “I think Retvik took it pretty damn well. He might have even been relieved, I don’t know. Litvir though… I had to end the call early to deal with an errant Voidborn, but when I got back here and checked my messages, Litvir was very distraught. He understood in the end, but I struck a nerve.”
“Why did you… end it with them? I assume you kinda said you wanted to just be friends, right?”
Arkay nodded. “Yeah. The problem is, they… well, mostly Litvir… Litvir is patiently waiting for me to leave this universe and rejoin him and Retvik. But that’s just… not going to happen any time soon.”
“How comes?”
“The last universe I was a god in, it existed for just under 14 billion years. Those who survived that universe’s… demise properly, i.e. my blood-bound friends, plus a handful of others, they existed for a percent of a percent of that universe. Epani and Sini, they both want this universe to exist for at least as long as that universe did. The current target is 10 billion years, but the ideal goal is 20 billion years.
“Sure, there was some sort of strange time fluctuation thing where two billion years inside this universe was approximately equal to three months out there… but those time fluctuations have settled down now, and time has stabilized, so time for me and time for Retvik and Litvir are almost the same…”
Arkay paused then rubbed his eyes.
“I can’t realistically ask those two to wait billions of years for me to finish up here and leave this universe. I don’t even know if they’re properly immortal like I am. Ten billion years, a billion years, even a few thousand years… it’s too long to force Litvir to wait for me. It’s cruel and unfair, and that’s on top of the fact that I keep on getting reset and forgetting who they are.
“So I told them they ought to continue without me. We’ll still be friends of course. As good a friend as I can be. But that’s all I can be. A distant, digital friend.”
Kayel hesitated for a moment. “I take it you don’t want to do a long distance relationship with them?”
Arkay frowned. “Those suck. And, like, I can’t do video calls, voice calls are lacking, there’s no intimacy or anything. Can’t even send lewd pictures because we’re Threanic and not really externally attractive, and it really knocks the wind out of your sails when you’ve got to throw every damn image into an RTF file and upload it that way.”
“Fair enough… But… sure, you’re stuck in here, but can’t they visit you?” Kayel asked.
“Epani would fucking kill them and have no qualms about doing so. And even if she didn’t? It’s too risky. The way this universe works, any godly entities that enter this universe are stripped of their godliness, and Voidborns are made killable and unable to respawn. Retvik and Litvir could lose their immortality or, well, super elongated life spans if they tried to visit. And we kinda can’t even meet half-way or something. The boundary that I am chained to is the exact same size as the anti-external influence fields. I can’t risk it…”
Arkay trailed off and sighed. Kayel sighed too.
“Shame, really. That Litvir guy seemed nice. Like Kuta but oozing with confidence and pride. And he seemed to genuinely have feelings for you… Did you ever… do anything with him or, uh… Old Fire Retvik before you got trapped in here?”
“I… I don’t think so. I was always too scared and insecure. Yet another lesson of me not knowing what I’m missing until it’s gone. Letting good things slip between my fingers.”
“That’s most people, to be fair… Alright, awkward question, have you seen them both naked at least?”
Arkay started blinking, falling completely silent.
“You haven’t, have you?”
“I… I don’t remember… I don’t remember anything but anguish… It’s so exhausting, having my memories so messed up. only the pain pushes through. I hardly even remember Litvir, I’ll never see him again with my own eyes. It’s wrong to give him false hope that he’ll ever see me again. That’s why I told him and Retvik to move on, to love each other and build a life for themselves, rather than waiting eternally for something that won’t ever happen.”
Kayel frowned, then scooted closer to Arkay. “I have a feeling that you regret what you said to Litvir and Retvik.”
“Regret is the wrong word. I feel like telling them was a good thing for me to do, because any relationship out of “digital friend you can vent at” is going to be painful long term. But at the same time… I killed that last shred of hope. I told them, this was it, it’s basically over, I won’t ever see them again. And that realization is hitting me pretty damn hard right now.”
Arkay sighed. “Nothing is truly immortal. I don’t think you are. You’re long-lived. You personally might make it to a thousand, maybe even longer. You can’t be killed, at least not while you’re under the influence of my domain, but you’ll grow old eventually. The same applies to Retvik and Litvir. They’ll get old eventually. Definitely within the next few billion years…
“The ironic thing is, I’m probably as close to immortal as you can get. But it’s completely wasted on me. Most people want immortality. Sure, the “oh your friends will all die” thing is a bit demoralizing but, well, that’s only if it’s just you that’s immortal. Not worrying about death means you can do everything. But I’m a slave with no means of escape, not even death, so I can’t make use of my immortality.
“And, worst of all? I’m bound to a promise. One last cycle. One last universe. After this one, I’ll be free. But that promise of freedom is open-ended. I can’t kill this cycle and free myself, I have to protect it as if it’s my own life. And, worse… well, death is freedom in a way, right? The end of this universe will most likely be the end of me.”
“So you… you don’t think you’ll ever be free?”
“No. I’ll go down with the sinking ship, making sure everyone else lives. Like I always do.”
Kayel crossed his arms and tutted. “Well that fucking sucks. But that also means that we need to make more effort to make your life good now. You said it yourself, you don’t need to worry about death, at least, not now, so we need to do everything! Or some of the things. Doubly so since Tenuk’s actually rich now. He’s looking at flat out buying his own villa, since he now has access to Spast royalty money.”
Arkay grunted, then sat up. “Yet again, you’re absolutely fucking right. I need to make the most of things. Especially while I have the chance to do so, since Epani’s backed off for a bit.”
“Have you, uh, spoken to Epani lately?”
“Not really. Saw her briefly when I went to deal with a Voidborn at the edge of the universe. Epani was annoyed that I didn’t just kill him, but it turned out the Voidborn was just putting up signs, warning other Voidborns to stay away. She didn’t hurt me though and just left, so I guess I’m alright for now.”
Kayel smiled a little. “That’s good. So, what do you want to do? Name some things you want to try.”
Arkay thought to himself, then smiled as well. “I’ll need to think of a definite list, but there is one thing I’d like.”
“What’s that?”
“I want to be a game master for a Wards and Wyverns session with you and the team.”
Kayel blinked, then stared at Arkay. “Wow. Nerd.”
“You’ll enjoy it. We’ll have drinks, we’ll have snacks, we’ll have a laugh.”
Kayel frowned, then relented. “I suck at fantasy roleplay, but sure, I’ll give it a try. Want me to arrange it?”
“Nah, we’ll arrange it together!” Arkay beamed as he got up and grabbed his laptop. “In the mean time, I have planning and scheming to do…”