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Eyes blinked open to bright light. Burning the whole field of vision like a hot fire, the sun bore down and drove right through like a knife into the prone man’s skull. He rolled, turning his face downward into the damp dirt beneath him. Immediately, he shut out the light again; eyelids blocking out as much light as his scrunched up face could manage. The throbbing in his ears came from the rebellion of his own body and he groaned at the protest to move in any way, whatsoever. But he’d be damned if he remained with his face in the direct path of the beams of light shining right down on him.
The exhaustion that trickled through every limb of his body—down into his bones—made the task an arduous one and he found his greatest victory came just from turning his face away from the sky above. His face felt warm, and laying in the earth was an unexpected reprieve.
He could not have been there for very long, if the ground below him was still cool; but his recollection was poor. The series of events had cascaded one after another and he’d paid very little attention to the passage of time in between them. The fortune of where he’d dropped to the ground, somewhere tucked away from any form of civilization, was not lost on him. Had he lost his senses and blacked out within the borders of his little punching bag’s city, then he might have more of a problem on his hands.
Instead, he dropped somewhere isolated—far out in a wilderness, where he’d somehow managed to find the one clearing of sunshine to come through the otherwise dense cover above. None of the mortals would find him where he’d gone, but none of the mortals were the ones who were capable keeping track of him. When a shadow fell over him, he had no reason to concern himself over who had leaned over him—blocking the offending rays from burning down on him.
“I’m starting to consider that perhaps poor decisions are actually more frequent with you than you let on,” a voice followed a sudden silencing of birds. None of them would chirp after the smooth tone of condescension cut through the air and right down into him.
“I, perhaps, made some miscalculations…” He responded, refusing to look up at the face of the one whose face he was already quite familiar with—after all, it used to be his own.
“You’re having some difficulty learning, are you not?” Even with his eyes closed, he could visualize the posture— his hands behind his back, bent to look down on him with emphasis on his foolishness. It’s what he would be doing. It’s what he was doing in his own mind at himself. “You have not quite gotten a hold of the concept of feeding this thing, have you?”
He exhaled, significantly. The tired body that dropped like a dead weight into the ground after he’d run it ragged, seemed to be loudly begging for nourishment. The greatest misfortune was that he hadn’t quite yet learned the point of necessity, before he became a useless sack of mortal flesh. The unforeseen consequence was a small price to pay for the power obtained, of course. But the learning curve was a steep one…
“I do not think you were this shade of red before, either, perhaps sleeping in the direct light of a star was also not your wisest choice.”
“Are you going to continue to berate me, or are you going to assist me?” He muttered, knowing there was no going between them; he was likely to receive both. He would give both, so naturally, he would get both. That was the consequence of selecting himself as his companion.
“Considering that I have to feed you now, I think that I have earned the right to make commentary on your lack of self awareness.”
“I’m incredibly aware of you.”
“I am going to leave you here to roast.”
He grunted when he heard the threatening sound of footsteps moving away. “Stop, fine. I concede. I will not be like this forever. Once I’m acclimated, this inconvenience won’t even be present…” He struggled to lift himself from the ground, raising a hand for his accomplice to help him up. “Your patience will not go unappreciated.”
“Of course it won’t. I did not go from making tea for one fool, to doing the same to another.”
“Quite true,” he brushed dirt from his clothes, wobbling and making bleary eye contact. The gaze of judgment was very strong, but he found enough of his godly sneer bubbling through to respond in kind. “This body will need significantly more than tea to sustain itself.”
He bristled through the implication. “I find it incredibly difficult to believe that you managed to concoct this plot, but failed to account for such a minute detail. That’s absurd.”
“I may not have given my due diligence to researching my new body, but trial and error is important.”
“Consider,” his partner in crime wrapped an arm around him, preparing to aid him in the flight back to the cabin they tucked themselves away in, “attempting this trial and error nonsense in a way that does not lend to me needing to retrieve you face down in the woods. Your mortal body doesn’t need to dissolve every ounce of grace. If you continue this, you’ll kill this body with no way to revive it.”
“You won’t let me die so easily. Then you would be here alone, all by yourself.”
“I am already all by myself.”
He took a steep breath and exhaled through his nose. He had no clever response to give, instead choosing to concede to his older self’s care in his weakened state. It was a work in progress.