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There are two voices in him.
One of them is his own. It’s the voice that’s always there, the sound to his thoughts, so it must have been there from before too, though he doesn’t know if it sounded the same then.
The other is also him, but in a different way. This one is a voice that falls quiet more often and cuts through bitingly when not.
Both voices are silent as the battle comes to an end.
Space, for the first in a very long time, is clear. Corpses disintegrate into the fabric of the universe, the folds of void black, and the rest flee.
'They' will return another day—for 'Them' who can never fade, this is a fight that will occur again and again—but not in any span that mortals can perceive.
It could be counted as a victory.
But he turns back to what he’s been protecting, and it isn’t.
“Pyrrhic”. There was a word like that, in a tongue that isn’t much used now, in a tongue he hasn’t used in a long time.
He and those like him took the brunt of the fight, but there were so many little skirmishes to be dealt with too. Even channeling fragments of the powers that belong to 'Them', these lives are too minuscule to make full use of it. Even those “gods” are in the end incapable of it.
He’s done his part. The galaxy is empty of its intruders. Those who live and those who die shouldn’t matter, when life on the planet continues.
In their torn society, having weathered fire and ice alike, there are parents and companions and guardians. There are those whose quiet prayers kept his eyes on humanity, like tinkling bells drawing attention.
But there isn’t that bespectacled black-haired woman who loves machinery. Or that young man who shines as bright as the sun. Or that laid-back woman who writes stories after stories. Or...
It's not a very long list. It's not a short one either.
There are people grieving for them. Some family, some friends.
It shouldn’t matter. The rest of them are safe. Whether the world can heal from the apocalypse or not, it doesn't concern him.
But it matters. Senselessly, it matters in a way little else has.
One of the voices whispers, “There is a method left. It will not trick 'Their' eyes, but it will be binding for the rest of existence.”
It can’t be his own voice, because he should know what he’s saying, but he doesn’t. “What does that mean?”
“What is our honorific name?”
In 'Their' language, his voice haltingly answers. “...Lord of Mysteries, King of Space-Time–”
“Repeat the last one.”
“King of Space–... It’s not possible.”
There's a mocking laugh. “Who would know better than me?”
Fleetingly, he remembers that once upon a time, he had drowned in a sea of grey with just one voice, before he had woken up with two.
He indeed doesn’t know everything, unlike the other voice.
“The circumstances are specific. There may be no second chance.”
Time exists in every physical dimension. His dominion is a dimension where time is everywhere all at once. But even then, to erase a time that has existed is to pull apart a foundation. There needs to be another support in that place.
“We watch over space-time. Our history contributes to the stability of this universe. Everything can be changed but us.”
Sefirah’s fog rolls over the land and the sky. The tenuous layer between worlds weaken and the Spirit World converges with the physical. In the chaotic occurrence, pinpricks of light create a disjointed path.
This is their history.
The pillars of stability that cannot be shaken.
No matter what action they take, portions of their fate that are already set will not waver, anchoring the storm of all else around it.
The present time erases itself, all of its images disintegrating, becoming the endless possible expanse of the future again, but the light remains even in the nothingness.
When the two worlds separate, it is twenty revolutions ago.
There is a story. It’s about a human who becomes a god.
Lives are lost. Concessions are made. It tastes of bitter resignation.
It is not a happy story.
So do it again.
A bloodied room, a crimson moon.
“Everyone will die, including me.”
(Painful. How painful.)
Like the studied opening of a story, like saying a joke for the umpteenth time, he knows it by-heart.
But he doesn’t play any of it out. Silently, the room is cleaned and the evidence is taken care of. By then, he learns to better handle the strangeness that is a four-limbed body.
He already has the memories of this time—an existence like him is incapable of forgetting—but what was once a flicker, lost among millions and billions of other memories, all from his perspective as a Great Old One, becomes clearer now as if it was only a day before. The difference in the two human forms he has lived, and every aspect of them.
Despite everything he has gained, the other voice isn’t there with him.
He finally knows what his own voice is, its exact sound, but what does it matter to know without the other?
He doesn't dwell on it. Their paths will collide, because that voice is as bound to fate as he is.
As night fades away, a girl walks in. So, so different from the woman she’ll become.
Things common to existence like hearts were lost on beings such as 'Them', but there’s a unique ache in his chest, memories unravelling and leaving him frozen.
Him. It’s always been him, never 'Him'. A meaningless difference, but for whatever reason, he held on to it all this time and now more than ever. Because this is her, never to be 'Her', and he knows he is already so far away.
The hands of the silver pocket watch are stuck. With a gentle touch, they move again, and the future continues to approach.
Circus. There's a performance the next day.
(Melissa would definitely like it.)
So I’ll take her there.
There isn't enough money for tomorrow but there'll be another chance. He'll make it happen.
Divination. Isn’t it a joke, to offer it to him? What is a drop to an ocean?
Still he goes inside the tent.
“Alright, which card would you like to see first?”
Past, present, future.
He knows the first two, so there’s only one left to ask.
("I’ll have a look at the ‘present’ first.")
“The future.”
(“The Fool.”)
“The World.”
Success is a good omen, but such symbolic divination is imprecise, worthless. Would this have been the same card he got before? Was the last future a success?
He doesn't contemplate it. Because he has a script already prepared, he can follow it thoughtlessly until he needs to make his edits.
So the real fortune-teller comes in, and he leaves.
The police appear at his door.
Among them, there is a man with deep grey eyes. There is one with green.
Out there is a building full of such people that he knows, knows before they died one after another.
His chest aches again but he voices none of those thoughts. As they reveal what is already known to him, he shows the right tinge of fear, anxiety, horror.
A stage play is a one-sided thing. The audience unravels their emotions in the performance, but they also boo or cheer the actors, knowing full well it is an act.
Life is everyone’s play. It’s a performance, an imitation, a deceit.
It is everything he is.
The people around him play themselves, and he plays what is required in response to it, carrying the story onward.
This time, he’ll be the only one to bow out.
He sits opposite the woman wearing blue eyeshadow and blush. Madam Daly.
(“I don’t want to become a monster.”)
The incense floats in the air. It’s only a strange scent to him, but he pretends to slump to it. He aids her pull on his soul because she alone wouldn’t be able to pull at all.
Around them, the surroundings turn ocean-like.
She speaks in a soft voice, instructing. The waters cannot be still. That would be too odd.
Very carefully, he churns just the surface, with a sleight-of-hand to make it seem otherwise.
Deeper into the ocean is deeper into his psyche, and for them, those depths hold only darkness and madness. Incomprehensible, unbearable.
She shouldn’t ever become a monster.
The show at the circus is raucous and wild. He has a job and he has his advance, so all three of them go.
Melissa, Benson, Klein.
Klein… it’s odd. Names. 'They' don’t have names. 'They' all know each other without such things. At most there are titles. Even more so for him, a being formed from a patchwork of identities, like shapeless water outlined by its vessel.
But he turns to the sound, nods, smiles.
He has his script and he has a name. It’s a better name than most others he could have been given. It’s soft and familiar even if distant.
He exchanges amused, pleased looks with Benson while Melissa’s eyes are wide, fixed on the stage.
Benson, Melissa.
Those names had become distant too, until recently. He murmurs the syllables over and over in his head, parroting a language he’s getting used to again. He doesn’t want to forget them.
He drinks the Seer potion and, like with Sefirah, the other voice briefly returns.
It’s low, buried under the incessant muttering of another, but it’s there. It surrounds him, whispering in 'Their' language, half-asleep. He wonders how this could be called madness, almost sorry that the others can’t handle it. The way 'They' communicate is something known to humans, yet buried so deeply in them to be forgotten. To understand would make them see the chaos integrated with the cosmos.
It’s for the best. He who became like 'Them' but returned to before now walks in a liminal space, both and neither. His human memories clash with the ones he gained, making themselves known before withering. Once again, he is giving up what he was, should be, could be.
Human life is simpler.
The liquid melts into him. There is no digestion because there doesn’t need to be. Each characteristic of this pathway is a part of him.
He looks at the kind wrinkled face of the person standing there.
Then he moves his gaze to stare at the pair of cold translucent eyes that appears in his vision.
If you could go back in time, what would you change?
“I’m worried about Old Neil…”
They can't be told about Megose yet, so I’ll handle it.
What would you keep as it was?
I’ll take on the price of every gift of fate.
(“I won’t lose too much, just myself.”)
In a graveyard, a funeral comes to an end. Just one.
Long after everyone has left, a coffin lid moves and a hand pushes out of the ground.
Everything moves on, same and different.
And so, this is the second story. It is about a god trying to be human.
Less lives are lost. Fewer concessions have to be made.
For each difference, one person is dying but not dead, living but not alive, losing as much as he gains.
Is it happy?
It doesn't matter. It is enough.