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About three years ago, your name was Dave Strider.
Now, it’s Davesprite.
You had not, initially, intended on giving up the name. For the last two years and eleven months, you had stuck with the name, more or less, with Jade being the exception because she had wanted (understandably) to differentiate, although she never did it in a way that made you lesser, and you appreciated that – still do, even after breaking up. But it won’t be much longer before you’re not the only Dave around any more. So you made the switch. Made the sacrifice, for what felt like the hundredth time, and sometimes you wish it didn’t have to be you every time. But then again, that’s yourself for you. No one beats the Strider-Lalondes at self-sacrifice; you are simply the best there is.
You wonder how Rose is doing.
You heard from Jade that she survived – went God-Tier along with your alpha self. One more way you weren’t quite as good as the original on his part, but you were happy for her. She was getting a second chance (better, you think bitterly, than some people get.) She fucking deserved it, after all. Rose had fought as long and hard as anyone, in your timeline and this one, and it was nice to know that the universe had stopped trying to screw her over. And yeah, you suppose, it was also damn gratifying to know that somewhere in her, something from your timeline, other than you, survived yet. The rest of it, you figure, is gone like most of paradox space, doomed and disappeared into who-knows-where. You wonder sometimes about exactly what happened there, but not too much – if you did, you worry that you might never really think about anything else, and you’ve got enough on your mind as it is.
In a month, you, Jade, John, the other sprites, the carapaces – the whole damn ship – will arrive in the new session. And the whole ship is buzzing in anticipation, making last-minute preparations that, if you’re honest, aren’t strictly necessary (what’s left to prepare?) but at least they’re keeping you all busy, keeping you, as much as is possible, from completely losing your heads. Everything has a nervous air and no one knows quite what to expect and it’s all Jade and John can do to keep the whole ship exploding with energy under them. For your part, you were trying not to think too much about it. Between not being quite enough of one of the four destined heroes, being a sprite in a place where you had no one to guide, and being hyper-aware that you might be seeing Bro again, you didn’t know how to feel about things any more.
You’re sitting at a computer playing Ghostbusters (you have tried to alchemize new, less-shitty video games with precisely zero luck) when you hear Jade’s voice amplified through the onboard comms.
“Hi everyone!!! This is Jade Harley, here to tell you all that it’s 10 PM according to our totally arbitrary time schedule and as always that means it’s time for everyone to go the fuck to sleep! Remember, a tight ship’s a happy ship and we have basically no other ideas for how to make sure that something resembling a schedule stays in place. See you all in the morning!”
You still think that instituting universal bed time was maybe taking it a step too far in trying to keep everyone sane. Still, you can’t blame them for trying.
You weren’t initially sure if sprites actually slept. You didn’t sleep the first “night” on the ship – you were exhausted, sure, but you were also pretty raw and wiry and you couldn’t even when you tried. You didn’t even pass out after the fight with Jack. Turns out that must have just been your strong sprite-like constitution shining through, because you’ve slept just fine since then. Not for as long as the two humans here do (not half so long as Jade does, some residual dog-instinct keeps her out for like twelve hours at a time most days) but you do a little bit.
You visit the dream bubbles when you do. This was extremely surprising when you fist discovered it. You had always figured that place was reserved for the fallen heroes, doomed timelines where nothing got out. But then, one of the first things you noticed was that there were about a thousand carbon copies of a troll robot with curly horns and long hair, one of whom told you when you asked that they were versions of the troll session’s time player and then ribbited at you. So, okay, good to know you could have fucked up worse, you guess. Anyway, it didn’t make much difference to you where you went, because you never really met anyone there who you actually wanted to see regardless. Hundreds of trolls who you didn’t know (a few Terezis, one of whom told you she was sorry – well, it was a little late for that, wasn’t it), some other dead versions of yourself (those were awkward conversations), but no dead Jades, nor Johns or Roses. You were happy not to. You weren’t exactly in love with the idea of your friends dying over and over, after all. Wasn’t it enough for you to?
So it was peaceful, basically, a little bit boring you guess, but time passes differently when you’re asleep and that goes double when you’re in the veil and asleep. Mostly, you stayed alone. If someone wandered into your bubble, or you bumped up against theirs, you might say hi a little, but if they didn’t leave, before long, you would. Not much need for conversation out here, nor much desire on your part.
Tonight, you have it easy. You drift off like nothing, and when you come back to awareness, you find yourself in your old apartment. A cursory drift around reveals that it is, in fact, just you. This is probably your favorite place to go when you sleep, since you can’t just sleep like you’d kind of like to. You can just chill, be home again for a few hours. Bro’s not there, no, but you actually think it’d be worse if it was. Easier to just chill out. Sit on the couch, plug in some video games that are slightly less shitty than Ghostbusters (you wonder how much the industry progressed, or would have, in the time you’ve missed?), maybe drink some dream-apple juice. Just have a normal, boring-ass day, and God if that’s not the biggest relief.
You decide that it might be nice to drift up to the roof, enjoy the view of your neighborhood that you used to get. Austin wasn’t much, far as you were concerned, but it was home, and you missed it. It was nice to see it again, every once in a while.
Except that tonight, you get up there and things have shifted. This annoys you, and sets you immediately on edge. Can’t you just have a night in the apartment? But no, this is a place that you don’t recognize. It’s way too white, and angular – way too spacious to be your place, and modern, and clean. You’re inside again, even though you just stepped out, and you look through the windows to see trees as far as the eye can stretch – evergreens. It hits you that you recognize this place, but you can’t put your finger on from where.
“The wings are a nice touch.”
You are nothing but a ball of nerves and you draw the sword from your stomach as you turn around because you do not get caught off your guard but what really catches you is that halfway through, you recognize the voice. And sure enough your sister, but she’s got no orange robe, no colors to match yours at all, just white t-shirt and grey skirt and purple headband and it’s then that you realize that her eyes are dead white, literally.
And you can’t be blamed if an orange tear or two escapes your eye, because it’s only a second later that you realize it’s her.
“Courtesy of the fucking crow.” You say. “I could honestly stand to go without – they kinda just get in the way. Not like I need them to fly, so what use are they.”
“Never underestimate the use of aesthetics.” She replies. “I would’ve thought you knew that one, you’re the artist in the family after all. I could never master much but words.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. If I recall, you were pretty goddamn handy with some knitting needles as well.”
She smiles, but she doesn’t reply. You are left to look her over, and wonder what to say – what you could possibly say.
“I thought everything just sort of… faded off. After I left.” You finally say.
“I’d thought it might, too.” She says. “Wasn’t sure. I fell asleep like you suggested, only much to my chagrin I woke up again afterwards. Don’t know if it achieved the desired effect on the other me, but I felt like it might have. You could probably explain that better than I.”
You shrug. “More or less. I don’t think she remembers everything with perfect clarity, but she said she remembers something, so… good enough, I guess.”
“How is she?” Rose asks.
“Good. So I hear. Last time I saw her, maybe not so much, but I understand she actually went God-Tier a while ago. It’s… things have gotten sorta complicated.”
Even without pupils, you are aware she is rolling her eyes. “Don’t you think it’s a little disingenuous to be pointing that out this late in the game, Strider?”
You don’t know how to begin explaining to her the scratch, or Jade’s successful entrance and subsequent ascension, or the green sun, or your journey, or the new session, so you don’t.
“If you don’t mind me asking, how’d it happen?” You ask.
She raises her eyebrows excellently. “How’d what happen?”
You really don’t want to say it, so you just sort of nod at her.
She decides to cut you a break.
“Honestly? A week or so after you left, I found the rest of the good alcohol in the house, drank as much as I could, wandered out to the edge of the island, and stabbed myself in the throat with the thorns. I am sure it made a very lovely scene with all that rainbow water, although I suppose there was no one around to care. But I feel a dramatic suicide rather fulfills its own purpose, don’t you?”
Okay, now you really don’t know what to say.
“… Sorry, Rose.”
She laughs. “For what? None of that was even slightly your fault, dear brother. John survived this time, didn’t he? And Jade?”
“Yeah.” You say. “I’m… travelling with them right now.”
“Then what is there to be sorry about? We did our job and I died on my own terms. Under the circumstances, I can’t think of a happier ending.”
You look her over, really look, and you see in Rose for the sum total of the three years that you, Jade, and John have spent in transit, because when you look at her you realize for the first time just how small thirteen really is. You realize that the desperate suicide of a thirteen-year-old child is not glorious, it is not dramatic, and it is certainly not a happy ending.
You do not tell her this.
“How’re you?” She asks.
You shrug. “Doin’ all right. As much as can be expected. Kinda… taking a break from adventure right now, but that won’t be the case for much longer.”
“Sounds boring. Are you glad to be returning to the fold?”
“Haven’t decided yet. There’s a lot to factor in.”
She sighs. “Dave. Why are you being so cagey? You know there’s no need with me, right? Or is that it, you’re too overwhelmed by the sight of me to say anything.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Bull.” She says. “It’s exactly like that. You feel guilty about me. Even though it’s not your fault, and I agreed to it, you feel guilty. You know how absurd you’re being, right? I realize that I must look rather pathetic to you, but don’t you dare treat me like I’m fragile.”
The last word makes you wince. It was calculated to, if you know her (and you do.)
“I’m not trying to treat you like you’re fragile, Rose.” You say eventually. “But right now, I am. I thought you were gone.”
“I am gone.” She says. “Obviously. Would you rather I had faded away to nothing instead?”
“Maybe? I don’t know.”
She smiles, sort of sad, and crosses the distance between you to take your hands. “It’s not such a terrible existence, you know.” She tells you, voice barely above a whisper. “I’m not just out here doing nothing. There’s people around. I don’t actually know most of them, but they seem to know me, a lot of the time. Plenty of you, although not too many, which is nice… anyway, they tend to take the sight of me a better than you did. I’m usually the only Rose they’ve seen since they died. You must have done pretty well.”
“He did pretty well.” You correct. “And he had help, I guess. I dunno, I didn’t actually talk to him that much, I heard most of this from Jade and John.”
“Weren’t you supposed to be his guide?” She asks.
You shrug. “He had another guide. And even if he hadn’t… there wasn’t much time to talk.”
She frowns, and your heart sort of skips. “What? Is something wrong?”
“No,” she says, “it’s just… I’m sorry, too.”
You are baffled. “What on earth could you have to be sorry to me for.”
“Not for, just… about. About whatever it is that happened to you.”
You wish she could not read you like a book, you wish for the hundredth time that you could actually be cool, and not be rendered so completely vulnerable just by the touch of Jade’s hand, the sound of John’s laugh, the sight of Rose’s smirk. But then, you have had more than three years to grow up now since that was the short of thought that consumed you, and you have begun to think that being cool is overrated, and also that emotional vulnerability is maybe OK to show when you caused the apocalypse at the age of thirteen.
“… Apology accepted.” You say. “Even though it’s not your fault. On the precondition that you agree to accept mine too.”
“Fair enough. Apology accepted.”
You lapse again into silence. You are not sure whether you don’t know what to say, or you just don’t have anything to say. It used to be so easy to talk to Rose, like breathing, and just as necessary for your survival… but then again, she’s dead, after all. Where is there to go from that?
“What do you plan to do?”
You shake off your stupor and focus back on Rose. She’s got that remarkable odd little half-smile on her face that you have seen so much, and she’s squeezing your hands tightly. Your dead 13-year-old sister, the one who you left alone, the one who died that way, is squeezing your hands and smiling up at you; she’s not psychoanalyzing you, she’s not being the least bit passive-aggressive, she’s not even asking it like it’s an empty question. She’s trying to comfort you.
Even if you did have anything to say, even if you knew what it should be, how the hell could you say it?
“I’m still trying to figure that out.”
“Fair enough.” She says. “But can I make a request?”
“Any time.” You say.
She grins at you, the most genuine expression you’ve ever seen on her face, and you nearly start to cry again right then and there, but you don’t. “Survive for me.” She says. “And maybe try to save the rest of the world while you’re at it.”
You laugh. “I was kind of planning on that, yeah.”
“I know when you’re lying to me, Dave.”
You feel like all the color drains out of your face. She crosses what little distance there is between you and wraps you in her ghostly arms.
“I know it’s hard,” She says, “and I know you feel like it would be easier to just give in, and that you’re not much use any how, any more. But don’t you think you – don’t you think we’ve both done enough self-sacrificing for several lifetimes?”
This time, you do cry. You hold her tight and bury your face into her neck and you stain her nice white shirt with streaks and streaks and drops of bright orange tears, and you don’t try to be quiet, don’t try to stop yourself, you don’t try to be a man, you just sob in this middle of nowhere dream bubble because no one ever told you that before. She shooshes you quietly, reaches up and strokes your hair, kisses your head, ruffles her fingers through the feathers on your neck, grips you like a life raft, and you see her cry too if you’re not much mistaken.
You stay like that for what feels like hours before you calm down and break gently apart, and you find to your surprise that you’re not even embarrassed really.
“I’ll try.” You say, still choked up. “I’ll try, Rose… I really will.”
“Promise me.” She insists. “Promise me that you’ll try to do it for you, too.”
You laugh, old defensive mechanisms kicking in. “I don’t know if I can do it for me. But I’d do anything for you.”
She nods and smiles. “I know.”
You wake up.
It takes you a little while to get your bearings, but you realize by the lack of alarm, and the lack of anyone else out on the dock, that it’s not yet “morning”. Well, you’re not sleeping again tonight regardless. You’re shaking all over still and you realize when you reach a hand to your cheek that you actually cried in your sleep. You hastily wipe away the evidence (old habits die hard, even when you’re growing to realize they’re kind of dumb).
You uncurl from your pile and notice suddenly that you aren’t actually all alone out here on the deck, or not quite. Which is good, because actually, being alone doesn’t sound so stellar right now, so you float on over and sit down next to her with your tail hanging over the side of the ship. The wind makes yellow-gold whisps of air drift over her ruby slippers, and she turns to look at you with the biggest green eyes you’ve ever seen.
“Bad dream?” You ask.
She sighs and leans her head against your chest, like that’s something that’s still happening, or at least it is for a second. “What are we going to do, Dave?” She asks.
You hear the name and flinch, but you don’t try to move her. It takes you a few moments to think of a response.
“Survive.” You say, level.
She laughs a little and snuggles up closer. “I sure hope so.”