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Everything was so real here. Xephos let his gaze trace across the once-flawless landscape beneath him, seeing again how every edge was so sharply formed, each part of the vision painfully-clear under his attention. It was one of the things these myriad little worlds had in common; each one managed to be overly real to every sense, as if the limited nature of their existence took a much larger universe and curled it up, impossibly-tight, inside the crystalline gleam of the sky's edge that rose up a few miles away in all directions.
It had been a city this time, all white marble and molded gold. Now its artisan-wrought avenues were gouged around with misfires, and blood had burst like liquid roses against the shining stone. Quite a few trees were still on fire, and as he watched, the massive bronze-emerald dome of the central library finally crumpled in on itself, surrendering to the condensed inferno that was pouring out of the tunnels beneath.
He had died here – or somewhere like it – so many times. He remembered each one; each thrust, each tightening grip of sudden gravity, each bullet and blade and every moment the world went black. It should have bothered him more; but there was much less horror in dealing and facing death when you knew you'd be talking score afterwards.
Would you like to play a game?
Far below, he could see each movement – telescope-clear – as once-crumpled shapes sat up, suddenly, taking the same sharp breath into reforming lungs, and stared up at the dapper figure hanging over them. There would be an exchange – blows, screams, or laughter, or all of these at once – and for each one Xephos watched as Ridge accepted whatever came. Then his fingers would trace gently over each restored, familiar face, and the soft blankness came down like a curtain, before each figure flickered and vanished, back into the heartbeat they had left behind.
Honeydew was last. He always seemed to be last, recently; pulling himself upright on his own axe, his shoulders set in that way that, even from his own aerial vantage point, Xephos recognised as 'grumpily resigned'. The dwarf was the only one who sought him out, aiming a visibly-sarcastic salute upwards even as he began to fade, and Xephos couldn't help but feel a little guilty about that.
There was a flicker in the air, and suddenly the space next to him was full of frock, as Ridge dropped down, practically vibrating against the thick glass platform. There was an intensity about the man at all times anyway, but just after each Game – ritual – whatever – he was as close to manic as he seemed capable of, grinning like a demon.
“God, I needed that,” he said, the soft accent brought out a little stronger by the satisfied edge to his voice, and he shook his head like an emerging swimmer, loosing a few dark curls around his face. Xephos rolled his eyes, mock-chiding.
“There're not many people use that 'damn good coffee' voice over sixteen brutal deaths.”
“Fifteen.” Ridge held up a finger, tapping at the air. “Nilesy knocked himself out in the piston room that last time; that doesn't count. But yeah, you're right - ” he leaned back, stretching his arms upward and arching back against the glass with feline satisfaction “- there aren't. Damn good thing too. And you can't complain.”
One of his eyebrows twitched, slightly, and Xephos couldn't restrain a snort of laughter as the oversize golden crown that was still balanced precariously on his own head slid down a few inches by itself.
“This is the least tasteful prize yet, by the way.”
“Oh, it is not.” Ridge peered over at him, scrutinising the jeweled band. “Hardly got anyone's skulls on there.”
The grin that followed would have been disconcerting under any normal circumstance – Ridge's smile tended towards the devastating, in a more literal sense than the term was usually applied – but normality was what you made of it; and for a while now, for them, it had been sitting on impossibly-floating glass and watching the recent battleground come apart under its own aftermath. He wasn't exactly sure when they'd become friends. All reasonable logic would suggest that a being who regularly pitted your own weird little misfit family against itself – vocally delighting in the carnage, however reversible it was – might be a strange choice of companion. And yet...
“You're doing the introspection thing again, aren't you?” Ridge glanced over at him again, jigging slightly from side to side, still obviously wired, and Xephos pushed the crown back into a more secure position as he shrugged.
“It's just a bit... odd. You've got to admit.”
“You want odd?” Ridge's hand swung out as he spoke, and he closed three fingers around Xephos' wrist just inside the sleeve, his thumb pressing into the soft underside. There was a strange moment as heartbeat thumped across the space – and Xephos' world went white.
Every nerve lit up like a firecracker, tingling and spitting under his skin, as the sheer intensity of abrupt, brilliant awareness swept through him in a storm-surge of lightning sensation, overwhelming and impossibly exhilarating, all at once. The borrowed moment of heartbeat thundered through him, and through the bright-out glaze he saw the little world again, all the edges of it – all of them, every link and connection, sparkling with unimaginable layers of potential – and he knew, right then, that he could touch every one if he wanted to; could entwine his fingers into the very fabric of the world and wrap it up about himself, around this white-hot core of possibility that burned across his mind -
Ridge let go, not bothering to stifle a small laugh as Xephos crashed back into himself like a meteor-strike, suddenly remembering that he needed to breathe, and gave a strangled yelp. Whiteout spots of borrowed infinity still glittered – fading – at the edges of his vision, and he felt himself drop back down a few inches onto the glass below. His heart hammered its unexpected peak in his chest, keeping time to the twinned beat of sheer relief and utter loss that danced through his dazed thoughts. Ridge tilted his head, peering at him, and laughed again.
“Opped mortals are adorable. Even for, like, three seconds – you've got no idea,” he said, amusement thick in his voice, but Xephos couldn't manage much more than another blurry mumble, as he tightened his fingers against his own knees, trying to remember where all his limbs actually were.
“Je-sus!” he gasped, when he felt he could trust his throat to actually make coherent sounds again. “Is – is that what it's like to be you?”
“Nah -” Ridge patted him on the shoulder, but it was just contact this time, as he grinned again. “It's much more fun, being me.”
“Shit,” Xephos muttered, carefully letting himself slump back onto his elbows, looking up at the barely-visible dome of sky above. “...I think I'm high. Or dying.”
“I would miss you if you died.”
Xephos blinked, glancing up at Ridge's face. He was staring out over the now definitely-burning cityscape, looking a bit calmer, and unusually thoughtful. In the distance, something fell over, accompanied by the crash of breaking masonry.
“Thanks. I think,” he replied, a little awkwardly, and straightened back up until they were both sitting again, swinging boots over the yawning drop beneath, the view now veiled by twisting corkscrews of thickening smoke. Xephos took the crown off and held it out in front of him, watching the distant firelight dance in the metal.
“Ridge...” he hesitated, as the niggling thought bumped up again against his mind, difficult to fit words around. “Why... I mean, why aren't I insane?”
“You're not?” Ridge arced a brow playfully, and Xephos snorted, frowning.
“Seriously. After all this - ” he nodded out at the once-battleground. “All we do here, for your – I mean, for this? I've killed my friends, a dozen times. All of them, people I - ” he hesitated again, spinning the crown a few times “People I would miss. If they died. And I don't care?”
Ridge shifted a little, still staring out over the burning landscape.
“They don't have to remember,” he said, quietly. “Just fight; when I need them to. It needs blood, not context.”
“I remember, though,” Xephos pointed out. “I remember being afraid, the running and fighting, and everything. I just don't feel any of it, afterwards. It's like – I dunno – it's all just facts, just some things that happened...” he trailed off, looking down at the crown in his hands. Tiny points of golden reflections glinted at its edges.
“I know. That's how it works.” Ridge gently took the crowd out of Xephos' fingers and set it in the air, where it began to spin slowly. When he spoke again, his voice was unusually serious. “You've got to play the game, Xeph; you've got to feel it when you do, or it's no use to me. It's not living if you don't care, and it's not death if you don't live, even here.”
He snapped his fingers and the crowd shimmered – shivered – hung still in the air for a moment, then simply fell apart, sloughing into glimmering dust that rained down around their feet and dissipated in the breeze.
“But I need all of that. Afterwards, for you, the memory's just a husk. Emptied out. Facts, nothing more. I can take that away easily enough - ” he stopped as Xephos failed to suppress a slight flinch, a small prickle of heat rising in his cheeks at the sudden focus of Ridge's attention on that wince. He should have gotten used to it by now – it wasn't as if the topic was unexpected – but then there was a light pressure on his arm again, and that endless stare tightened against his own.
“But I won't. I promised, didn't I?” An edge of grin twitched Ridge's lips and he shook his head, sitting back once more. “And you really don't understand the full extent of that one, believe me.”
Xephos let out a long breath; some of his tension went with it, blown away into the smoky air. He knew all this, really, but it was good to hear it again. Particularly that bit.
“I don't remember anything until we're back here, though.”
“No.” Ridge shook his head. “Back in the world, looking everyone in the face? Even without emotional context, that really would drive you mad. It'll block out unless I'm there – kinda like a safety switch. You ready to go?”
The town was quite thoroughly on fire now, and Xephos hadn't missed the faint cracks that had started to snake up the sides of the surrounding dome. He managed a smile of his own.
“Back to bees-ness.”
Ridge groaned, theatrically, as he stood up and offered a hand down to him.
“That was terrible.”
“Yeah.” Xephos accepted the grip, pulling himself back up onto his feet. “Spending far too much time around Sjin at the moment; it rubs off.” He adjusted his jacket, habitually, and tried to ignore the faint nervous lump in his throat as he faced the elegant figure. “Okay. Ready.”
Brocade glittered in the rising firelight as Ridge brought his hand up, trailing ornate sleeve, and carefully pressed his fingers into Xephos' face, above his eyes and against his cheekbone. The touch was light, but he could feel the shift of power there – a little more than he had been able to before – as Ridge's darkly-bright eyes met his own.
“I won't erase from you, Xeph,” he said, softly, as the hidden pressure of changing reality curled beneath his hand. “Not unless you ask me to.”
“I know.” Xephos held the gaze, suspended in a heartbeat – and faded.
Ridge stood, unusually grounded and staring through his own splayed fingers into the now-empty space, and a faint frown nipped his features.
“Not again,” he added, to the sudden silence, as he rose back up into the air. The glass platform broke apart beneath him, raining razor shards down into the inferno below. There wasn't a lot of time left in this bubble of copied world. As he glanced round, idly wondering where to make the final break, a familiar flicker of distant – ever-connected – thought clicked into life at the back of his mind, and he stopped.
“Ridge? If you're done with your recharge, we could really use you out here.” There was an edge of strain in the mechanical-tinged tones, and Ridge stared into nothing as his attention shifted. He hadn't thought this had taken that long.
“Hang in, Cy; I'm closing up.”
“Quickly, please – ” there was another sound-sense, behind the words, another familiar flicker of worried shouting. “There's another wave, and I don't think - ”
“I'm coming.”
The battleground shattered, subtlety abandoned as he wrenched back on the replica timeline. Form and firmament dusted around him as Ridge turned – under the rain of falling sky, above dying fires and crumbling earth – and stepped back out, towards the other battle-line, the one he hadn't lain.
Sometimes the game you had to play wasn't your own. But this world was his,
and anything Else that wanted it
was going to have to go through him first.