Master of the Loop

Chapter 187

Words Unsaid

Sylas looked inwardly, his energy swirling like whirlpools. There where once upon a time a single heart beat, and more recently two, now three shuddered. They weren’t ‘hearts’ in the literal sense, naturally, but it didn’t matter. He had three lives, now, and though many would rejoice at the thought, he was frowning.

It already took him too long to die--the last go around, he actually tossed himself from the Pass, fell for who-knows-how-long, splattered flat against the floor, and lived on as a paste for nearly four days before dying. In fact, all the while, he had to consciously prevent the energy from simply reassembling him and making him whole again.

If the many sickly and dying were to hear him, would they go crazy? He didn’t care, however. He was living a completely different story, a completely different life. What was heaven for others was hell for him and vice versa.

The entourage gathered yet again and they made their way through the paved snow, conversations abound. Time and again, the same story unfolded, the same faces of shock and horror and awe greeted him. The same lands, the same speeches, the same deaths, the same fears, the same despair. Everything was the same. So much so that he’d grown numb to it all.

How many lifetimes has it been? He’d lost count once again. Here and there he’d take a break, leave, either alone or with Asha, and ‘reset’, so to say. Even then, it hardly helped. The woman said it was temporary, the feeling of numbness. The utter disregard of everything. That, one day in the future, he would feel again. His heart wouldn’t be a frosted ocean of apathy. It has been hundreds of years, and hundreds more--but he felt nothing still.

No, that was not true. Every time he died and woke up to the Ryne’s blood-curling scream... he felt a twine. It was no longer an agonizing blade piercing his soul, but he felt something. A deep part of him still hurt and cared.

And Asha, against all odds, stirred his heart still. He wasn’t entirely unmoving, unfeeling, untouched. He was close, at the very edge of human and beyond. There was a foot beyond the grace of man, a touch that disassembled what was real and what was not. It felt as though his brain, not his mind, his brain was undergoing an evolution--pressed against the wall with the world unknown and cruel, it had begun seeking ways to adapt. To recover.

Its first instinct was to dull him, to numb him, to bury whatever it could feel so that it may stay cold in the realm of death. But now... now it sensed hope, a strange and eerie thought. That the death though may be distant, it was possible. He was told there would be a choice sometime in the future. And his heart and mind, in concert, though to believe it real one of those choices will be precisely that. Death.

He yearned and longed, like a forlorn and scorned lover. And from that yearning and longing... guilt, eerily, emerged. He was a bundle of contradictions and paradoxes, he realized, a stew of contrasting thoughts, wants, desires, dreams, and hopes.

In that way, he was like a young child--blessed with innocence and ignorance, it wanted to be everything. An astronaut, a rock star, an actor, a professional driver, a superhero... he was similar. If he could, he would split himself in hundreds of clones, and have each one of them live out one his wants.

While the rest of the camp slumbered, he gazed hollowly at the kindling fire. They alighted it not for warmth but for light and due to the base habit. It was strange, yet... the familiarity worked to dispel the oddness of nature.

“You’re drifting again,” Asha sat next to him, leaning her head onto her hands, gazing at the fire.

“... you can tell?” he asked.

“Always,” she replied.

“That’s scary.”

“Talk to me.”

“What’s there to talk?” he mumbled. “A confession, perhaps? I’ve forgotten another thing.”

“What thing?”

“How I met Valen,” he said. “And Ryne. Even Derrek. Ah, I suppose it’s a few things.”

“Does it scare you?”

“... I’d be happier if it did,” he replied. “Rather... it feels as it should be. There’s a thousand other things I’ve forgotten. A few more... just fall right in line.”

“Then it’s fine,” she said. “If it feels as it should be. We’re bound to forget a few things as we grow older.”

“Hm,” Sylas mused, glancing at her. Though centuries passed in his mind, she didn’t change. If anything, she grew more... real, if it made any sense. As though, before, he was seeing an ethereal apparition of something unknowable, and now he was seeing what was there. “Is it just me, or do you keep glowin’ up with each new loop?”

“Ah, you and your sweet tongue,” she glanced back at him, smiling cheekily. “While words are nice, girls appreciate flowers, too, once in a while. Just so you know.”

“Ah, yes. Flowers. Abundance of those in the frozen north.”

“Would make the gift all the more special.”

“You can keep dreaming,” he said. “Nobody ever forbade it.”

“Talk to me more,” she said suddenly.

“There’s not much to say, honestly,” Sylas replied, taking a deep breath and looking up at the muddy sky. “Every loop’s... the same. Same faces. Same voices. Same stories. Every time I push a bit forward, but there are no more surprises. We’re halfway to the capital, and we’ve got, what? Thirteen-fourteen people set aside by the Queen? I’m just realizing how large of a moron I was. Had I just focused on the main crux of it all... I would have been done by now.”

“Perhaps,” she said. “But you would have missed on many things. This beautiful one among them, you know?”

“Yes, that’s true,” the two chuckled for a moment. “I should stop whining, I guess?”

“... it’s in human nature to complain, I’m afraid,” Asha said. “Whether they be kings or serfs, give them a glass of ale and listen to them profess their woes. It’s just that, with you, we don’t even need ale.”

“Kinda pointless when I can’t even get drunk anymore with ease,” Sylas sighed. “It takes nearly fifteen bottles, not to mention me consciously calming my energy. By the time I get drunk, I’d have pissed a new river into existence. Not worth it.”

“See? All his woes~~” she teased leisurely.

“What about your woes?” he asked. “Or are you as free-spirited as you seem?”

“My woes? Oh, I have woes a plenty. Bards could write an epic about my woes!”

“And I’m sure they did.”

“You’re disarming me, bit by bit,” she said. “It’s unfair.”

“What is?” he quizzed.

“How hard I have to work to make you smile,” she said. “And all you gotta do is flash me one of those smirks of yours and call me a flower or something else equally stupid and juvenile.”

“To be fair, my voice is a panty-dropper if there ever was one.”

“Haah...”

“That’s another confusing thing.”

“What is?”

“Even at centuries old,” he said. “I still find seven-year-old’s humor... well, humorous. Funny.”

“That’s because you never quite grew up,” she said. “You should work on that.”

“Nah. Imagine trying to come up with a new clever joke each and every new day. Sheesh. Sounds beyond exhausting,” he said. “I’ll stick to the true and tested body functions jokes. Like how my body functions when it sees yours--”

“Haah,” she interrupted with another sigh, looking at him askew. “You just never rest, do you?”

“You can sigh only so many times before that beautiful smile of yours breaks through,” he grinned at her. “Oh. Right. Speaking of news, I’ve grown another heart. So, now, I love you thrice as much as you love me. It’s not even poetic--it’s scientific, factual!”

“...”

“What?”

“Nothing,” she gave up and smiled, shaking her head. “I’m just imagining what it would be like if I could remember everything, like you. Just how many jokes and probes have you tested that I don’t remember?”

“... I test many things with each new death,” he said. “But jokes are all originals, thank you very much! And when it comes to probes, I’d be shocked if you don’t recall--”

“Stop. Enough. You’ve filled your quota of daily juvenile humor,” she interrupted yet again. “From now on, nothing but smart statements from you.”

“... I gotta take a piss.”

“...”

“What? My bladder’s full, and if I hold it in, it might get infected or something. That’s smart, no?”

“Haah...”

“Rest,” he said as he stood up. “It’s a long walk tomorrow.”

“How many more, Sylas?” she asked suddenly.

“Many what?”

“Loops,” she said. “Do you think, I mean. How many until you achieve whatever it is you are chasing?”

“...” he turned silent for a moment, gazing deeply into the ethereal eyes that, even to this day, he was unable to read completely. “I don’t know,” he replied honestly. “It will speed up, however. At some point, we’ll have to start waging battles--I imagine once we cross the Vastavva Plains, our blitz strategy won’t work anymore. As such, it will all depend on how well we do in battles. If we falter, it might take centuries. If not, perhaps decades.”

“You can end it all,” she said. “Possibly within a few years.”

“... what would be the point? I don’t know many things, Ash, but I am all but certain that once Valen is on the throne... I won’t be able to stand by the boy’s side. If I simply burn the Kingdom and put the fear of god into the citizens... it would all come crashing down within, what? A year? Maybe two? Besides, I’ll have battles of my own to fight. Likely two, possibly three, at least. Don’t worry. It will all work out.”

“...”

The two parted a moment later, sullen silence between them. He knew why she asked--after all, this quest... was a ticking time-bomb of sorts. For the two of them, that is. As soon as Valen becomes the King... Sylas’ quest would be completed. As for what awaits beyond, he was uncertain--but a dutiful life... was unlikely.

Then again, he recalled the Voyager’s words--that he would have a choice to make, at the end of it all. Perhaps that choice would be between dying and staying by Valen’s side. Or perhaps a choice between staying by the boy’s side or retiring into the mountains with Asha. Or something else entirely. He couldn’t know. Not yet, anyway. But time... time would come. To others it may seem like forever, but to him... it would be a blink. A blink and he would be standing at the crossroads, making that choice.