Path of Dragons

"How's it going?" Alyssa asked as she stepped into the room. She kicked aside a pile of old clothes. "Gross."

She looked identical to how she had back in high school. In fact, the longer he looked at her, the more he realized that she was wearing the same outfit she'd worn the day before he'd left for Hawaii. A black Soundgarden tee-shirt, ripped jeans, and a pair of Doc Martens.

Later, she would lament that it was just a phase, that she developed a better fashion sense during her last couple of years in college. But Elijah knew she'd kept that tee-shirt. And she still favored those big, clunky boots.

Or she had before she'd died.

None of it made sense. Alyssa was gone, so he knew it was a memory. But if it was, then his floor shouldn't have been decorated with dirty clothes. Instead, they should have been shoved into a pair of old suitcases that had once belonged to his father.

"What is going on?" he asked.

"Isn't it obvious?" she asked, sitting next to him on the bed. The springs creaked from the extra weight. "I'm here to help you deal."

"I don't under-"

Before he could finish the sentence, a wave of pain swept through him. He didn't even realize he'd collapsed until he came back to himself, curled on the floor as his sister knelt next to him. Her hand on his back felt comforting. Familiar. His mom had done the same.

"Ugh," he groaned, unclenching cramping muscles. "That sucked."

"Won't be the first," she said. "But in the meantime, we need to talk."

"About what?" Elijah asked.

"I think you know."

Elijah sighed, then sat up. He leaned against the bed, his forearms on his raised knees. He knew precisely what she wanted to talk about. It was the single most traumatic event of his life. Worse than all the pain he'd suffered. Worse than the deaths of his parents. It was a defining moment, and one he'd never truly dealt with.

"Your death."

"Bingo," she said, sitting next to him. "For what it's worth, I do appreciate the Temple of Virtue. A little embarrassing that it was dedicated to me, but I like what it's become. You should do more stuff like that. It would help."

Elijah had thought much the same thing, and on multiple occasions. His resolution to help the less fortunate came to mind, but he'd also vowed to heal people more than once. But at some point, he'd lost sight of those vows.

"I wish I had the time," he admitted. "There's too much else going on. I feel like –"

Another wave of pain swept through him, twisting his mind and body into knots. It didn't fade for a few long minutes, but even when it was gone, the shadow remained. With tear-streaked cheeks, he glanced at his sister. "I wish you were here."

"Me too," she admitted, though Elijah couldn't help but wonder if that was something his sister would have actually said. More likely, it was what he'd want her to say. But then again, she had a wife and child. Perhaps she'd give up whatever afterlife she was currently enjoying if it meant she could spend more time with them.

"What do I do?" he asked. "How do I make all this work?"

Normally, he wouldn't have asked those questions aloud, but he knew he was stuck in his own mind. None of it was real. And even if it had been, Alyssa had always been the one person to whom he could truly open up. She knew him, inside and out. She'd been there when he was born, and she'd seen him at his best. And at his worst. There was no point hiding anything from her.

"You're asking the wrong questions."

He glanced at her, asking, "What do you mean?"

"We're not here to talk about the future. I wish I could help with that," she said. "We're here to help you cope with the past."

"I'm fine."

"Elijah," she said, reaching out to place her hand over his. "You are not fine. You are the furthest thing from fine. I know you pretend you don't regret the things you've done. But I also know you well enough to recognize when you're lying to yourself."

"I've done what I've had to do."

"I don't dispute that," she said. Was that really what Alyssa might have said? Or was that just what he wanted her to say? "The point is that just because you had to do these things, it doesn't mean that you're okay with having to do them. Let's look back at the first one. When –"

"Those hunters deserved it," Elijah insisted. "They killed that guardian just for a little experience. They didn't have to do it."

"That's not what I'm talking about."

"What? Are you talking about Cabbot? He and his mercenaries invaded my island and –"

"Before that."

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"I don't…I don't know what you're talking about."

"The panther."

"I…it was a mercy killing," Elijah breathed. "She was dying, no matter what I did. I couldn't save her."

"That doesn't make it hurt less. All this time, and you could never even acknowledge that she was female. Don't you think that's a sign that you weren't dealing with it?" Alyssa asked.

Elijah started to answer, but he was wracked by another wave of pain that left him panting. Once he was able to think, he realized that Alyssa was right. He'd never even thought of the panther in anything but the vaguest terms. Always it. Never she. Was that an effort to distance himself from the guilt?

"She," he muttered to himself, and that word, simple as it was, brought with it a torrent of crippling grief. Suddenly, he felt like he was back on that beach, surrounded by attackers and cradling the panther's head in his lap. His ethera was spent, and she was dying.

If only he'd focused a little more on his progression, perhaps he'd have a better heal. Or more ethera. Something. Anything. But back then, he'd been so focused on his own survival that he'd not even considered how his actions – or lack thereof – would affect those around him.

And the panther had paid the price.

It would have been easy to make excuses, to tell himself that he couldn't have known what would happen. Yet, Elijah didn't go down that road. Instead, he wallowed in the consequences, letting them envelop him.

Only when Alyssa spoke did he realize how far he had fallen. "It's not your fault," she said, her hand on his back. Her voice was soothing. Her presence, comforting. He could even smell her, that mix of cloves and floral body wash that, in retrospect, was so specific and extremely familiar.

"It wasn't not my fault, either."

"Maybe. But you need to forgive yourself. Accept that it happened and integrate it into who you are. Let it inform your future, but don't dwell on the past."

That hadn't come from Alyssa. Not even in memory. It hadn't originated with Elijah either, but rather, from the guides he'd read to prepare for his mind cultivation. He'd thought he was prepared for it, that his plan would remain firmly in mind, but all of those plans had been scattered by the tidal wave of anguish he'd endured.

Over the next few minutes, Alyssa repeated the same mantra, coaxing him into acceptance. With every passing moment, it felt like a tiny weight had lifted until the burden was gone.

"Not gone. It's in here," Alyssa said, placing her hand over his chest. "It's part of you."

That was the key, Elijah knew. Keeping all that trauma separate was easier. It allowed him to continue functioning. But in the end, it wasn't a solution. Instead, it was like pouring an anticoagulant in a gunshot wound. Maybe it helped keep him going for a while, but eventually, he'd have to deal with the injury itself.

So it went. When he confronted one traumatic memory, accepting his guilt and grief, another took its place. Some, like killing the hunters or slaughtering island invaders, were easy to accept. He felt entirely justified for those instances. But what had happened in Easton? That was much more difficult.

Because he knew he was wrong.

"Killing Roman and the others responsible…I don't care about that," Elijah admitted in the wake of another wave of pain that left him seizing on the floor. He hadn't really recovered from it, but he'd forced himself upright and forged ahead to the memories surrounding Easton. "But all the others? I didn't really discriminate. I didn't even try to avoid conflict. I just…I wanted to kill something. I needed to make someone pay."

Some of that guilt was mitigated by his self-imposed pilgrimage. But certainly not all. As was his pattern, he'd shifted all of those emotions into his trauma facet, knowing that it was the only way he could keep going.

But the cost always came due.

Now, he had no choice but to pay it. Anything else, and not only would he fail to advance his mind cultivation, but now that he was already engaged with the process, cutting it off would likely result in his death. Or worse.

The idea of ending up a vegetable, especially after everything he'd gone through, was his worst nightmare.

So, one by one, he dutifully dealt with the consequences of his actions. Sometimes, he spent long hours talking it out with Alyssa. Other times, he simply skated through them, aided by his internal justification.

From the death of the panther to his most recent slaughter of an entire army, Elijah cycled through the process of acceptance and incorporation until, at last, there was nothing left.

By that point, weeks had passed, he was certain. More in that odd and unchanging dreamscape.

"It occurs to me that I could have avoided this by just talking it out in the real world," Elijah said. But he knew that would never happen. Sure, he'd tried therapy more than once in his past, and sometimes it helped. But at the end of the day, his current world didn't really lend itself to that sort of thing.

Maybe he could talk to Sadie.

Or some of his friends.

But Elijah wasn't willing to burden them with his problems. After all, they had enough on their plates as it was. Sadie was currently building an army. Kurik, Oscar, and the others were fighting their way through a Primal Realm. And as supportive as Nerthus wanted to be, he was still an alien. The way he looked at the world was so different from how Elijah did that his input wouldn't really help all that much.

"You know that just talking about it is the big part," Alyssa said, still sitting beside him. "They don't have to actually do anything. Just listen."

"Pass," Elijah said.

"You're too stubborn for your own good," she stated.

"I learned it from you."

She glanced at him, then smiled. "Fair enough. Maybe we're both lost causes."

Elijah almost forgot that she was effectively a figment of his imagination. But not quite. He gave her a smile of his own. "I wish this didn't have to end."

"Really? You've basically been torturing yourself all this time."

"You know what I mean," Elijah sighed. "You and me. I wish there was some way…I don't know…to bring you back, I guess."

"Not possible."

"I know," he admitted. He'd looked it up, too. He'd even paid a ridiculous amount of ethereum for an appropriate set of guides. With enough power, resurrection was possible, but only shortly after a person had died. Once they crossed a certain threshold, anything that came back was no longer a person. Just an animated corpse. "Doesn't mean I can't wish it."

They fell silent, and as they did, the room began to fade. Bit by bit, hour by hour, the setting turned to mist until, finally, only Elijah and Alyssa remained, sitting side by side on a cloud of nothing.

"I guess it's time for a goodbye," Alyssa said.

"Yeah."

"Don't waste your opportunities, Elijah. Cherish the people you love. Save the people you can. And please, for the love of God, stop beating yourself up for things you can't change."

She gripped his shoulder, looking at him for a long moment before bringing him in for a tight hug.

"I'll try."

"I'm proud of you," she whispered in his ear. "I always knew you had greatness in you."

He clutched her back, trying desperately to hold onto something he knew would soon fade. He breathed, "Goodbye, Alyssa."

And then, she was gone.

A second later, Elijah was once again floating in the center of the cave. Ethera and vitality swirled around him, but he didn't notice it. Not for a few minutes, during which he tried to come to terms with the experience.

But then, he realized that the job was only half done. His facets had been shattered. He'd dealt with the buildup of trauma. And now, he needed to implement the new vision for his mind. Resolved, he got back to work.