The Second Meeting

It was Simon's first time sleeping in this new world. While he had entered just before the previous night, he hadn't felt tired and instead wandered around the main streets of the city, trying to find his way to and ensure he could find the Illusion's Tankard when morning came.

The bed itself was remarkably comfortable, the mattress and pillows both remarkably soft. While the room was decidedly not lavish, they had certainly valued their leader's good sleep. The darkness of the room was slowly encroaching on the sole candle that weakly burned on the desk beside the bed. Soon enough it would be completely dark. He had expected to fall asleep ages ago, yet the exhaustion and excitement within him roiled loud enough to keep him awake up to now. He hoped that the complete approach of night would serve to quiet them.

So it was that he lay there for hours, even as the light dimmed to nothing he found himself turning to and fro, searching desperately for sleep that wouldn't come. His mind jumped between the horror of the morning, the wonder of a new world, the encroaching and overwhelming threat, and of those conversations in the dining hall. The thoughts felt like they would never slow, but slowly, gradually, they dulled, quieted by his exhaustion. Sleep finally found him soon after.

"Well, good night my little Knight, what time do you call this? It's nearly three in the morning, and here I've been expecting you for five full hours. The day must really have set your mind on fire."

A familiar feminine voice called out to Simon as he opened his eyes. The sheet of darkness that hung over the room was replaced with a sheet of bright white, a good compliment to the similarly blank expanse that seemed to drift away into infinity below.

"Over here darling."

Simon turned and found himself face to face with the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her hair was deep golden, flowing and drifting through the air as if it were water, creating almost a halo around her enchanting face. Her eyes were a deep Azure, glowing brighter even than the infinite whiteness that surrounded the two of them. Simon could tell she was wearing some sort of red and purple dress from the head down, yet it was as if the entire world blurred if his eyes ever left her face, leaving him unable to identify it in any more detail than that.

"Oh you look terribly confused. But then you have certainly been through quite a lot in these last twenty four hours. Would you like a light snack? I have several biscuits, they're ephemeral so it won't matter in reality, but that doesn't stop it being delightfully tasty."

Simon frowned, opening his mouth to answer with a question of his own, but no sound would come out. He could tell he should be producing sound but It was as if he had been completely muted.

"You've forgotten already Simon? You talk with your thoughts here! It's quite similar to - though not exactly the same as - magic actually. Should help you practice a bit. Give it a go, try saying 'Hello, Mistress Hethoria'."

Simon wasn't likely to follow those instructions but he did follow her guidance. After a few attempts at 'hello' he finally managed to produce a sound. "H-l-o" was about all that came out but he felt the idea got across. 

"Well, it's a good attempt. Give it a few more and you'll be speaking as if you've been doing it your entire life."

Hethoria was certainly larger than life. While she couldn't quite be described as bubbly, her personality was undoubtedly performative and excitable, quite the opposite of what you'd imagine from a God tens of thousands of years old.

"W-y -m h-re -gain?"
"Well, yes, a few more attempts."
"Why am I here again?"
"Very well done Simon. And to answer your question, which was a bit rudely put I might add, it's because you're asleep. It's when we get to talk."
"Are you saying that I'll be meeting you here every night from now on?"
"Yes I am, I do hope that we're good company. We'll be spending so long together after all. Now, why don't you ask me those more important questions you've been waiting all day for. 'Why did you choose me?' or 'Why didn't you explain anything?', 'Why didn't you save me from those soldiers?' That sort of thing."

"How do you know what I've been thinking? I never said any of that to anyone." She may be the God he had a contract with, and may have treated him well so far, but something about her made Simon cautious nonetheless.

"Well, I am the Goddess of Knowledge you know. I know nearly everything. Also yes, it does mean I can read your mind whenever I want. And I do so happen to think I'll want to quite often. I can't pretend you're the deepest man I've ever met, but your thoughts certainly are entertaining."

Simon balked at her attitude. She'd flagrantly admitted to spying on his internal monologue and hadn't even muttered so much as a sorry.

"Oh don't be so dramatic by calling it spying, to put it in terms from your world it's more like eavesdropping on your toddler when they first go to school. There's a giddy fear there, it's intoxicating." She paused her monologue and approached him. Her gaze felt like it was freezing him in place, even as he urged himself to move back he stood there unflinching. Now standing so close he could hear her breathe, she stood a full head above him, making him feel small in comparison to her presence. She put one finger under his chin and lifted.

"Besides my Knight, I own you now. You signed yourself away to me when you accepted my deal." She leaned closer to him. "I could do whatever I wished with you and you wouldn't have a right to refuse." She walked away from him as suddenly as she had approached, returning to exactly where she had been standing earlier.

"Rest assured though, I don't have the slightest plan to interfere with you. Go do whatever it is you want and I'll entertain myself by watching, and all you have to do is offer a few little peeks into your head. I think that's a perfectly fair deal for both the power and second chance at life I've given you. I'll even give you a tip, Varok's Knights won't be attacking with the majority of his forces, they're busy trying to deal with our brother Aialon over to the west, quite the conflict they've got going on, your chances of winning aren't particularly bad really."

Hethoria finally stopped talking, the silence was deafening. Simon breathed, trying desperately to formulate something at all to say in response to it all but was left stumped. Instead he decided to change the topic, back to another of the questions she's helpfully suggested to him earlier.

"You  wanted me to ask this yourself, so why did you choose me? Thousands of people die every day, and this world has plenty of people to choose from too, Sonia was right there as an option! So why some guy who's never been in a fight before, who didn't have anything special going for him at all?"

Her immediate response was to smirk, then burst out into an unbelieving laugh. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's just so entertaining how you downplay yourself. No, I can't say you're the best choice I could possibly have gotten, there are plenty of better commanders out there, and Sonia would certainly have handled herself well enough. There were, in the end, three things that made me choose you.

She began to move again, circling Simon like a predator waiting for its opportunity to pounce. "The first reason is simple, your tactical abilities aren't terrible. Those games you play are decent training, and while I'm afraid they won't even afford a comparison to someone with experience, they give you something to nurture. I mentioned that the force approaching you isn't overwhelming and I meant it, you should be able to pull through with your current skills."

She moved one step close to him, her orbit around him growing tighter every rotation. Simon couldn't help but grow nervous.

"The second is also simple. Your magical talents are exceedingly strong, you know exactly how to rely on instinct when you need to, and when to think something through. They're both very desirable traits in higher level magic. Very suitable for a Knight. There's some genetic aspect involved as well, of course. I've seen better in that regard but yours is certainly not something to scoff at. I'd call it cute even."

She stopped in front of him, even closer than she had been before, leaning down so they were eye level.

"The Third is the simplest of all I think. It's because you were available. I'd gotten bored of not having someone to peek in on so decided to look for someone new to replace the old one, lo and behold there you were. Freshly dead after doing such a good deed, it brought a tear to my ephemeral eye, so I figured why not. And well, voila."

Her smile was sickly sweet, somehow both comforting and mocking at the same time. "You weren't chosen darling, it was just the right place at the right time. It's up to you to show your worth, and I am doing desperately little else than watching."

Simon wanted to protest, to fight back against her overwhelming presence, to find some way to argue for himself, but before he could even begin he felt himself lurch and fall into the void.

"Day's breaking sweetie, remember, enjoy yourself!"