What do you want on that doomed world?

Yes, I wanted to answer Elä’Ahrûna’s question, but my thoughts were thick like molasses and my emotions a confusing jumble. The verdict that I was stranded here without ever having a chance to return back home to see my brother or my master again had caught me offguard, and so I just reacted to the last syllables that had stuck in my mind.

“Doomed world? What do you mean by that?” I whispered, in fear of the answer.

“Apologies, I misspoke. I didn’t mean planet Earth, but the human society in your reality.”

I stared at her, still in shock, although it shouldn’t have surprised me that much in hindsight!

“You mean, humans on Earth are doomed?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” she answered terribly nonchalantly. “Human numbers are still climbing, gaining one billion every duodecade or so. Are there enough resources for all of them?”

“Well, that’s difficult to say...”

“Only under one pretense:” she cut me off. “If the majority of humans can learn in time to live a frugal, sustainable life, be modest towards other lifeforms and renounce all unnecessary luxury and consumption. How realistic do you think that is?”

I sighed deeply, lowered my gaze and slowly shook my head. The chances were nearly ZERO and I knew it!

“Have you seen timelines and realities where humanity had prevailed? How did they pull it off?”

A quick, amused smile played around her dark lips.

“Last answer, then please answer my question! Your timeline is terribly late in their efforts to get back on track. Most realities, where humanity not only survived but also prospered, took much bigger efforts, and many decades earlier in some cases. Your former contemporaries are simply too late and make just too little effort. Yes, pockets of civilization may survive and thrive again, having learned the bitter lesson that the higher you rise, the deeper you fall. In most cases anyway. But the number of scenarios, where your civilization successfully survives, is dwindling the farther your timeline progresses. I am sorry that I have no better message for you. But now tell me: why do you want to return there, of all places?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Lily finally broke her silence before I had a chance to find the right words.

“It’s his home, for Yurá’s sake! He may just have two dearest souls there he cares about, and who hopefully also care about him, but that is more than enough! His society may commit heinous crimes against their environment and even their own kin, but it’s his society, the one that shaped him, that formed him, that made him the person he is now! It may be doomed, but until recently he shared all of its fate and destiny! You can’t have forgotten the deep bonds that form that way!”

Her voice was raw with emotion, but Elä’Ahrûna didn’t react to the beastess’s plea. She gazed firmly at me, registering every reaction of me to every word from Lily. Of course I couldn’t agree more to everything she just said - even if I had phrased it a little bit differently…

“As Lily said, there are just two people I care deeply about.” I therefore added, trying to find my own wording. “My master and my older brother, who were always kind to me, even if they couldn’t always understand or follow me. Nevertheless they accepted me as I am and took care of me when I needed it most. But I understand, there is no way for me to return home when the laws of physics forbid it. But please, is there maybe a way to let them know that I’m alive and well? I have to accept it if not, but if…”

The elder daimon sat motionless, her proud, aristocratic face like carved marble. Blue marble if that existed here…

“Your request is noble and it could be done.” she finally said after pondering for a while.

“I can do even more: I could duplicate your core essence and let it reincarnate again on Earth, if that is what you want. You, as you are now, would live your further life here on Liyúra, but a duplicate of your soul could also live on Earth. Again: if that is what you want.”

“That is possible?” asked Reeza for the first time in a long while, in complete disbelief.

“That isn’t the power of a greater sentient anymore. That is the power of a goddess!”

Elä’Ahrûna’s face showed the brightest smiles of all I've seen so far.

“Indeed, you are right! I have transcended the boundaries of form, matter and mind, and have ascended into godhood not too long ago.”

Well, that was quite the statement! Reeza and Yára stared at the daimon woman in shock and awe, and Lily just snorted.

“I’ve already heard so much crap today, but that really does it! If you’ll excuse me, I have better things to do than listening to this fraud any longer!” she said contemptuously.

But when she wanted to get up, she simply couldn't! Her bottom refused to rise, as much as she strained her muscles.

“What are you doing to me?! Release me this instant!!” she bellowed desperately. It looked so involuntarily comical that I had difficulty in keeping a straight face.

Yára was not so successful and burst out in a loud, clear, bell-like laughter.

“That's what you get for insulting a goddess!” she laughed. “Be happy it's nothing more serious!”

“Don’t just sit there and laugh, help me instead!” yelled the absolutely not amused beastess in return.

Yára, still laughing, shook her head.

“I don't think any power on Liyúra would be able to help you right now. Except for one perhaps. If you apologize. Ain’t that right?”

Expectantly she peeked at Elä’Ahrûna who also bore a slight amused expression on her face.

“Why should I apologize?! Everyone knows that gods and goddesses don't possess a physical body! That they can't possess a physical body! Yet here she sits, spouting incomprehensible nonsense and grinning smugly! Don't tell me, you seriously believe her?!”

The atmosphere instantly grew icy, a look of terror washing over the faces of Yára and Reeza. Only the accused stayed absolutely quiet and composed.

“You could have asked.” she just said.

“You could have simply asked before accusing me of something that you couldn't possibly know. But indeed, you are right: gods and goddesses don't have a physical body. Yet here I am, sitting with you in the flesh and claiming otherwise.”

She sighed and Lily, still struggling to get up, suddenly shot up in the air like a champagne cork - and stayed there, floating like a furry blimp, arms flailing, but of course failing to do anything against her misery.

“Please don't hurt her.” Reeza pleaded. “She isn't a bad or a particularly blasphemous person. It was …just too much for her.”

“Do not worry, little fledgling, she will be alright.” said the presumable goddess. “She just needs a little time out. I will return her to the ground once we are finished. Now, where were we?”

“How did you ascend to godhood?” asked Yára. “And how is it possible that you stand before us when gods and goddesses are without any physical form?”

“Right! Well, the catalyst was Vilém’s summoning. You may guess how hard and draining it was. I could not have done it anywhere else than at the northern summit of Liyúra with its giant deposits of manærite sitting there just at shallow depths. Despite that I severely overexerted myself, and the summoning went nearly wrong. Partly because of that you arrived slightly off course in a different location than I had planned.”

She exhaled deeply.

“In any case, I was on the verge of death, delirious, my mana completely off balance, burning and freezing at the same time. For days I just lied there, suspended between life and death, until the golden dragon arrived. He saved me, helped me to balance out my mana, nurtured my body, and above all helped me in the ascension process. With his aid I transferred my old unascended soul as a duplicate back into my old body, whereas my main spiritual core ascended into godhood. Otherwise my body would have been destroyed in the process.”

She pointed at herself.

“You see here my old body, containing just a spiritual duplicate of my old self, mind, soul, memories and all. My real being is ascended into the realm of godhood and presently unattainable and unapproachable for you, though I still harbor a strong connection to it.”

Now she pointed at me.

“It is similar to what I had proposed to you, without the ascension of course. The other main difference is, that your duplicate wouldn’t regain its old body, but reincarnate into a new body in a fresh female womb as an unborn infant, an embryo as you may call it, in your old reality, at a place and time I let you choose. This I can offer to you, if you really want to fulfill your obligation with your old life and the few people you still care about. Do you want that?”