February 2022 Microfic! (Pretty late -__-)

Hey y'all! 

Okay, that's finally done! Geez, my schedule for personal stuff and my schedule for Patreon stuff have been really conflicting lately. Hopefully I'll be a little more ahead of the game next month!

I ended up doing a tiny bit of playing around with formal stuff in this one. Hopefully you enjoy how it turned out!

~Benn {Doomgender} Ends

Theme: ISEKAI

Prompt: The goddess in charge of your transmigration is taking great care in helping you test out your new body, which she made to match your soul

Suggested by Amelia (Thank you!!)

~3610 words

CW:

• Death/reincarnation
• Some arguing
• Not much to cw really, it’s pretty on the up and up

~~~

~~~RECONCILIATION (1)

With a grunt of exertion, I pull myself up to the ledge. The mountain before me fills the sunset sky, a stark and beautiful tower of stone. We’ve climbed so far already, through the foothills and the low cliffs at the mountain’s base. But, the closer we get to the main ascent, the bigger the mountain looks. The further away our goal seems.

I can’t let that discourage me, though.

“Hey! You forget about me?”

I lean over the ledge and give a cheery smile.

“Can’t manage it yourself?”

“I had to boost you up! Don’t act like you did it on your own!”

“Maybe if you tried asking nicer?”

“I’d rather starve down here.”

Laughing, I reach a hand down.

People say I was born under the star of a goddess that nobody knows. Usually, being favored by a god comes with perks. Maybe some kind of sacred quest, or a power to change the world. Or something like that.

But, nothing special ever happened to me.

No one was really sure what to do with me in the small town I grew up with. Too special to treat normally, too average to revere. It’s a weird problem to have

By the time I was twenty, there was one question that stood out above all others in my mind.

Why *was* I chosen? What does it mean? And what am I supposed to do?

We make camp on the ridge as darkness seeps over the land. Sena is cooking some of the supplies we brought with us. We’ll probably have to do a little hunting before we try the summit.

“Do you think she’s really up there?”

Sena doesn’t look up from the pan.

“Well, the scholar seemed pretty sure this is the right mountain, and they say she never leaves it, so she damn well better be. I do want to go home someday.”

I smile with a hint of sadness.

“You didn’t have to come with me, you know? I know it’s gotten a little out of hand.”

Now she looks up, with a comically flat expression.

“You’re not dying on a hill a hundred miles from home without me.”

Sena has been my best friend since we were kids. She’s the one person who never treated me like I was different, and she always looked out for me. When I told her I was going, she packed a bag before I could even try to stop her.

The nostalgic memories must be showing on my face.

“What’s on your mind?”

“Just appreciating you.”

“Pervert.”

“Hey, come on, I’m trying to be nice.”

“I know, I know, I’m the greatest thing that ever happened to you. If anything you should praise me more.”

Is she pouting? What’s got her in such a mood?

“You’re right, I should. You’re beautiful, talented, kind, and the only thing keeping me alive on this long and foolish quest.”

I see the hint of a smile in the light of the fire.

“It’s a start.”

~~~TRANSMIGRATION (1)

Fire licks the heels of the coals of my forge. The warmth of it prickles my skin as I work, patiently and silently.

……

………

“So, what are you doing, exactly?”

I ignore the friendly voice, and continue making measurements, and scrawling notes into my journal.

“Well, this is hardly polite. I know I’m dead, but I deserve some respect at least.”

I shoot the ethereal shape occupying my chair an annoyed look.

“I told you, you can sleep through this. Nothing that happens in my forge matters to what comes next.”

I look back down and jot down a few ideas.

“And besides, you’re not dead. Death is a transitory phase. You’re already on the other side of it.”

“Oh, am I being reincarnated?”

I don’t say anything.

“I said, am I being——“

“You really don’t know how to stay quiet, do you.”

I sigh, and put my charcoal pencil down.

“Sometimes, when a human dies suddenly, their soul becomes lost. Sometimes a lost soul becomes a ghost or a nature spirit. Sometimes the soul dissolves entirely, returning to the essence of the world itself. And rarely, it may fall through a crack in the world, and end up in another world entirely.”

“Oh, like an isekai?”

“……Yes. Like an isekai.”

“I’m kinda disappointed that you know what that meant if I’m being honest.”

I’ve been doing this a very long time, and I’ve heard this analogy before.”

“Aww, so I’m not special?”

“No you’re not,” I answer bluntly.

That works to shut them up for a little while. But, they are nothing if not persistent. 

~~~RECONCILIATION (2)

I wince with surprise as something cold hits my nose. Touching my face, my hand comes back wet.

Looking up at the sky, I say the obvious thing.

“It’s snowing.”

“We’ll have to get used to that. It’s only getting colder as we go.”

“Yeah.”

Sena looks pensive, pulling her cloak tighter around her.

“Well, we prepared the best we can. Hopefully this doesn’t turn into a blizzard.”

“You doing okay?”

She gives me a slightly tight smile.

“Just fretting a little. Nothing new.”

“What are you worrying about?”

I can see her trying to work up the nerve to say something.

“Sena, whatever it is, you can say it.”

“I—— do you have a plan for if this goes wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

I can count the heavy flakes of snow sticking to her hair in the moments before the heat of the fire melts them. She looks incredibly far away from me.

“We’re on a faraway mountain, without a map or a trail. We don’t know what signs we’re looking for, and we don’t know if what we’re trying to find even exists.”

I take a long sip of water from a flask.

“Are you regretting coming now?”

With a start, Sena stands, and looks out into the snow, through it, onto the far distant valley.

“What I’m regretting is letting you come here at all.”

“It’s not a matter of letting me. I need to do this.”

She looks over to me, a soft sadness bleeding into the corners of her eyes.

“What if we just went back home?”

“What are you afraid of us finding?”

She’s not looking at the valley. She’s not looking at me. I can’t see what she sees.

“I’m afraid of the truth.”

~~~TRANSMIGRATION (2)

“So, if you’re so friendly with those other souls, why were you so reluctant to talk to me at first?”

I’m deciding which materials to use for the spiritual container I’m building, so I’m reluctant to play along. But, they’ll just keep trying if I don’t say something…

“As I said, I’ve been doing this a long time. I used to spend more time getting to know souls before letting them move on.”

“But now you don’t have time…?”

“It’s not a matter of time. My workshop exists outside of time. I have an endless number of tasks, and and endless period in which to complete them.”

“So why be cold? Did you get a bad human?”

“No, I just. There’s no point. You won’t remember any of this one you’re reborn.

I pause, but the soul stays quiet for once. I consider ending it there, but something pushes me to elaborate.

“Your past life, you’ll carry it with you, deep inside. But everything that happens in my workshop will not be inscribed on your soul. Nothing that happens in here matters. So, I’ll do my work as fast as I can.

“……”

Silently, I begin to pour an amount of echo salts onto my scale. Enough time passes that I suspect that they had finally gone back to sleep.

But——

“I think that’s a sad way to live.”

With a sideways glare, I search through my cabinet for winter coals.

“Do not think to constrain me to human metrics. I live my life on my terms, and am satisfied with that.”

“Well, I’m sorry for making judgments. I don’t know you, really. It just struck me, when you lifted me up out of that dark sea I was floating in.”

“……what struck you…?”

“When I saw your face. You looked so lonely. My first thought when I woke up was, I wonder if I can make her smile.”

With a clunk, I knock over a bottle which rolls across my workbench with a subtle, slow rattle.

“You are presumptuous.”

“Yeah, I know.”

But, they’re right.

I didn’t stop making connections with the souls that pass through my workshop out of fatigue.

How many times have I been——

If reduce my existence down to the barest phenomenon needed to bring them into their new life, then there’s no one to be——

I was just tired of being——

“Forgotten,” I whisper to the still air.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

~~~RECONCILIATION (3)

With some measure of disbelief, I find myself standing at an unadorned stone door, barely visible through the snow.

“We actually found it.”

“I think you deserve all the credit for this one.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think anyone could have found the way without divine favor. Anyone else would just wander on this cursed mountain until they gave up or died of exposure.”

My eyebrows scrunch when she speaks. Sena has been acting especially strange for the last few days. I offered a few times to go on alone, but she always refused. I wish I understood what to do, but failing that I’ve continued to push us forward.

“Well, lets clear the snow then. No use waiting any longer.”

“I’m not going in.”

“…what?”

“It’s not my place. This is your quest. I’m just a tagalong.”

“You worked every bit as hard for this as I did!”

The taste of bitterness on her tongue.

“I was only here to make sure you didn’t die on the way. Oh chosen one, face your destiny at last………

I’m going home.”

“Sena!”

She turns to face me, a face that looks a fierce as it does fragile.

“Sena, why are you being like this..? Tell me how you’re feeling, I want to understand!”

My voice wavers.

Something breaks.

“I’m

sorry————“

Like a winter bird, she vanishes in the snow before I can make another move.

“Do you… think I won’t come back…?”

Anger lights in my lungs.

I just want to talk to this person who marked me.

How is that wrong?!

I’m not going anywhere!

I stand there in the whipping wind, but Sena doesn’t return.

“FINE!”

I yell as loud as I can, the barest gasp of breath against the endless sound of the storm.

I’ll show her, then.

Near frenzy, I begin to shovel at the snowbank with my gloved hands, tools and sense forgotten.

I’ll meet my destiny, and then I’ll find her again and show her that there was never anything to be afraid of———!

The heavy stone doors slide open reluctantly as I shove against them. My shoulders and arms ache already from dealing with the snow, but I don’t stop. I can’t. I’m too close.

A cold blue light greets me as I walk inside.

~~~TRANSMIGRATION (3)

“Don’t be afraid.”

I try to give a reassuring smile, but I must be rusty because the soul bursts out laughing. I feel my cheeks tint.

“Don’t think that you can just make fun of me! I’m still a goddess.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you’re just really cute when you try to look  friendly. It’s like you’ve never smiled in your life.”

“I’m going to crush your spirit to dust and scatter it to the winds.”

“No you’re not. Now come on, pour that stuff on me.”

Carefully, I lift the crucible over the soul’s spirit form.

“Hey, why don’t you use like, protective gloves or something for that?”

I look at the superheated ceramic scorching my palms, hot enough to cut to bone in an instant for any mortal body.

“It’s a little clumsy if I don’t use my hands. Besides, I lost feeling a long time ago.”

“…When I get a body, do you think I could give you a hug?”

“W-why?!”

“I dunno, you keep saying things that make me think you could use one.”

“Presumptuous...”

I tip the crucible, and molten metal pours like honey, flowing slowly over the hollow space in the air that the soul occupies. A mixture of impossible things, a metal made up of the very fact of existence. It will nail them down to this world, allow this transient soul to be more than just a passerby on the brink of fading out.

With my tools I make them real, and enter them into the registry of   lives, that they may be reincarnated as a person who will live in this world.

A person who belongs in this world that I am a part of.

I can feel the friendly soul watching me. Trusting me. Even, thinking fondly of me. 

That look is far more painful than the crucible against my skin.

Soon, it will be done, and they will leave.

My forge roars, and the heat beckons that moment ever closer.

~~~RECONCILIATION (4)

I sit on a bench aside a cold forge. Alone but for tools and coals and the snow I tracked in with me. The small room feels as if it’s holding it’s breath. I can hardly breathe myself.

It’s hard to tell for how long, since there is no dust in a place like this.

But, it has been empty a long time.

I didn’t believe it at first. The room felt so familiar, I knew I must be in the right place. I searched it thoroughly, looking for a door or a passage or some kind of note or sign or anything at all to make this journey mean anything.

But the room is just a lonely live-in workshop, devoid of personal touches. Everything is where it should be, perfectly orderly aside from a smithing hammer, dropped and forgotten by the wall.

The smell of long extinguished ashes linger in the stale air.

Leaning my head back, I try to stop the disappointment from drowning me with a chuckle.

“I guess I wasn’t special after all.

I even failed the quest I made up myself.”

I fold up, my head in my hands as I try to stop myself from shaking.

“I don’t understand. She felt so close. I was so sure this was right. That she was beside me, guiding my steps……”

The words hang in the air like they were pinned in place.

Time stands still.

……

………

I throw myself off the bench, and nearly trip over myself as I break out into the fastest run I can manage.

~~~TRANSMIGRATION

The doors are closed again.

I’m alone.

The last words that soul spoke to me, before they were released into the world to be born into the world as a new person linger on the tips of my ears.

It’s been a while since they left, but I haven’t been able to focus since.

It’s infuriating.

How dare they.

I go out of my way to be kind, and to the very end they insult me. Act as if they could possibly understand me. As if they know what I want.

I pick up my hammer,

and put it down again. 

I haven’t chosen a new soul to work with yet. My labor is as endless as the time I have to complete it. I know that I have to keep going.

But I just can’t.

I’m angry, angry at them, angry at the black pit that’s opened in my gut. Angry at the world.

I pick up my hammer.

I just have to do it.

I’ve done it before, for more time than would make sense to a human. More time than can be understood in language.

I can do it.

…

Why don’t you come with me? 

I feel like,

you could really use some fresh air.

And,

We could have so much fun!

We could go on an adventure together!

Wouldn’t that be nice?

Just the two of us,

facing the world,

side by

side——

……

I stare off into space, no longer seeing whats in front of me.

I close my eyes, and take a breath.

“…fuck it.”

I throw the hammer. It bounces off the wall with a bang, leaving not so much as a crack in the stone.

Still furious, I storm to the doors to my forge, and cast them wide once more————

~~~RECONCILIATION

The snow has stopped by the time I find her.

She sits alone on a steep overlook, watching the sun rise as her feet hang down over a sheer cliffside.

Out of breath, lungs aching from the sharpened edges of the cold air, I set my pack down my hers. And then I, very carefully, take a seat next to her.

We don’t say anything for a while.

“……so——“

“Did you find what you wanted?”

“……do you remember? That day, in that room?”

Sena is quiet.

“Do you?”

“Yeah, kinda. I can remember my last life clearly now, but the time between is hazy. What about you?”

She sighs.

“I don’t know that I ever fully forgot. I don’t know that I could. I put it so far out of my mind, that I never really could think about it until we started getting close to journey’s end.”

I nod, letting the trickling sunshine touch my face. The wind has finally died down, and I feel warmth for the first time in days.

“So, you really did follow me, huh.”

Sena pouts.

“Disappointed? Going to tell me you didn’t mean it? That you were just being nice?”

Shaking my head, I turn to look at her, a real smile breaking out across my face.

“Of course I meant it. And look, I was right. Going on an adventure with you was a lot of fun.”

Her breathing is a little shaky, like she might start crying again.

“……Even with how it ended…?”

“That wasn’t how it ended. That was just a little scuffle in the middle. We’ve got a long road home, after all.”

I hear her swallow, and take a deep breath.

“C-careful how you talk to me. I am still a goddess.”

“No you’re not.”

She glares at me, and I shrug in response.

“Not right now. Right now, you’re just a person. A person who has always been beside me, and shown me the way. A person who has always looked out for me, even when I get myself into trouble. A person who I l-love.”

I trip over the last line a little, but it doesn’t seem to hit her any less hard. Her voice cracks.

“I’m, not, human, you know.”

“And I’m a ghost from a different world given a second chance at life. It’s not that different.”

She gives a slightly choked up laugh.

“It’s pretty different.”

“Eh, not that different.”

Thump.

She falls against my shoulder suddenly.

I look down at her and

she looks up at me and,

as the sun crests the ridge, 

we share our first kiss. 

And, we’ll figure out the rest later.

We’ve got our whole life ahead of us.

~~~~PRELUDE

There is a cold room made of stone either inside a mountain or in a hole in the sky. It is possible that the room is a place you can go to if you can brave the cold and snow of the deep north, and it is possible that one of the stars at night is actually the light of the forge that lies in the heart of that small room.

It’s likely that both are true at once.

In the room lived something shaped like a woman. She was built in that very room, and had never left it. Leaving the room is not something she had ever considered. The room may well be an extension of her body, the only place she felt she belongs.

Her true name is unknown, but she has been has been sung of in three historical ballads, and she is spoken of in an aside within The Path With Four Ways, a famously obtuse epic penned by the second century poet Ranbhest.

The poem describes a time long ago wherein the Lord Of All Gods demanded the presence of every divinity to celebrate his betrothal to the daughter of the King of Catis. It is said that instead of coming herself, she sent as a wedding present, an ugly but well crafted knife, with the name of the Lord carved in the blade. In the included letter, she told him that she would not be attending unless he would allow her to give the knife the sheath it was meant for. He did not press the matter further.

The woman—— the goddess, is an unparalleled craftsman. Despite her most famous appearance in history, her favored medium to work in is not weaponry (though she was quite skilled at it). She is instead, a crafter of fate.

There are those souls who wander lost into our world have no fate of their own, no future. The gravity of causality may of course always be resisted, but without the flow of the river to set one’s path by, one may wander lost forever. Thus, the goddess gives those lost souls a path to walk, or to stray from. It is not out of kindness. It is simply her own fate to do so.

This is the story of the first time she questioned that fate, and took on a human life, with a human love.

~~~