§
I’ve been sleeping more often since my marriage, for a very simple and almost insidious reason. I’ll snuggle with Mireia after she feeds me or, well, other things, and Rod tucks the two of us in before settling in himself. It’s warm. I sleep.
I don’t need even vaguely as much sleep as a mortal, but once I doze off, I don’t easily wake up without a reason. Oh, if I’ve slept a lot lately, I won’t stay asleep long, but somewhere in the wee hours, I will spend a long, drowsy time, up to an hour or two, not quite waking back up.
I had been in that condition a while when my mind abruptly sharpened and the texture of my existence shifted. Quite suddenly, I was far less the ‘Tiana’ who prayed for answers and much more the near-Senhion who largely understood what was going on.
“Illusory Reality,” I identified it.
“That’s right,” a familiar voice agreed.
I squirmed my way out from beneath Mireia’s head so I could sit up, remembering belatedly that she robbed me of all my clothing earlier and barely grabbing the covers in time.
The HR Manager, who held a paperback with a lurid cover like the ones my Earthly mother used to buy at the grocery story, grew a slightly amused smile and pointed to the floor near her feet, indicating the spot where Mireia dropped my yukata and my nightie earlier.
The senior was waiting for me to go over, pick up my clothing and dress myself in front of her. Kind of awkward.
Now that I’m more familiar with Illusory Realities, I know that the HR Manager is of sufficiently high realm to create one out of the current physical reality of her guest. That requires much more skill than Rhea, who has pulled me into one of her inner world Illusory Realities a few times.
So, I told her, “I’m sure you have a few Illusory Realities of your own, so you don’t need to build one out of my current circumstances. Why not just move us there, with appropriate clothing?”
Growing a slight smile as she pressed her glasses into place, she noted, “My normal one is currently configured as a department head’s office with respect to your soul, and your body configuration in it is Robert Stewart.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure you have more?”
“It’s not false modesty for me to note, I may not be as capable as you suspect,” she answered. “I’m only an Entrant of the Second Harmonic Realm. I’ve yet to condense my Second Harmonic physique, so I’m still technically a celestial maiden. In point of fact, I instead invest all my ability into that one Illusory Reality you’ve seen and apply appropriate filters for the culture of each subject I deal with. I do not, in fact, have more than one.”
So some translation is in order, here. An Entrant Soul of the Fundamental Realm has no Immortal body at all. They live as a disembodied soul unless they create a proxy body or receive one in return for their labor on a sort of ‘rent to own’ plan. But Entrants of each realm above the Fundamental have essentially the body of the prior realm until they can condense an upgraded version. It’s almost impossible to Ascend directly without spending at least some time in that intermediate condition.
And most Immortals of the Human Clade who do have bodies below the Second Harmonic are of a junior class that I’ve been translating as “celestial maiden”, which is to say, female juvenile Immortals.
Souls, whether Mortal or Immortal, aren’t male or female. They contain multiple spectrums of concepts and ideals, some of which involve gender. But with only rare exceptions, Human Clade Immortals climb either the Yin path or the Yang path. Other paths do exist, and one born a genetic woman might travel the Yang path, or a man the Yin path. Two paths exist only because of Human Clade biology. One’s starting point at birth does not dictate anything.
Juvenile Immortals of the Human Clade climbing the Yang path, ‘male’ juveniles, normally don’t use any body at all. They spend their juvenile existences in a completely different, effectively bodiless fashion. If they are Ascendants instead of Entrants, they convert their Ascended bodies to other applications of spiritual substance.
Juvenile Immortals of the Human Clade climbing the Yin path become celestial maidens. That’s why no Descendant Elderss were male. Male Elders like Diurhimath were born in later generations on Huade.
This is the main reason I don’t seem to know any masculine Immortals other than Oranos (or Immortal Father, whom I did interact with in childhood.) If one encounters a non-feminine juvenile Immortal with a body, that body will be non-binary. Which I suppose makes sense. If they felt a tie to a particular gender, they would follow that path.
So the HR Manager just said she wouldn’t be a true adult Immortal until she finished condensing a Second Harmonic body to go with her Second Harmonic soul. She was still, just barely, a juvenile.
“And yet you’re in charge of Hero Relocation?” I wondered. Not someone of higher rank?
“The management of mortals is the work of juveniles, My Lady,” she stated. “It’s certainly not child’s play, but it is a child’s chore. When I do finally finish my body refinement, I will pass this job to an underling. I expect I won’t continue doing it for more than another few thousand years. After that, I will be able to take on a role like planetary management, as your spouses do. Since I’ve been working with mortals for so long, it’s the natural next step on my career path. How much longer will you delay putting your clothes on?”
I gave a wry smile. I was still hiding under the blanket.
“Why not use a different setting in my current world, then?” I suggested.
She pursed her lips, then nodded. “Alright.”
Suddenly, I remained just as naked, but sans blanket and reclining on the grass next Grandmother’s pool. The other big difference was that the HR manager, who was now seated upon one of Grandmother’s stone perches, was also unclothed. Which earned her an eye roll from me.
“Just bound and determined to keep me naked,” I grumped. But yeah, nudity is easier together than alone, so I gave up. Besides, the HR Manager is very easy on the eyes, with a very similar physique to Khortys.
The water was glassy smooth, reflecting the beautiful starry band sprayed across the sky above, without a single cloud to block it or the near first-quarter moon hanging low over the lake. I sat up and gathered my legs to one side while leaning on my hand.
“You already know why I prayed, right?” I asked.
She nodded. “Indeed. And I wanted to answer earlier. Your mother wouldn’t allow it. It would have been bad for you at the time. I apologize for the delay.”
I put my hand on my tummy, where the Illusory Reality convincingly showed my babies safely dreaming. “Will you answer my question now?”
She pressed her lips together and breathed in, considering my request.
“Everything I’ve done has been proper and orderly. My department has done nothing untoward or against Heaven’s Law. No celestial maiden is so mighty that she could defy Heaven’s Law, or even bend it slightly, anyhow.”
I nodded. “My wives believe that Oranos was responsible.”
The term ‘my wives’ fell from my lips so easily that it surprised me. I normally resist the idea more than that. Had my mortal marriage changed something in my attitude?
It definitely put a dent in my former belief that polygamy was wrong. My current polyamorous relationship in the Mortal Realm was almost as polyamorous as my relationships in the Immortal Realms.
“Your mother and father from your Immortal life are also not disinterested parties,” she pointed out. “Demonstrably so, given your mother’s current involvement in your life. She’s my prime suspect. Even a great senior such as she, as many realms above me as she is, might bias her decisions in favor of her own daughter.”
“So you aren’t responsible,” I agreed, since I already knew that much, “but do you know why my predecessor in Tiana’s body is now my daughter? Why they couldn’t do it the other way around? She could have become my mother just as easily. That wasn’t that much of an excursion in time.”
I realized long ago that ‘a brief excursion in time’ could be a couple hundred years or more for an Immortal.
Her brow grew a complicated wrinkle.
I added, “When I first arrived, you told me how the reincarnation rules for heroes worked. You suggested she was needed elsewhere, and that’s why I needed to take over her life.”
She nodded. “But you’ve realized that you could have been reincarnated as her daughter, which means you must understand that ‘elsewhere’ can include ‘elsewhere in time’.”
I frowned slightly, but she went on to voice my objection for me.
“She could have simply kept her life as is. If we were going to resurrect your body anyhow, we could have given it back to her and give you whatever role she will have in her new life instead. And you are absolutely right, My Lady. Your reasoning is perfectly sound. So, everything else I tell you from here on is only my speculation, but I believe it to be your answer.”
She chose that moment to stand and walk over to me, then settle into place beside me and put her arm around my shoulders.
In any other context, with any other naked woman taking this position with my naked self, I would assume a sexual motive, but somehow, I knew she had no such intentions.
She brushed back my hair, which had fallen into my face a little bit, and gave me a reassuring smile.
“My Lady, I do hope we meet again after you return to the Immortal Realms. This is almost certainly the last time we will meet during your Mortal Realm lifetime. You will surely either Ascend or die before another reason for us to meet arises, and I suspect that, if your life ends in death, you will become an Entrant Soul rather than reincarnate. So I will trust that your soul is advanced enough to not lose this information in entropic backlash, and I can tell you something you need to know.”
I say it wasn’t sexual, but I was still a little self-conscious about our current pose. A little too aware of her body, I would say.
She dimpled and pressed her lips to my forehead. “You are a dear child. Be at ease. What you need to know is, you have proven yourself a good parent. You’ve raised fine children in several lifetimes. Yes, in every case, you’ve considered yourself inadequate, but that’s just the normal sentiment of a parent. You’ve done well.”
‘Perplexed’ is probably the best word to describe me as I heard this. Why was she telling me such a thing?
“Because that’s my theory for the correct answer to your question,” she said, then placed her palm on my tummy, giving it a soft caress.
The gentle smile on this woman’s face was utterly unlike the ‘HR Manager’ in my memory.
“These two were in some ways a very unfortunate pair. The mother knew how to raise a fairy, and she knew how to raise a fairling, but human children and Elder children were a complete mystery to her. The daughter was an Elder child in a world where no living soul knew how to raise an Elder child.”
She then moved her hand up to my cheek, caressing it momentarily before dropping it to her lap.
“You noticed Tiana’s lonely childhood yourself. How poorly her mother did raising her, despite loving her dearly. Frankly, how unfit her mother was to raise her.”
I nodded but did not otherwise reply. I simply waited to learn where she was going with this.
“You have become that same child’s second chance. This time, she’ll have the love of a mother who understands what she is and can teach her properly. And she’ll share her childhood with an identical twin sister. Neither will be the only child of her species in the world this time around. Tiana was a very good child, but imagine how much happier that good child will be, without the pain of that loneliness. And how happy that frustrated and heartbroken mother will be in her new life, as a loving twin sister who shares that suitable Elder mother with her former daughter.”
“You can’t seriously mean that my purpose here was to become their mother?”
She shook her head. “You came through the HR Department, so you have a heroic role to fulfill. Frankly, you’ve surely already fulfilled it in part, but the fact that I can still connect with you is proof that you still have work to do. But I suspect a great senior, perhaps Oranos or your mother, saw an opportunity to save their descendant, a woefully unprepared hero, from an unfitting role, while at the same time providing her a big sister who could help raise her properly as an Elder. Or perhaps they looked ahead far enough to know you would wind up the mother. Our seniors often find ways to accomplish many and varying tasks with the same move. Your wife speculated something similar already”
I nodded mutely. This was certainly similar to what Gaia told me.
She gave me another squeeze. “My Lady, your predecessor was a tragic heroine. She inflicted a wound on that dragon that was already leading to its death, even if you hadn’t finished it off. She was indeed a hero, but perhaps that was her limit. A poor child that never found happiness for herself and threw her life away in the end to protect ungrateful mortals from an enraged dragon.”
To my surprise, I felt a few tears welling up. Did they belong to my predecessor?
Brushing them off my cheek, she added, “Even that was for the best, though. Resurrecting her to her old life would have been a mistake. Hope rots when it receives no reward.”
She backed away slightly, moving her hand from my opposite shoulder to the one nearer to her, and brushed my hair again. The HR Manager image very nearly vanished, but she pressed her glasses into place again, saving it at the last moment. Then she placed her palm over my womb again.
“You didn’t steal her life from her, My Lady. You traded with her, to give her a better one. Now, call her old life your own and have confidence that it belongs to you.”
