After the End: Serenity

Raz watched his student as she deftly maneuvered around the giant wasp’s stinger. Her Path was different from his; where he used magic and cunning, she was far more straightforward. She’d missed one of the boss’s minions, so Raz made certain to hit it in the eye and throw off its timing.

That was enough for Nadia to slip out of its way and allow Jake, the armored warrior they’d picked up at the Adventurers’ Guild, to smack the side of the boss wasp and set it up perfectly for Nadia’s strike.

With its wings disabled, the wasp fell to the ground. It wasn’t harmless, but all it required now was a little careful effort. Raz turned his attention to the remaining minions. They were more of an irritant than a true threat, but they still had to be handled and that was his main job in this fight. He handled minions and traps, not that the Great Wasp Dungeon had many traps. It did have a lot of minions.

By the time Raz turned back to the boss, it was all over. They’d beaten the Floor Three boss and completed the mission from the Adventurers’ Guild to clear the dungeon so that it wouldn’t overflow; for some reason, fighting giant wasps simply wasn’t popular. Raz wasn’t certain why, but he did have to admit that his scales gave him a fairly significant level of protection that humans didn’t have.

The mission might be done, but the delve wasn’t. They picked up their reward; a few Etherium was a pretty decent haul for such a relatively small dungeon. That wasn’t the reason they’d picked the mission, but it was a nice bonus.

“Are you sure this is the next step?” Nadia walked up to the dungeon’s core but didn’t touch it.

The core was a fairly simple yellow spike or crystal that seemed to grow out of one of the walls. To Raz, it sort of looked like the stingers on the wasps the dungeon was named after, which seemed appropriate. “Yes, you need to meet a younger core and start learning how to guide it. It won’t be a permanent bond, at least I recommend not making it permanent, but it’ll be good for both of you. You need the practice and it’ll help open up your Path a bit as you figure out what you really want, and you can help the dungeon core adapt to what people want.”

“Fewer wasps,” Nadia muttered. “Or at least more variety in the encounters.”

Raz nodded slightly. He suspected that “fewer wasps” was exactly the answer she’d try first, though he wasn’t certain the dungeon would appreciate it. “Try the second option first; this is the Great Wasp Dungeon, after all.”

Nadia nodded, then reached out to touch the dungeon core’s crystalline spike. She stood there and communed with it for long enough that both Raz and Jake found a spot against the wall to sit down. Raz was quietly answering Jake’s questions about dungeon management Paths when Nadia let go of the crystal.

“I did it! Waspy says she’d be happy to work with me.” Nadia’s grin turned a bit rueful as she spoke. “She says that wasps have to be a major part of every encounter, though. I think I can convince her that some variety is good, but she’s really firm that there have to be wasps.”

Amani Valles followed Rakyn through the portal to Serenity Settlement. However much she loved A’Atla, the outpost was no place to bear a child, especially not a child that would probably appear somewhat nonhuman. Serenity Settlement was really the only option.

It was strong enough to support Calu, had a large enough population to make raising a child reasonable, and was supposed to be friendly for nonhumans. It was also owned by the Wizard of A’Atla, which was more than a little reassuring, but that wasn’t the best part.

No, the best part was that Desinka and Rakyn had agreed to relocate to Serenity Settlement with Amani and Calu. The past year, almost a year and a half, with them had given her twice as many friends as she’d usually had, between them and Calu and Tek.

The only sad part was Tek; every time Amani tried to talk Tek into relocating to Serenity Settlement, Tek brushed it off as unnecessary or pulled Amani into a conversation about her current project. Her projects were fascinating but-

Wait.

Who was that standing next to the pregnant woman and the man with antlers?

“Tek?” Amani’s voice cracked with the tears that suddenly appeared in her eyes. “What are you doing here?”

Tek tilted her head to the side. The oversized goggles she wore on her forehead always gave her a bit of a surprised expression, but this time Amani was fairly certain she actually was surprised. “Welcoming you to your new home, of course. You didn’t really think I was going to stay on A’Atla and abandon one of my favorite inventors, one of the people willing to actually talk to me in person, did you?”

It was a few minutes before Echo’s greeters were able to introduce themselves and show the newcomers to the temporary homes that had been prepared for them to use while they figured out what their permanent space would be.

“This cruise might be the best idea you ever had.”

Russ grinned to himself and once again reminded himself not to let it slip to Phoebe that it was Rissa’s idea. “I’m not sure you can call it a cruise when we’re on our way to Aeon to check on some of Serenity’s friends.”

“Of course she can.” Bethany, Serenity’s mother, waved at the buffet in front of them. “Food, entertainment, regular stops in foreign locations; what else would you call it?”

“A cruise works as long as you remember that the word doesn’t just apply to cruise ships,” Lex opined. Russ could tell he was arguing mostly because he enjoyed the debate, but also partly because he thought the men on board the ship ought to stick together. “We are stopping at a lot of ports for different reasons. I don’t think you could really call this a cruise ship, though.”

“Why not?” Phoebe was as relaxed as Russ had seen her in years.

He felt the same way, honestly. Being away from the job he’d done for decades was more of a load off his mind than he’d realized, even if he hadn’t been doing all that much for the past year or so. It was definitely time to retire. It was important work, but it was important work that other people could do now. Serenity and Blaze might well be able to help him live longer, but they couldn’t return him to the youthful idealism he’d had when he started out as a Guardian.

Gaia barely needed Guardians anymore. The only part of the job he’d kept was watching some of Earth’s ancient secrets; there were still things that were far too powerful to be allowed loose, things even worse than the contents of the Vault on A’Atla. In time, that would change; Russ had no doubt that people would someday reach the point where those ancient artifacts were curiosities to be investigated rather than possible weapons, but that day wasn’t now.

He was moving many of those weapons off Earth. The ones that were relatively usable were on their way to Aeon, but many were headed to Tzintkra. It would be years before he could make more than a small dent, and most would stay on Earth. Even so, he’d feel better when the artifacts aligned with Death were on a planet they wouldn’t kill if they finally failed. Some of them were in very poor shape.

“How about some Scrabble?” Bethany offered. “It’ll be another day or two until we reach the nebula, after all.”

Russ shook his head. He was looking forward to seeing a nebula, but he knew Bethany’s mention of it was purely distraction. It probably wouldn’t be as pretty as the Hubble images, but at least it would be something different. “Not Scrabble. I prefer a game where I actually have a chance.”

“Dominoes,” Lex suggested, putting forward his own preferred game. It was a more fair choice than Scrabble, but somehow Lex managed to win about half the games the four of them played; he won even more often if he talked Ita into playing with them.

Russ needed to pick something else, preferably something a little less competitive. He wasn’t in a competitive mood today. Everything was simply too nice right now.

Human leaned her chin on her hands as she watched the woman in front of her joke with Death. Kaasi-of-Haunted-Glen was the best option she’d seen since Lykandeon. It wasn’t that she was more or less human than anyone else and it certainly wasn’t because she was in any sense pure, but the very damage that scarred her spirit made Human sympathize with her.

Human felt scarred as well. They were different scars, but perhaps Kaasi could help Human heal. She certainly seemed to help Death become more human, which was a tremendous argument in her favor.

Yes, Kaasi really did seem like the right choice.

A lull in the conversation gave Human the chance to make her pitch, such as it was. “Kaasi, how much do you know about the Beast Gods?”

Death jerked fully upright in her seat; she actually managed to look surprised. Fortunately, she didn’t say anything.

“Not much,” Kaasi admitted. “Everyone knows they exist, but there’s never been any real reason to worry about them. Most Beast Gods won’t do anything unless you try to kill all of their Beasts or something.”

Human shook her head. That was a positively excessively humanocentric opinion, which was really not all that unusual. Most Beasts were the same way, especially Incarnates of their Beast God. The requirements varied from Beast God to Beast God, but you always had to embody something about your species. “Humans are Beasts, too, and the most likely species to kill humans in large numbers these days is other humans. You’re not entirely wrong, though; I don’t usually do anything about it.”

Kaasi looked puzzled.

“There’s one thing you should know about Beast Gods that you didn’t mention; like other gods that didn’t rise from an individual, Beast Gods can take an Incarnate, someone of their Beast type that represents them and gives them form. It’s … not comfortable to not have an Incarnate.” Human stopped, unsure of how exactly to continue. Lykandeon knew more when she offered to him; he’d accepted before she was halfway through the offer.

“So you’re an Incarnate?” Kassi’s puzzlement seemed to have turned to doubt.

Human knew she could easily convince the woman, but she didn’t really want to. It felt far too much like the way Lykandeon used her power.

Death shook her head. “No, she’s a Beast God. Human, to be specific. I think she’s offering to take you as her Incarnate.”

Kaasi glanced back and forth between Human and Death. Human could feel that Kaasi trusted Death’s words far more than Human’s. Kaasi was interested; she was not certain accepting was a good idea but she also wanted power. That was very human as well. “Why me? Shouldn’t you choose a hero or something instead? Why not someone like Amaia?”

Death laughed at the suggestion that she become Human’s Incarnate. It was light and surprisingly human-sounding. “I’m not human, remember?”

“As for choosing a hero, I tried that last time. It … didn’t work out well.” Human remembered the high hopes she’d had for Lykandeon, hopes he’d fulfilled for years until she suddenly realized that not only did he not fulfill her hopes anymore, he was actively destroying them. “You aren’t perfect, but you know it. He didn’t. That should help.”

Human could feel Kaasi wavering. She was certain she could push the woman into accepting, but that would lead to regret later. She might even come to feel like she hadn’t had much of a choice. “You don’t have to decide right now. You have until I choose someone else to say yes. There’s no hurry; it’s been years since I had an Incarnate. A few more years won’t matter much.”

Human was fairly confident it wouldn’t be years. She was also certain there would be long conversations in her future. That was probably for the best. If nothing else, at least it would be different.

Different was good.