“Holy Shit.”
“What?”
“I thought we were going to your house.”
“We are, this is where I live.”
“This is a castle.”
“It’s not as big as it looks, that’s just the space warping and looping.”
“Ignoring the implications of that statement, are you saying it doesn’t stretch into the horizon?”
“Of course it does, the horizon just isn’t as big here as it is back on earth, any of them.”
“This place is insane.”
“Of course it is, it contains the farthest Throne.”
“The farthest what?”
“A throne is the true sign of godhood, it’s what differentiates between the strongest of the immortals and actual gods.”
“How do they work?”
“No idea, I’m not even entirely certain the full range of benefits they give, as far as I can tell they make it easier to do things on a larger scale, and over a larger area.”
“Where does a Throne come from?”
“Naturally occurring apparently, this is about to get a little complicated. OK, the core realities are were the governing rules are the strongest. The general principles of the universe. Once you leave the core realities there are the bits of reality hanging on to the sides of it. These realities aren’t quite perfect, the rules don’t quite hold true this inserts a certain amount of chaos into these outlier realities. The farther away you get from the core the more chaos there is. However discernible patterns can emerge from chaos, one of those patterns is a Throne. The farther away from the core the Throne is the greater it is, however they are only present in a certain band. Like the goldilocks zone for planets.”
“So your god is the strongest one then?”
“Yes and no. No god could beat her in a fight, especially here. But mitigating factors even the field. Namely, she is so far away from everything interesting, including the core realities, her influence even boosted by the throne is minimal. That is partially why I exist.”
“How many Thrones are there?”
“Less than twenty, it’s hard to give an exact number since while uncommon it is subject to change. Also it’s possible they haven’t all be found yet. Historically speaking this Throne is the most recently discovered one, and that happened only in the last hundred years or so.”
“So you’re a god’s proxy?”
“Not quite, I was given a single order and told to fulfill it to the best of my ability, Typhon has given me some help in that direction. He also gave me a necessary education.”
“Why are you smiling when you say his name?”
“Because I might actually like him, if you ever meet him don’t tell him that.”
“Why not?”
“I still like to give him shit about the whole kidnaping me thing.”
“That is kind of messed up.”
“Yeah, but I’m messed up enough to secretly forgive him for it, and not tell him I have.”
“I think that might be called Stockholm syndrome.”
“It is. Except for the love part, he’s way to old for me. You on the other hand are just about right.”
Lisbeth put her arm around Nerissa in something of an awkward side hug, as she steered her down another corridor. That corridor was short and ended with the door to Lisbeth’s room. Nerissa had the usual reaction to seeing the door for the firs time. With all of it’s detailed appendages, and moving eyes, carved lovingly into its surface.
“Lisbeth, are you evil?”
“I don’t think I am, but I might not be the best judge of that. Why do you ask?”
“Because that door is evil, and watching me.”
“It’s just the door to my room.”
“That’s the kind of door a super villain would have to their evil lair.”
“Oh, you’d you like to see my lair? I’ll show you my rope collection and my bed.”
“Did you brig me her just to have sex?”
“That and a bath. The only thing that makes the dorm showers bearable is they frequently have you in them.”
“That’s sweet.”
“Do you want to go in?”
“Not overwhelmingly, I think the eyes are following me. It’s kind of creeping me out.”
“They don’t move, it’s just an optical illusion.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
“Ok I see your point, dorm showers suck.”
Nerissa was floating in the larger pool in Lisbeth’s bathroom, the water was of course perfect. Lisbeth was lounging under one of the fountains allowing the water to cascade over her body. There was enough steam in the air to slightly obscure vision. Lisbeth was feeling drowsy, and nodding off. But she didn’t want to fall asleep, that would involve leaving Nerissa. After the afternoon they had, that wouldn’t be acceptable. In response to Nerissa’s statement, Lisbeth mumbled something that vaguely sounded like agreement.
“What’s going to happen to the world?”
“It goes boom, everyone dies.”
“I’m being serious.”
Lisbeth opened her eyes and propped herself up on one elbow. “So am I, it’s going to blow up one day, and everyone will die.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Doesn’t matter much, that is such a long way off that it doesn’t matter to much. By the time it happens everyone we know will be dead, their children will be dead, their children’s, children’s, children will be dead.”
“Are you talking about the sun exploding?”
“If the universe lasts that long, then yes.”
“How could the universe not last as long as the sun?”
“Someone might blow it up, it happens.”
“What possible motivation would someone have to blow up the universe?”
“From what I hear it usually happens by accident.”
“If we are here then how could someone blow up the universe by accident?”
“This isn’t the only universe out there, not even close. More universes have born and died than stars in our sky.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, do you want to see them?”
“You can just show me different universes?”
“Of course not, we’d have to travel to them. I know how in theory, actually doing it is difficult, but with another couple of decades I should be able to manage it without too many problems.”
“Just a couple decades?”
“Going to live forever remember? It might feel like a long time, but in the long run it’s only a couple of decades.”
“You would do that, devote the next couple of decades to finding a way to do it in safety, just to show me other universes.”
“It’s not selfless, I don’t think we would be able to come back. So I would be able to keep you at my side forever.”
“You keep saying forever, do you really understand what it means?”
“Probably not, but it sounds nice, and I don’t think I want to do it alone.”
Raising Angels & Defection 