《Ouroboros (Dropped)》
Prologue: Top hats and bayonets
I lay beneath the white sheets probed up by pillows and watched the sun set behind the synagogue through the slightly unclear class of the window panes.
A pang of nostalgia wormed its way into my heart and my hand, now wrinkled and pained with age, rose to grip the old worn silver necklace at my neck. A star of david, it had been hers once upon a time, and she had granted it to me before I left that fateful evening. Now it was all I had left of her.
The memory of her tender kisses, set my now aged heart to beating. She had been so beautiful. With warm brown eyes and raven hair that curled slightly when damp.
The shadows of dusk cut my thought short. There was a chill in the air tonight, a chill I had felt many times before. My frail voice sounded in the now frigid air.
¡°I can feel your presence old friend. I guess the time has come for you to reap me as I have made you reap so many others.¡±
I could feel drowsiness set upon my once clear thoughts, luring me into the eternal embrace. I felt no need to fight it, I might not have lived the life she had wished for me, but at least I had made them pay.
With my hand still clutching her necklace I welcomed oblivion.
*******
The moment the nurse discovered him the hospital called it in, and within five minutes four hard bitten men, lean and dangerous stood watch over his body.
The mans body was washed and clothed in pure white yet simple burial shrouds and placed within the earth inside two hours. A sign of respect for the dead, the only witnesses to the burial being seven people. A rabbi, two old men, and the four dangerous ones.
With sorrow in their eyes the two old men, each withdrew a simple iron bayonet from their sleeves and placed them on the grave.
As they rose one of them spoke: ¡°You were one of us, even if you never felt worthy.¡±
The other nodded, solemnly but then couldn¡¯t help but crack a smile. ¡°Well he certainly did a lot of our work for us. Never asking for anything in return, well except more weapons now and again. ¡°
With that an old man passed from the living into memory, to be forgotten by all but two people. Earth no longer had a need for him.
*******
To my surprise I found myself neither in oblivion nor down below where I thought it most likely I would end up in the case of an afterlife.
I was very clear on the consequences of my actions in the case of something beyond the mortal coil, I had after all been killing mass murderers for more than seventy years.
The expected heat of fire or darkness of oblivion was nowhere to be found though. Instead i found myself sitting in an ivory chair facing a black man in a top hat.
Despite the chill in the room I was comfortable and I couldn¡¯t feel all the old aches and pains that are part and parcel with growing old.
The scene in front of me was a tad bit ridiculous though. Not only was the thin obsidian black man in front of me wearing a top hat, he even wore an old style of suit and had a silver topped walking stick.
¡°Please don¡¯t tell me that it was the haitians that got it right.¡± I said with a small smile.
The man, who I am gonna call Top Hat now, skull like face cracked a smile.
¡°Well none of you have gotten close, I just like this representation the most.¡±
I couldn¡¯t help but nod at that, yeah I would feel the same where I him. It is not nice to always be feared.
Top Hat smiled again.
¡°I knew you of all people would get it.¡±
Wait a minute, can he read my thoughts?
The smirk under the hat was all the answer I needed. Well I guess it makes sense, all things considered.
¡°Why am I here instead of on the way downstairs?¡±
I watched him like a hawk, trying to spot any hint of deception as I asked this question.
Top hat smiled in a way clearly intended to be friendly and calming.
¡°You are here because I intend to reward you for work well done.¡±
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What work? I have done nothing but take revenge since I lost her.
Top hats dark eyes shone with barely hidden mirth. Who would have thought that he off all things would be so damn cheery.
¡°Well unintentional as it was, it still helped me a great deal. Enough that I can grant you the circle as a reward.¡±
He must have sensed my puzzlement for he immediately started explaining.
¡°Me and my many relatives have all agreed that since so many of you do great things for us we should be able to reward you.
The reward we could all agree to as being the most fair, as well as most fun for us, turned out to be reincarnation.
Now forever reincarnating souls would be a problem on other worlds so we created one to house those with the circle as well as other powerful species and souls. This world is called Ortus and is a place of eternal strife and conflict. I still find it to be beautiful though.
The circle itself is a simple marking placed at the back of your neck symbolizing your ability to reincarnate.
The core symbol that all have is a simple serpent eating its own tail, also known as the Ouroboros.
As you life your lives and achieve great things markings will start to grow around it indicating your many lives and achievements. These marking will only grow and evolve after each death, staying the same through your life.
Now there are two rules you need to keep if you want to remain eternal.
One, you must never take your own life.
Two, you must fight to survive.¡±
As he said that I started thinking, did this mean you had to stay safe at all times? Never taking any risks. What would give life flavor then?
¡°Now now, I know what you are thinking and don¡¯t worry, all it means is that you must be defeated fairly no taking a dive. The fights you fight are for you to decide.
Now in return for an oath from you I will even give you an additional reward. ¡°
I can not help but wonder why is he being so charitable, the circle as he calls it already seems like a great gift.
A small mischievous smile appeared on the tin lips beneath the top hat.
¡°Well it is not a charity, in fact you getting those gifts will benefit me as much as you.
The oath is a simple one with two parts.
The first is that you will never keep a soul from my embrace that wants to move on.
The second is that if you discover someone doing so you stop them.¡±
I couldn¡¯t help but speak. Interrupting Top Hat. ¡° You know I would do that anyway, so why bother?¡±
¡°As I said because I will also benefit, but in order to grant you those boons I have to get something in return. It is simply how things work.
Now I will not tell what two gifts I will grants you, only that there will be two since the oath is twofold. ¡±
For minutes I was silent, immersed in the task of trying to figure out the pros and cons. In the end I concluded that getting something for the promise of doing things I would anyway couldn¡¯t be such a bad deal. Besides, the entity smiling his pearly smile in front me had a rumor for being fair to the point of harshness. If he said I would benefit, I did not doubt it.
¡°I swear to never keep a soul from your embrace, and to try to the best of my abilities to stop those that do.¡±
The tipping of the top hat was the last thing I saw before darkness took me.
So this is my new story, an attempt at a darker more cunning Mc as well as an outlet for my creative juices when I tire of my other story.
As always I welcome any criticism and hope you enjoyed my story.
Chapter 1
1st Life
Year 1
Day 1
I was born like any other human, from the womb of my new mother into the hands of a midwife.
The midwife held little importance to me though. Instead I found myself studying my new family.
My father as it were, was the tall, dark and handsome type. Raven hair, blue eyes and wide shoulders, the perfect image of a warrior noble.
His angular face sporting a smile right up until the midwife said a word I couldn¡¯t understand.
He then grabbed me turned me around and looked at my back. Incidentally giving me a chance to see my mother.
Once more I was confronted by a beauty, this one with a soft face, blonde hair and warm brown eyes.
Come on, with genetics like this I am bound to be handsome, is this one of his gifts? A beautiful family?
Once more I am turned around and then placed gently on a small table covered in a blanket. My father then looks me straight in the eye and said something I couldn¡¯t understand.
I shook my head as best I could, trying to indicate that I didn¡¯t understand him.
He seemed to get my meaning and just chuckled ruefully.
I could feel my eyelids getting heavier. Well no helping that, a newborn is after all a newborn.
Sleep came, at the end of that thought.
When I awoke it was to the gentle light of the half moon filling what was clearly my nursery.
At the side of my cradle stood the most gorgeous woman I had ever had the pleasure of gazing upon.
Her deep golden wolf like eyes studying me with something akin to mirth hidden within them.
Her full crimson lips stretched in a small crooked smirk.
She pushed a slim hand through her long dark red hair and then started speaking.
But unlike my new father she didn¡¯t stop at one language. No she actually tried around a hundred or so completely different ones.
Her smirk had disappeared some time ago, and now she just looked intent. When her last attempt failed to elicit a response from me she cursed quietly under her breath.
I almost didn¡¯t catch it but I could have sworn it sounded german.
With a great deal of excitement I tried saying yes in german, it came out as jaaa but I still deemed it a success. Mostly because of the way her exotic eyes widened in surprise.
¡°Please don¡¯t tell me you understand me now?¡± She asked in an archaic form of german.
I nodded even though I got the sense she already knew.
¡°That¡¯s just perfect, of all the tongues in the world you speak that of my old master. Old bony must be laughing his ass off right now.¡± Her tall statuesque shape standing there glaring at me.
Been a long time since a woman with a body that could start wars looked at me with that much passion. A true pity that it wasn¡¯t directed at me per se.
After some time, I am not quite how much, she seemed to calm down. Her glare had turned into idle studying and her arms that had been crossed across her chest relaxed.
¡°Well, might as well tell you know. You are bound to figure it out anyways.¡± The smirk re-appeared and I decided that it suited her, even though it was bound to spell trouble. ¡°I am your new guardian spirit, Selene, a pleasure to meet you.¡±
I couldn¡¯t help but feel glad. At least now I knew what one of my rewards was.
1st Life
Year 1
Day 10
Time flies when you are a baby. Most of it is spent either sleeping or eating, luckily my parents must know of the circle for I was fed with a bottle instead of breastfed.
Now don¡¯t get me wrong, normally I would love to get my hands, and lips, on a pair like the ones my new mom had, yet I did not feel any sexual attraction to her at all.
It must be natural instinct, like the feeling of safety and comfort I felt in her arms.
The few hours of the day I did not spend napping was used up by my mother taking me around the house pointing at objects teaching me their language. While I wasn''t able to speak the language yet, I had gained a rudimentary understanding of it.
Enough to know my mothers name was Isabelle Blackstone and my fathers was William Blackstone the heir to the noble house also named Blackstone.
The few times I found myself awake in the night was spent by Selene teaching me another language.
Apparently she thought it a good idea for me to master as many tongues as possible while my brain was still young and agile.
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I tended to agree with her, knowledge is power after all, and while I in my old life had learned a lot of different languages I had never been so fast or as good at is as I was now. I only needed to hear a word explained once and I would remember.
While this seemed like a great thing, I couldn¡¯t help but feel a quiet sense of dread. This was my first time doing this, how much more could someone that had done this for millennia possibly know? A truly terrifying thought.
1st Life
Year 1
Day 30
I had now trained my new vocal cords enough to say complete words. My accent when speaking my parents language known as High Human was still atrocious though.
German came to me easier and I was able to form small sentences when speaking with Selene at night.
For a while I was worried I might be labeled insane for speaking with my self during the night, but my parents seemed to think I was simply training my vocal cords and found nothing wrong with it.
Selene was invisible to everyone but me, and I kinda liked it that way. At the moment she might be acting simply as a tutor, but she held great advantages outside her enormous amount of knowledge. Even though she couldn¡¯t interact with the real world.
While I was by no means an expert I had now learned both High Human and the language Selene had taught me. I didn¡¯t have a name for it since every time I asked she would refuse to tell me with a glint in her eye.
Well my life would loose a little of its fun without her teasing ways.
1st Life
Year 1
Day 120
My family had hired outside tutors to come and lecture me on the ways of the world. Since they already knew I was one of the souls from a different world.
The surprising thing was, so was my mother. She was on her twenty-second reincarnation and was enjoying the simple life of being a nobleman''s wife.
She had also explained why they were so willing to tutor me. While I might be a weak first timer in their eyes, I was still an Ever Dying and therefore they would gain something by treating me right in this lifetime.
I am sure that the inherent high potential of an adult in a childs body didn¡¯t hurt either. Especially since my soul would have had to do something great in my other life to earn the circle.
From what my tutors told me, Ortus was huge. As in many times the size of Earth, even my mother didn¡¯t know how it all looked and that was saying something considering the fact that most of her lives has been as an explorer. Well that also explains her many lives since, she had not had the circle for two millennia.
The sum total of my three months of tutoring? The world was vast and if you ever heard or imagined something, it was more than likely here somewhere.
That and the fact that magic existed although it was extremely rare and few if any practiced it. Mostly Ever dying did, because the time it took to master was more than a single lifetime for most.
I had hopefully asked Isabelle to teach me magic, and her answer had been brutally honest. While she did like me, and they treated me well. She would not hand over something as precious as her hard earned magic knowledge. She would only say that if I ever faced a Well bringer I should run, as hard and as fast as I could.
I was almost certain that Selene knew something about magic as well. Seeing as when I asked her about it she playfully said I hadn¡¯t earned enough of her respect for her to tell me about it.
Ortus seemed to be as Top Hat had said, a world of strife and conflict. That is what happens when you take all the creatures from mythology, and then some, and place them all in the same world.
While death might never be permanent for me again, I felt ever more certain that I would see plenty of it.
Hi there fellow penguins.
I don¡¯t have much to say, except I do know this is a tad cliche and don¡¯t worry it won''t stay that way.
Hope you enjoyed reading my story and cya around ;)
Chapter 2
1st Life
Year 2
Day 14
¡°Why do you do that?¡± Asked Selene with her smooth and clear voice.
I looked up from the small pieces of cloth in my hands, and studied her face for a moment. I might be in the body of a baby, but I still have the mentality of an adult. Looking at a pretty girl like Selene is one of life¡¯s small pleasures.
She quirked her eyebrow and a small crooked smirk appeared, she seemed able to guess the direction of my thoughts. Well that is not too unlikely since she is bound to have suffered the admiring gazes of more than a few men.
¡°Well for a myriad of reasons really, but tailoring has two main benefits for me at the moment. One it does not require great strength yet it requires a great deal of manual dexterity.
Two it is a craft worth knowing in the case I get reincarnated into a family that isn¡¯t rich beyond belief.¡° I answered her, while my small clumsy hands kept stitching the two small pieces of cloth together.
¡°Ahh, that actually makes some sense. Yet why haven¡¯t you tried to train your body, or some other such nonsense. instead of just reading and doing arts and crafts?¡±
I could not help a small frown from appearing on my face.
¡°Because I am still just a one year old child. My body is human, it will be some time before it can handle any form of strenuous physical activity.¡° I cracked a small smile and then continued. ¡°Besides I have this feeling that my mind is much more malleable than it was in my last life, so I think that for now I will focus on reading and learning.¡±
Selene looked at me for a moment, and then said:
¡°Well humans do take a long time to mature it would seem.¡± And with that she left, off to wherever she goes when she isn¡¯t near me.
I had already made plans, and as I told Selene, for now I would focus on using this wonderful clarity and alacrity that my young brain has gifted me with.
My parents had a huge library, filled with all kinds of books, and I read as much of it as I could at night under the flickering light of a candle.
1st Life
Year 4
Day 117
My small body moved slowly through the motions of Tai Chi that I still remembered. It was not much that I did recall, but enough to help me strengthen this body¡¯s sense of balance and poise. While taxing it was still low intensity training and I have therefore concluded my three year old body should be able to handle it.
A small smile lifted the corner of one of my lips. Selene had almost laughed herself right into the afterlife when I begun four months ago, and she still found it endlessly amusing to watch me do this every morning as the sun rose.
Done with the mornings exercise I enjoyed the gentle warmth of the sun on my face for a moment.
Life was good here, no one demanded anything of me, yet I was starting to feel a disconnect. Life here is too good and I am well aware that it will never stay that way, the world is a harsh place and without even taking other sentient beings into consideration humans are bloody monsters.
My one frustration was my lack of progress with magic. I had this feeling that I have it yet neither my mother nor Selene will teach me.
1st Life
Year 6
Day 2
I stood in the fieldstone courtyard of the Blackstone mansion holding a wooden stick. Across from me stood my father William.
At the tender age of five, I have decided that it is time I learn how to defend myself. Seeing as my father is a noble, I am apparently expected to learn the sword.
¡°Now Johann, what do you know of fighting?¡±
Now that was a tricky question to answer, I had spent a great deal of my life killing in ways that reduced my chance of actually getting in a fight. My old pals did try to teach me their hand-to-hand combat but I never did get much out of it. A rifle is just so much easier to use.
I had tried to experiment with making gunpowder in this world, but guess what it isn¡¯t combustible here. Besides if it had worked some other soul was bound to have introduced it already.
¡°Well in my old world, fighting had progressed to mostly ranged combat and I was something close to a master marksman with the weapons we used. Swords and the like had been outdated for two or more centuries depending upon how you measured it.¡±
William smiled, and it lit up his whole face. That guy was way too charming, and it must be that charm that caused my Ever Dying mother to fall for him.
¡°That¡¯s great. I won''t have to readjust your old and probably bad habits. You have no idea how arrogant some of those with the circle can be when it comes to swordplay.¡± He shook his head ruefully. ¡°Now watch me closely. The most important part of swordfighting is the footwork. It is from that that strength and speed is derived. Do as I do, and remember to always work from your center of gravity.¡±
Now the only reason that we are going directly to exercises instead of warm up is because my meagre Tai Chi skills seems to be enough warm up for what we are doing.
At least according to father. He did have me do some exercises with a wooden sword after each session, mainly to strengthen the wrist and arms.
As I watched I saw William place his feet a little more than a shoulder width apart and then take a step forward with his left foot. Ending up in a stance not unlike the one boxers and martial artist use. Well it would make sense for them to be similar since they all require you to have a stable footing.
I settled in to the old familiar form, and William corrected it slightly. Made me bend a little more in the knees and straighten my front foot more so that it presented as little a profile as possible.
William¡¯s dark eyes checked my stance critically for a moment, and then he took a similar one once more. He then moved his back foot forward a little bit in a straight line and then moved the front foot, all the time keeping his back straight. After that he moved the front foot backwards a small bit and then moved his back foot.
Advance and retreat was then shown a couple more times before I had a go at them myself.
The first time I did the advance I was told in no uncertain terms that the angle of my back foot should stay the same through the movement, only moving forward in a straight line.
When I got the hang of that I was hounded for my posture, my father likening it to the back of a drunk snake.
I did three hours of that before I was let go, I never knew my father could actually be strict.
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1st Life
Year 11
Day 1
Standing in front of a tall mirror I looked myself over, checking that nothing was out of place. This body had taken after my father, granting me clear blue eyes and raven black hair, now slicked back with some sort of oil.
Wearing a pair of self tailored dark slacks and a fine white shirt I looked the part of a young noble. A small unadorned steel sword at my left hip, only reinforcing the fact I was a noble.
Turning away from the mirror I found Selene watching me, her golden eyes intent.
¡°I didn¡¯t think you had a thing for kids Selene?¡±
A familiar smirk appears on her face while she continues to watch me, clearly not the least bit disturbed by my words.
¡°Ohh but while I am not into kids, I do so enjoy thinking of their potential.¡± Her smirk turned predatory. ¡°Besides a baby soul like you have so much unexplored potential that I can not help but shiver just thinking of the possibilities.¡±
Now that was a scary thought, I had little to no knowledge of Selene even after ten years together. I had concluded that she was not at all what she seemed to be, that is a young incredibly beautiful woman. Well she was at least something more than that, all attempts to dig deeper had met with overwhelming failure though.
Well no time to think too much about it, today was after all my tenth birthday, a great day for any human child in Ortus.
My parents had invited anyone and everyone that was something in the great empire of man. There was even rumors that the emperor and his children would appear.
As I walked into the great hall I felt every gaze in the big room turn and settle onto me. Along with the low buzz of whispers at my appearance. Well mother had told me I was being very modest in my attire, and judging by the other children and their gaudy clothes it would appear she was right.
Now that I could have dealt with, the intense gaze of the middle aged man wearing a purple robe I could not. For it was not aimed at me, it was aimed just to the right of me, where Selene stood.
I couldn¡¯t help but feel like a bloody idiot, just because no one up till now had been able to see her did not mean that no one could.
The man made a gesture and the two big burly guards behind him strode forward.
I made a snap decision. My time here had come to an end. As quickly as I could I turned around and fled.
I ran down the hallways as fast as my young body could, thankfully my training had paid of and I was in excellent shape for a ten year old.
I was just about to run down towards the gated exit, when the thought of more guards hit me so instead I turned towards the rooms at the back of the mansion.
I jumped out the window of a maids small room after having quickly checked for guards outside it.
I ran towards the woods, when I a sharp pain in the back of my thigh. I looked down and saw an arrow head peaking out on the front of my thigh.
Slowly I sank to the ground, no sense in given them a reason to fire again. While placing my hands behind my head I looked at Selene.
¡°You know why that man was so interested in you?¡± My voice even, no hint of emotion.
She looked at me for a moment, indecisive.
Just as her lips started moving I felt a sharp pain at the back of my neck and I blacked out.
*******
When I came to it was with a pounding headache and the cold feel of steel against my raised wrists.
Looking around, I found myself in a dark damp stone room with straw on the floor. The smell of blood heavy in the air, more than likely coming from the table containing the bloody tools of a rather gruesome trade.
¡°So ,Selene, what is going on?¡±
Selene appeared from wherever she hides and then just stood there, silent.
Fuck it, if she did not want to share so be it, their questions would more than likely answer a lot of my own.
I did not have to wait long before someone came to talk to me, the surprising thing was who came.
¡°Well hello dear mother, what can I do for you this fine day?¡± My voice polite, albeit heavy with sarcasm.
Isabelle did not look happy, in fact she looked positively pissed.
¡°How did you get a guardian spirit? and why were you idiotic enough to flaunt it in front of an inquisitor?¡±
Ahh so my thought was right, it all boiled down to Selene.
¡°You wouldn¡¯t believe me if I told you.¡±
Isabelle usually warm eyes turned hard.
¡°Well there is nothing we can do for you now, if you end up returning to the cycle do remember that we did right by you for the most part.¡±
¡°I will, say goodbye to William for me.¡±
Isabelle walked to the heavy iron bound door and knocked twice before it opened and she left. As she did so the middle aged man entered and walked over to the table.
¡°A pleasure to meet you young Ever Dying. My name is Valerian, and I am the personal inquisitor of his imperial majesty.¡±
He picked up a tong with something black and crusty on the end.
¡°Now you have something his majesty wants, are you going to give it to him or will i have to persuade you.¡± Valerian said while pointing at him with the tongs.
I could not help a smirk from appearing, this meant they could not simply take her.
¡°Well seems to me you want to be persuaded. No matter, If you will not budge I will simply have to ensure no one else gets her. Care to guess what the easiest way is to dispose of an Ever Dying is?¡±
With those words he walked over my feet floating ten centimeters above the ground held fast by another set of chains.
I could feel cool metal on the tip of my left big toe and the searing pain as he started pulling.
I screamed, as hard and as high as I could. Nothing to be gained by being a stoic.
The tongs floated into view in front of me. My nail securely placed between the prongs on it.
Valerian smiled from ear to ear and then said:
¡°Now that was one, nineteen to go.¡±
Hey there fellow penguins.
Now things are heating up a bit eh? :)
As always I hope you enjoyed my story and cya around.
Dropped
I must be honest with myself and you guys.
I started this story in an attempt to breathe live into my creative muscles on another project.
It did not work and I therefore see nothing else to do than stop this story.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
I am sorry for that and hope that when I do post a new story you readers wont hold this against me.
With sincere apologies
BurningBookworm