The ride was punctuated with an uncomfortable silence. I calmly jogged alongside Alena, keeping my words to myself while the girl mustered the willpower to speak. It took a long time, hours in fact. For me, it may as well have been a blink of the eye, especially for someone who had trained in the Sharah for days at a time.
"A life shifter is able to take hold of the physiology of a being, and transferring ether into it, allowing the shifter to manipulate the body of the subject with extreme precision. Often used to both heal and harm." She recounted woodenly, as if reciting from a textbook. I wave my hand with mock impatience.
"The real story." I simply stated, for I knew there was one. No-one reacted to having an ability the way Rethi did without something being up. She grumbled discontentedly but sighed like a child trying to avoid her chores—only to do them in the end anyway.
"Life shifters have a bad name. There is a fair amount of them, but if you don't know what you are doing with the abilities then you can just as easily kill as you can save by total accident." She shuffled uncomfortably of her horse.
"So, there are many life shifters running around with no training trying to heal people and killing them instead?" I questioned, knowing full well just from the girl's storm of emotion within her eyes that it wasn't even remotely close to the full truth.
"Yes, and the cults." Rethi supplied quietly. Alena glared at Rethi immediately, but Rethi showed no sign of remorse.
"Cults?"
"Yes, cults," Alena sighed, "they are large conglomerations of mainly life shifters who are obsessed with… human augmentation." I hummed. Ending up with the nickname Abomination Makers wasn't exactly singing the praises of the success of their experimentation.
"I imagine that they aren't great people."
"No. They routinely kidnap and experiment on children for years." She spat vehemently.
"And you? What are you?" She looked shocked and a little hurt before she swallowed her discontent and replied.
"I–I want to be like my mother…" she paused for a while, and Rethi's attention laser focused on her, I assume this is the first he's heard of this, "she was a shaman in the tribes of Orisis. Father travelled out to meet her, hearing legends of one of the most powerful life shifters alive. Once they met, they became an unstoppable team of medical knowledge, Mother having an instinctual and experience-based knowledge and Father having a scientific and evidence-based knowledge." She ran her had through her dark hair, brushing it from her face, only for the unfortunate breeze to defy her attempt.
"So, you want to someday combine your father's medical sciences and your mother's innate abilities?" She quickly nodded, staring at me as if I were going to argue with her. I just shrugged.
"Sounds like a good idea to me." I say and continue to jog. There was an air of stunned silence and listening in on her emotions only told me how surprised she was that someone wasn't openly combative against her ideals. I raised my eyebrow and her, giving her a small smile.
"You know, where I am from people could only dream of people capable of life shifting as it is here. Damn the medical research, we had tonnes of that, just the ability to edit someone's body so completely would change how we approach medicine for years to come. For this world to have people capable of what you can do? You are extremely lucky." Now even Rethi was looking at me oddly. I had gotten good at telling what Rethi was thinking, just by virtue of being around the kid most of his waking moments and seeing almost all of the expressions he had to offer—I didn't even need natural empathy for it. So, I continued.
"I know you don't think much of it now. What could a person capable of only saving one life change? Especially when tens of thousands die from simple physical injuries." I turned to them, wondering if they were following along. Alena looked suitably confused, but interested, and Rethi's attention was focused—as it was whenever I talked about small snippets of Earth, something I didn't do very often, the wound a little too fresh. I hummed with thought, trying to find the words I wanted.
"But what about when that is no longer a concern? When the same protection afforded by the most powerful kingdoms on Orisis spans the entire planet and this one, when monsters slowly become less and less of a threat as humanity and other races advance to such a level that they can be easily dealt with by a group of common soldiers. What do you think is the next biggest cause of death?" Rethi began to think, but before he could even think of an answer Alena spoke confidently.
"Disease." I snapped my fingers and shot finger guns at her cheesily.
"Precisely. Once monsters and wars stop killing everyone, the next big issue will be illness, probably. I'm sure that the larger kingdoms have come up with ways of mitigating the spread of disease, they can't have their populace be wiped out by a random virus. But when it becomes the largest cause of death, there will be a massive push behind improving working and living conditions, putting in standards for the food you eat, what materials are used to construct things, the creation of sanitation as a societal concept. Eventually, the world will reach a point where it becomes almost impossible to make anything any cleaner or more sanitary without massive changes in life as you know it. So, after the world has begun to clean itself, and the spread of disease has been mitigated to a point where many diseases will simply disappear, and many will be mitigated in other ways—like inoculation and later on, vaccination. So, what is the next frontier?" The two kids looked at me, enraptured by what I was saying, but unable to look that far into the future on a dime.
How could they be expected to either? When the world was so concerned with actually surviving against monsters, what does disease matter in the grand scheme of things? I chuckled at their obviously feeble attempts to pick a 'new frontier'.
"What about diseases that have nothing to do with cleanliness? What about diseases that stem from lifestyle choices, or simply from existing in certain parts of the world and the insects that happen to be there too? What about birth defects that an unlucky child in thousands is afflicted with, or the various mental disorders that are inherited, at least partly, through genetics?" I shook my head at the two children in front of me who couldn't possibly know just how terrifying and destructive these diseases are.
"But with this power of yours? Life shifting could change all of that. Imagine that you were able to identify a chance that a child was potentially to be born with a rare genetic disorder that would make it impossible for them to live even a few years. Right then and there, you could eliminate that possibility right from the parent's genetics and the unborn foetus. You could stop the cycle altogether." I smiled at Alena. It was a moment of thinking before she seemed to slowly come to terms with just how far her ability could potentially stretch. I shrugged.
"You have a long way before you reach even remotely close to that level yet, especially without accidentally making someone start leaking blood through their eyes." I laughed lightly and Alena looked slightly disheartened by that, fuelling the darker parts of her emotions more severely than I had expected.
"But just because the goal seems unachievable, doesn't mean that it isn't worth pursuing. And who knows, you might accidentally achieve it." The who teenagers adopted thoughtful looks, and even Alena's storm of emotions seemed to calm down for a moment while she pondered. It'd be interesting to see what came out of this. Best case I get someone on my side that is able to heal people, and in worst case, I sow the seeds of my idealism.
We walked in mostly silence for the rest of the day. Maybe the two teenagers had things to think about after my spiel, but that was fine by me. Silence was a good tool, giving way to some of the best thoughts in the end.
The day slowly trended towards night, and after one more stop earlier in the day, we decided to take it in for the night, quickly setting up the tents and a campfire. We ate a quick dinner together, Alena and Rethi spending most of their time chatting quietly amongst themselves, which was fine by me, mostly because of the fact that I could feel the eyes on me again. I was sure now, the unknowable, alien feeling was coming from the campfire of all things.
Honestly, I was less creeped out by it at this point, and simply confused. By all visible metrics, it was an entirely normal campfire, nothing even remotely interesting about it. But irrespective of my perception, there were alien emotions simply existing within the fire itself.
When the two kids decided to go to sleep in the same tent—how scandalous—I stared into the fire, directly where I felt the emotions coming from. I think I spent a little over an hour staring into the fire before the emotions disappeared entirely. That just made me even more confused, was it contingent on–
"I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself sooner, your companions were… having a hard time getting to sleep, as it were." I jumped up from my spot on the ground, immediately summoning my hammer into existence the fastest I ever have. I took a swing at where I heard the voice coming from, and there was a loud thump as the hammer buried itself into the ground beside a portly man dressed in fine clothes, but not fine enough to be nobility. His face was the epitome of welcoming and hospitable, his head was balding too, only seeming to match his welcoming figure. I was entirely sure that the hammer was going to hit the man but soundlessly, and seemingly effortlessly, he had managed to dodge the blow entirely.
"Ah yes, the hammer I've heard so much about. If I remember correctly you weren't able to wield the beast of a thing for a while there. It's good to see that you have made progress." The man smiled encouragingly, in a way that I felt to my very core. It was inexplicable, but I had felt the same once, what felt like years ago now.
"A God."
The God before me raised an eyebrow.
"Indeed. Lord God of the Hearth Court, at your service. Fast on the uptake." The man moved to sit again, gesturing for me to do the same.
"I try." I said with not much humour in my voice.
"Yes, I know. It's not exactly a normal occurrence a God descending to meet a Champion. In fact, if I recall correctly, the last Court of Gods that authorised contact with a Champion ended up being culled." The man chuckled to himself. Though, the joke was a bit morbid for my tastes.
"So then, why would a 'Lord God' deign to come meet one such as myself, if the price for so doing is that high?" I looked into the God's eyes and felt that same alien set of emotions, but amusement bubbled to the surface most prominently.
"An interesting conundrum, isn't it? There is a reason of course, and that reason is you." The God looked into my eyes with a thoughtful expression on his face.
"Me? What's so interesting about me in all of this?" I asked, genuinely intrigued by the turn of events. Surely I'm not the most important Champion on probably even Virsdis at the moment, so that's certainly not the reason.
"Intention! Intention, my dear boy." The God yelled out. He saw my eyes glance worriedly towards the tent that both Rethi and Alena were sleeping in and he chuckled mirthfully.
"Do not worry, I am a Lord God, I know how to set up a few rudimentary sound cancellation wards and such." My eyes narrowed, seemingly lost in thought for a moment, but I prompted him.
"Intention?" I resupplied.
"Ah, yes. Intention. Do you know what those that fought in the last Champion War lacked so severely? The ones who were fighting against those who wished to return home, back to Earth?" The God pretended to ponder. His words were almost like an actor gently guiding his audience to the conclusion he wanted them to reach. I just raised an eyebrow at the God, and he chuckled merrily, delighting in being called out in his act.
"Intention. Champions that wished to go home were filled to the brim with it. Their burning need overwriting the care for any life, army, kingdom, or Champions that would dare get in their way. And what did we have to combat them?" He asked, a slight variation on the pondering expression. This time it was more like an academic, conversing with another about complicated topics only they could speak on at their respective levels.
"Nothing." I said, but the God's face fell, becoming a stone guise of distaste.
"Fear. All we had was fear." And I felt it through his eyes. That burning fear existed still within the God's chest. A wildfire of worry and anxiety over whether there would be anything left to be the God of.
"So," the God regained his jolly expression, his emotions equalizing once again, "this time, before the storm truly hits, we need something else to power us." He smiled, the simple expression filling me with an emotion that I wasn't so familiar with, a complex thing born of dire circumstance. That emotion was…
"Hope."