"I think that most of us, anyway, read these stories that we know are not "true" because we're hungry for another kind of truth: the mythic truth about human nature in general, the particular truth about those life-communities that define our own identity, and the most specific truth of all: our own self-story. Fiction, because it is not about someone who lived in the real world, always has the possibility of being about oneself."
― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game --From the Introduction
"Another failure," Ven sighed as his hands came to a rest. The complex, restorative structure he managed to create was still too weak to survive for long inside his true body. "I'll need something to compare it with…"
Ven's avatar was still occupied with Huan and couldn't be called away. It was time to try and form the second one. He pressed the tip of his claw into the meat of his thumb, a drop of blood that he sucked into the realm. His mind flexed, a shift of focus that wrapped the droplet in a bundle of runes.
Stretched into shape, Ven crafted his blood into the form of a man. A familiar face, the perfect reflection of his own. Another nudge of his mind inserted a silver ball into the newly forged body, the newest variation of the formation that ran his current avatar. Both structures socketed together and a third set of memories joined the two in his head.
"At least that was easy enough…" Ven stretched his back, mind already returned to his failure. More avatars were great but, if he could finish his regenerative scripture, his main body would be far more secure when he delved into his realm. "The new avatar can go study Dante, while I carry on here."
– – – –
"Hmmm?" Ven's new-born avatar drifted toward Dante's prison, eyes narrowed at the darkened spot under the surface of the system's star. "Someone isn't behaving…"
"He's just being greedy," the system's avatar drifted above the surface and yawned. "He still eats less than you and your glutinous Giant… though you've sent him that idiot to hunt for his own dinner."
"He'll be fine," Ven shrugged. The Giant was still connected to his soul like a rebellious avatar, but its ability to leave the realm was beneficial enough. "This avatar of mine is going to spend its time studying poor Dante's condition, hopefully the structure of the formation inside him can give me insights for my own work."
"Good luck with that," the system snorted as she swam through the starfire, a backstroke that brought her closer to Ven. "He does nothing but eat and complain about his imprisonment, I doubt he'll give you a moment's peace!"
"We'll see," Ven shook his head and glided into the darkened orb that was Dante's prison. The devil sat in a lotus position, mouth opened far too wide as he drank in the system's flame. "How have you been, thief?"
"YOU!" Dante started at Ven's words, but quickly rallied. He jumped to his feet, hands balled into fists."I thought I would be released by now… surely I'm not as dangerous as the actual Devil himself?"
"You'd think not, but…" Ven squinted into the devil's body, runes of truth active within his pupils. "He didn't succeed in taking something from me, not to mention…" Ven shook his head and circled Dante. "He doesn't make my eyes twitch when I look at him."
Dante had always been unsettling, ever since they first met in the Abyss. A sense of wrongness that dragged jagged nails over the metal of his mind. It was even worse now that he carried the law of truth, the Devil's every cell screamed at him, some difference that his mind failed to truly see.
"So, I'm being punished for my success…" Dante's face almost melted as he shifted gears. From rightious anger to a tearful puppy in a single blink. "How is that justice, I can't help it if I'm more skilled than that inexperienced angel!"
"Inexperienced?" Ven snorted, more focused on the runes within Dante than the conversation. "He should be older than you… you ARE the Dante who wrote the Inferno, right?"
"You know of my book…" Dante's preformative display of emotion vanished, replaced by a calculative glint. His black eyes bore into Ven's, magnetic pits filled with nothing but hunger. "How is that possible?"
"Your work was well known on my original Earth," Ven shrugged as he flicked his wrist. Dante spun around and locked in place, held steady as Ven examined a small section of runes. "Dante's Inferno, one man's mad dreams of the many layers of hell…"
"You really are a man from Earth… like the Titan and myself," Dante clicked his teeth. "I thought he was mocking me, but it seems he was right…"
"What's the big deal?" Ven moved on and continued to follow the complicated formation under Dante's skin. "I've got billions of Earths in my realm alone, I'm sure countless more exist, in the other multiverses…"
"They are pale reflections, hollow retellings that fail to grasp the grandeur of the original," Dante barked out a string of laughter, madness given sound. "Visit the Earths, search for my book… you won't find it!" The devil clapped his hands, face divided by a ghoulish smile. "No versions of me exist in this half dead omniverse, except for the one seated before you…"
Ven paused in his work and met Dante's gaze. The unearthly fellow practically glowed with joy as he spread his arms wide.
"It is the same for the Titan, and if you come from our Earth it is the same for you as well!" Dante snapped his perfect teeth like a bear trap, hard enough to generate sparks. "All those who survived its end have no place in the watered down copies that exist today."
"How can there be an 'original' Earth?" Ven shook his head. "Even if no other versions of us exist, that doesn't mean our universe was the first… and if it was, why does it matter?"
"Why does it matter…" Dante's smile inverted, a mighty frown that summoned a storm in the devil's eyes. "Because it means we're real, the two of us and the shadow of the Titan's ghost… three remnants of a greater age, alone against the revolting stagnation that has taken its place."
"Real…" Ven paused in his work once more, frozen in place as he finally identified what bothered him about Dante's very essence. Under the light of his eyes of truth, the devil lacked the same, unusual pattern that existed in everything else. "You're an uncomfortable truth, that's why I don't like the look of you!"
"What a gratuitous description…" Dante rolled his eyes. "Uncomfortable or not, the two of us are born of a different kind of world… a world that carries truth instead of its hollow imitation!"