Dead End 2: Deathly Di-Di-Doo Ch.1 (Patreon)

[AN: AN Take Two! Thanks for bearing with me as I figure this all out lol. Honestly, I should’ve just posted the chapter without any AN of me trying and failing to put my plans into words; jumping right back into the story, even with a new title, probably would’ve been much less confusing.

Okay, first things first, I really shouldn’t describe this as a reboot. I think that word gives off implications I don’t intend. It really, really is a continuation, building on the Dead End’s canon and all that’s already been written there. Consider it a new title for ‘Book 2’ and not much more.

Sean’s harem (Sean, Didi, Simmy, Harley, Ivy, Barbara, Kara, and Cass) still exists. It carries over just like everything else. Didi is Queen in that, but the others aren’t going to be forgotten. Continuation, not reboot.

The ‘cut-down’ cast is only to restart this story and get the ball rolling again. As I said in the original AN, it’ll expand back out to all the characters/relationships/interactions we’ve already seen once I’m confident I can fit them back in without derailing everything. Again: continuation, not reboot.

There will be something of a change in vibe to Sean’s stories in some places. A more sincere, more in-depth, less cracky, less ‘shock, awe, and baffle with bullshit without much more direction to the chosen story than that’ approach to them. I want more meaningful/varied/interesting stories to tell through Sean and more meaningful/varied/interesting reactions to those stories than just ‘WTF, Sean?!’.

I’ll definitely be returning to past stories to expand upon them and do them justice, along with the new, deeper, more focused stories I have planned. I’ll also be developing more consistent plotlines in the DC ‘verse for Sean, Didi, and everyone else to explore.

Really, if you give Dead End 2 a chance, I think you’ll quickly see that it’s the same story but better. That’s what I’m going for. But, in the spirit of this ASOIAF ‘Life One’: words are wind. I’ll prove what I mean by that with more chapters.

Stay tuned and don’t go giving up on The Dead End just yet…]

IIIII

[Back to the First; a Reincarnation]

— Sean Caine —

More than a year into my 69th Life, I stood behind the Dead End’s bar and watched over my domain.

I’d carved out a solid place for myself here: a neutral player in DC’s chaos, with my Dead End domain and my Death, my Didi, right beside me through it all.

At this point, it was clear to everyone that the Dead End wasn’t going anywhere. That said, our time as the main focus of the ‘verse had mostly come and gone. DC was like that. There was always something new to steal the plot away from you.

The very nature of the Dead End, Didi, and I had turned eyes our way at first, and kept them on us for a good while. We’d welcomed the attention that came our way, from Gotham and from beyond.

Interesting happenings had followed — the Joker’s death and eternal punishment in the bar’s mirror for cheating Death, Alice’s adoption, the karaoke night, Ciri’s arrival and her own adventures, my space adventure with Savage, Trigon’s brutal death, my reunions with Simmy and Ophy, Hecate’s rescue and recruitment, Olympus’ punishment, a family dinner with the strongest beings in the ‘verse, vacations for Didi and I, meeting my cultivating son and daughter for the first time, several iterations of show-and-tell, and, of course, stories galore all throughout.

Now that most of the ‘verse’s real players knew who we were, what we were about, and how we preferred neutrality, the Dead End had slipped into the role of an accepted fact, an absurd mundanity, an awesome side-show.

Really, the Dead End was a destination, by chance to some and by choice to others, reached at the end of a long, long DC day, not the main show and certainly not the center of the ‘verse, even if it was where Lady Death herself could be most consistently found without brushing up against her concept.

It was a place that was well worth a visit, always, for the good company and good entertainment, but everyone I hosted had their own lives to live outside of it. They came and went as they could, and things settled into a routine.

I preferred things that way. I was, after all, essentially retired in the latest life of this reincarnating journey of mine, having found my destined place beside Didi. I wouldn’t have traded that place for all the excitement in Creation.

These days, the Dead End wasn’t perpetually bustling as it’d been in the first few eventful months, but it was a close thing. At the very least, there was always someone interesting in attendance, from the heroes and villains I called my regulars to the more routine crowds, full of people with lives just as rich, if not as favored by fate.

For a few content moments, I simply took it all in, everything that had come to be in this Dead End.

At the main bar, Two-Face, Riddler, Penguin, and Catwoman shot the shit. They were caught up in a debate about the feasibility of villainous start-ups. Catwoman had started it by putting forth the idea of Riddler making his own puzzle room.

He had immediately scoffed in reply, “Room? I’d make a whole puzzle complex! A labyrinth to rival the word’s Greek origins! I would enthrall the world, and stump all comers!”

“Honestly, though? Not a very good business plan,” Penguin pointed out. “People like puzzles, but they like solving them, too.”

The conversation had expanded from there, including the other four in ideas for businesses that they could put their villainous skills to use in.

“I suppose I can always go white hat,” Catwoman shrugged. “Make rich and desperate fools pay me to break their security and point out the flaws.”

Riddler nodded, “There’s probably good money in that. Not as much as your heists, but you wouldn’t have to fuss around with fences and buyers for obviously stolen goods. Which, they always are if they’re coming from your hands, Selina.”

Catwoman sighed dramatically, “Oh, the plight of the infamous!”

“Nothing could make me go back into law,” Two-Face grunted.

“A shame,” Penguin shook his head. “You were quite good at it.”

“And you, Cobblepot?” Two-Face asked.

Penguin smirked, “Many of my businesses are legal already. And while I may not be as wealthy as Wayne, I can still throw cash at the ones that aren’t until certain laws pass in my favor.”

“Corrupt fuckin’ oligarch…” Two-Face grumbled. “Right, maybe one thing could make me go back into law: suing your ass for all its worth.”

“Please don’t,” Penguin requested sincerely. “I much prefer you as a peer and rival in the game, not an enemy on the other side of it; I do treasure our strange friendship, Dent.”

Two-Face looked away so the burnt half of his face was all Penguin could see, “… Cunt.”

On the main floor of the bar, a small gang of goons — Bane’s boys and girls, by the look of them — were giving one of their own a hard time. The ‘victim’ had a post-it note stuck to his back, and the steroid-blessed physique Bane preferred was preventing him from getting it off, barely able to reach his arms around his own bulk.

At another table, a trio of college-aged boys from Gotham University was trying to goad one more boy into approaching another table and shooting his shot. The table in question was occupied by a dangerously beautiful minor villain I vaguely recognized as Lynx and her gang. Lynx clearly saw the goading in action. She was sitting back in her chair with a patient smirk. The boy may actually have a chance with her if he could muster the courage.

Similarly relaxed and low-stakes interactions were playing out all around.

A mook dropped his head against a table, bemoaning how his fence had run out on him and left him with the loot from his latest gig. A curious rich girl overheard him and came over to ask about it. A deal in odd company was struck there, two very different sides of the city colliding in my domain and both parting peacefully with what they desired.

Simmy glided around the room, dutifully serving drinks with her telekinesis. Ophy napped at the bar, enjoying the Silence my presence brought her. Harley was actually dancing a jester’s jig atop the bar, moving to a rhythm only she could hear. The smile on her face was resplendent, reveling in Ivy’s indulgent applause and the rest of her audience’s more earnest cheers.

Hecate worked on a personal project, weaving Magic with the playful enthusiasm of her Maiden aspect, engaging with Savage as she did. My ‘Immortal Friend, Rival, and Brother!’ laughed boisterously and encouraged Hecate’s efforts to build a wholly new magical framework that humanity could use. He was as common a sight and sound at the Dead End as any of my regulars.

Jason Todd, in civilian clothes for a night off at the Dead End, leaned onto the bar, rambling about some fascinating bit of history to Alice across from him. Alice said something snappy and snarky in reply to one of Jason’s sentences. Jason laughed instead of taking offense to her prickly personality, and Alice blushed as red as Jason’s ‘Red Hood’ would’ve been.

Another two Bats came in through the bar’s skylight — practically their preferred entrance at this point — and alighted themselves at the bar. They were in costume, but taking their patrol breaks at the Dead End, as had become something of a custom for several of Gotham’s protecting Bats.

I rarely saw Batman himself or Nightwing these days, but Batgirl, Red Hood, Black Bat, and Robin when he was in town were frequent features, almost as regular as my Roguish regulars. The two Bats who came to sit in front of me were the last two: Cass and Damian. They immediately requested their usual order of headpats.

Didi paused what she was doing behind the bar and reached across space while killing the distance between to indulge Damian. I did the same for Cass without batting an eye, well-used to using conceptual fuckery for such simple ends.

“How’s your night been, Cass?” I asked.

“(˶‾᷄ ⁻̫ ‾᷅˵)” ‘Guuuuuhhhh~… COoMiN!’

Cass, orgasmically melting from headpats as she always did, struggled to reply for a moment. When she found her Bat Composure™ again, it was with a smirk that spoke for her.

“§ԾᴗԾ§” ‘Better now! Always better with headpats and Gothboy break time! First headpat coom of the night is always the best!’

Damian nodded and deadpanned beneath his own headpats, “Only headpats can make these unjustly enforced breaks in saving this cursed city from itself worthwhile.”

“Unjust?” Didi asked, humoring him.

“… I like that Father cares, but he is a hypocrite. So long as he refuses to lead by example, I will consider these breaks he requires of us unjust.”

“乁[ᓀ˵▾˵ᓂ]ㄏ” Cass shrugged. ‘Eh, I don’t mind ‘em that much. What’s a little time off in this city? It’s not like I was tracking Scarecrow and his new attempts to rival Bane’s drug trafficking with his fear toxin of all things.’

“Out of curiosity, is he having any success there?” I asked.

“(๑•﹏•)⋆ ⁑⋆” Cass’ expression turned flat and confused. ‘Yeah, weirdly enough. But his biggest customer is, believe it or not, Bane himself. Scarecrow hasn’t realized. I’m pretty sure Bane’s trying to cook up a new, adrenaline-based version of Venom.’

I chuckled and shook my head, “Only in Gotham.”

 Cass had requested a plate of ‘Dead End Special’ chocolate pancakes to share with Damian. I whipped them up in moments. Cass and Damian immediately began dueling over the pancakes with their forks. Silverware sang and sparked against each other. Satisfied that they were satisfied, I left them to their required patrol break.

I turned back to the rest of my domain. Didi came over to me, finishing up the light service she’d been doing before Damian’s headpats. She leaned on me, and I leaned on her in turn.

A transcendent sense of peace settled in my bones then — Didi at my side and all we’d built before us. Didi felt the same; I could just feel it. At this point, she was just as tied to me as I was tied to her — Lady Death and her Prince Consort. I would wed her one of these days, put a cosmic ring on her ascendant finger, and Didi knew it. For now, though, we weren’t in any rush.

We could’ve stayed like that ’til the End of All Days, with each other for company and the domain I shared with her to keep us busy.

Didi tilted her head onto my shoulder. I tilted my head onto her head. We fit together like a puzzle, one a long time in the making and solving.

The night continued as we shared in each other’s company, pure connection after so many deaths. The Dead End ran itself for the most part. Its Genius Loci had developed into a true force to be reckoned with. Most of what my staff and I did was just a complementary bonus to its operations.

Our patrons came and went, but more stayed than left. One notable pairing of guests caught my eye, and I waved. The younger of the pairing was someone I was well familiar with — red-haired, green-eyed, and fit as any Bat, though she was in her civilian clothes like Jason. The older of the pairing, to my pleasant surprise, was a recognizable face in Gotham that I had yet to meet — red-haired as well, though graying, with green eyes that were just as alert and intelligent as his daughter’s.

Didi and I waved at Barbara and Jim Gordon. Barbara, looking uncharacteristically uncomposed, led her father over to the main bar and us behind it.

“Sean, uh, hey…” Barbara greeted. “This… Well, you probably already know about him. This is my father.”

“James Gordon,” Her father extended a hand over the bar to me. “Call me Jim. It’s hard for me to get a night off, but I thought this meeting was long overdue.”

Didi smiled, “Be welcome at the Dead End, Jim.”

“Any father to Barbara is a father to me as well,” I quipped.

“Right, none of that,” Barbara groaned. “Don’t make this weird, Sean.”

“Weird? At the Dead End? Perish the thought!” I exclaimed.

Jim chuckled, “With all I’ve heard about the Dead End — from Barbara and from Vicki Vale’s ‘exclusive reporting’ blog — that does sound about right. It’s Gotham, though. You fit right in.”

“Thank you,” I nodded. “We’ve enjoyed our time here. I’m hoping for many more years like this last one.”

“You’re here to stay, then?” Jim asked, his eyes sharp but not hostile.

“For the foreseeable future,” I confirmed. “Foreseeable future by Didi’s standards, that is. Where she goes, I do.”

Didi nudged me back for that statement, “And where he goes, a part of me goes, too.”

“That won’t affect your… duties, Lady Death?” Jim asked.

Didi just blinked, “I don’t see how it would. I am Endless, James Gordon. A not-so-little thing like keeping my Hand and Prince Consort company is well within that Endless scope.”

“Just asking,” Jim chuckled. “It’s well above my pay grade anyway. I’m happy with my own duties, small as they might seem to figures like you two.”

“Small? Only from the outside,” I shook my head. “You help watch over a fascinating and hectic slice of the ‘verse, Jim. I don’t think anyone can deny that you do your best here, either.”

“Your work is as ‘big’ as any other mortal’s,” Didi assured him. “And the lives you touch are better off for it. You’ve given many a departed soul closure in your enduring pursuit of justice.”

“That’s mighty kind of you, but I’m just doing my job,” Jim demurred.

“A worthwhile life’s work,” I insisted. “And one you deserve a break from, just the same as everyone else. Here’s hoping that the Dead End can offer you a few moments away from the constant business of keeping Gotham safe tonight.”

Jim chuckled and sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, “It really is a rare thing, nights off like this. I intended to spend it with Barbara, but she told me she already had plans to come here.”

He shrugged, “I thought, ‘Why not?’ and decided to tag along. Barbara was reluctant-…”

“Not ‘cause I didn’t want to spend time with you-!” Barbara insisted, interrupting him. “Sean’s just… ‘much’. And not a bit of it; he’s all ‘much’. Especially for newcomers.”

I chuckled, “For the most part, the days of baffling my audiences with bullshit are behind me at this point. My regulars and irregulars have mostly adjusted to the tall tales of a well-spent past I tell.”

“We had to become inured to your bullshit, Sean,” Barbara deadpanned. “The only other option was an early death by aneurysm.”

Didi giggled, “She’s exaggerating, but not by much. So is Sean, but again, not by much. These days, a few rare stories here and there will get him the reactions he seeks, but for the most part, he’s had to get… creative about his retellings and their contents.”

“Hey, I don’t necessarily seek to baffle everyone,” I defended myself. “It just happens when my audiences are introduced to new contexts, and barely know how to cope or incorporate them into their worldviews.”

“Honestly,” I shrugged. “I like that people are used to my way of doing things now; it means I can go more in-depth without people losing the plot.”

“Am I going to have trouble following those plots, then?” Jim asked.

“You seem like a flexible man, Jim,” I smirked. “I think you’ll find yourself coping better than your daughter did at first. Now, what are you drinking?”

“Martini, dry as the Sahara,” Jim rattled off. “Hold the olives. Stirred, not shaken.”

I raised an eyebrow at him, “Just good gin stirred over ice, then?”

Jim nodded, “It’s gotten me through many a tough night in the office, and this way, I only have to keep one bottle in my desk.”

“You’re a man who knows what he wants,” I praised. “Coming right out, just give me a moment.”

I didn’t always mix drinks myself, letting the Dead End itself flex its magical mixing muscles, but here, I gave Jim’s drink the personal touch.

Barbara spoke up while I worked, “Sean, about your stories, your… bullshit…

“I’ve heard a lot of stories from you, but I still struggle to see how they all built up to… you, Sean. Mentally, I mean, and philosophically, I suppose. Your way of just being and letting be? How do you care so little, and so-… so much, too?”

Her question turned quietly curious and intently intrigued at the end, but it still succeeded in attracting attention from more than just the four of us. The Dead End’s Roguish Regular Four, after exchanging wary and strained greetings with Jim, turned and scooted in, sensing an interesting topic. Savage and Hecate gravitated our way, too, and Cass and Damian immediately set themselves on Jim and Barbara’s opposite side.

I hummed, serving Jim his drink, “In a word? Retirement.”

Jim snorted a laugh, “I can get behind that sentiment.”

“… And in more than a word?” Barbara asked.

“I’ve seen too much to care anymore, and not enough to ever stop. It’s as paradoxically simple as that, for I’ve experienced existence as anything but.”

Alice came over, bringing Jason with her on the other side of the bar. Harley came skipping over on top of the bar upon seeing the growing gathering, with Ivy trailing behind on the floor and more sedately finding herself a seat. Simmy immediately left her serving duties to the Dead End the moment she heard me speaking, and Ophy slid across the bar to get closer, napping all the while.

Alice affectionately nudged her shoulder against Didi’s free shoulder and asked me, “Dad, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Complexity is the key to all of Creation,” I began, laying out the foundation of a philosophy I’d come to hold relatively recently in my reincarnating journey. I’d needed some 66 lifetimes to do most of the heavy lifting, and only in this 69th did I really get it.

“Complexity defines existence — so many different systems and laws and concepts and ideas and energies and events and actions and connections and infinitely more still — so many things intertwined into a glorious, all-encompassing mess. Causes and effects that you can never fully know, influences large and small, the histories of every infinitesimal particle and every grand working of cosmic energy, the unique inner worlds of every little being that claims Life; all of it is Complexity, adding detail to the unfathomably vast, ever-spiraling pattern of Creation,” I waxed poetic.

“Once you’ve lived enough to realize that everything you see/do/think/feel/are adds to that pattern… Well, no single philosophy can hope to define that, can it? And I’ve come to view any half-hearted definition, any way of thinking that ignores all the infinite others, as an insult to Complexity itself. Thus, I care so little, and I care so much.”

“It’s an interesting expansion on Monism: adding the texture of ‘complexity’ to the idea of everything as One. Honestly, I like it. But does that mean you’re saying it’s all meaningless?” Jason asked, more academically curious than existentially dreading.

I laughed, “Of course not! The very opposite! We are part of something so great that it defies definition and defines definition! Complexity is meaning!

“Your personally lived experience may be a dot on the pattern, but it’s a unique dot! A dot like no other! In that, we find it in ourselves to care. And in the immeasurably vast Complexity of Creation, we find it in ourselves not to care, to throw it all to the pattern and live as only we can!”

“Well said, well said!” Savage laughed, matching my almost rapturous revelation with an equally exuberant energy of his own. “Yes, by all the Pattern dots of Humanity, by the ascendent spiraling superstructure of Human Nature itself in the Pattern, Sean, I am INSPIRED!”

“Hnn…” Ophy gave an adorable little grunt without truly waking. “Complexity… Too loud.”

Chuckling, I continued, “That, I suppose, is how I got to where I am through all my lives: by seeing enough to know how little I’ve yet seen, by taking all my experiences, lessons learned, and tragedies endured and adding them to my own Complexity, and by hoping to add to the pattern as much as I can while also accepting that just being is already enough.”

Complexity…

Jason got it right when he called it an expansion on Monism: the grand idea that everything was One. Complexity added to that, connecting even the most unconnecting things, including everything in the system of existence, the Pattern of Creation. It was accepting the impossible vast ‘verse, every ‘verse and every aspect of them, and focusing back down on your individual part in all of that Complexity.

I treated it as a lesson in caring and not, but I was aware that others would take different lessons from the idea. Some might see it as a route to power, climbing through intertwining things. Others might see it as a warning against black-and-white assumptions and biases and even solutions, for every issue one could think of was so much more complex than one could ever fully realize alone: existence defined by a glorious lack of simplicity.

I could practically see my audience coming to their own conclusion. They would take from the idea what they would take, and that was beautiful.

In fact, it was better if they filtered Complexity through their own worldviews and added it to their experienced wisdom, contributing to the ever-spiraling Complexity that, even in itself, was only one way of looking at Creation.

Hecate asked, “Was there ever a life where you cared too much?”

“Oh, definitely. Dozens,” I confirmed. “Do you think I started out this wise?”

Alice snarked at that, “Wise, Dad?”

I waved her off, “Well-traveled, at least.”

“Hard to deny that one,” Barbara snarked. “Whether all of those travels have actually made you wise… That’s a whole other matter.”

“You must think there’s something wise in me,” I shot back, smirking. “You were the one who started this conversation, after all.”

“Curiosity,” Barbara sniffed. “Nothing more.”

“I want to hear a story where Mr. Barkeep cared too much,” Penguin said.

“Yes, Sean! Show us the depth of your Heart!” Savage exclaimed in agreement.

I obliged, waving in my audience for Dead End storytime, “Then I suppose I should start at the very beginning… or just a bit after it, actually. My Life Zero was spent in an utterly mundane world, and my Life One was spent in a world only slightly more fantastical. On the surface, at least.”

“Your first life, Gothboy?” Harley asked. “Heh, this is a ‘first’!”

Ivy chuckled, “Even after all this time, you still have so much to share, don’t you, Sean? We haven’t even heard about the very first life you lived.”

“First life since I started counting,” I waved my hand so-so. “Honestly, it’s completely possible — probable, even — that Life Zero was just another in the chain, but it’s the first I definitively remember other than indistinct, irrecoverable scraps, probably because I spent that mundane life mostly alone and getting my mind in order.

“My ‘negative’ lives — if they exist as I suspect they do — must have shattered my mind, considering the amount of meditation and soul-searching I had to do to put myself together in Life Zero. It’s actually a good thing that life didn’t have magic of any kind; it forced me to recover the hard way, just me and my mind and a purely mundane foundation.

“Without it… I doubt my efforts in Life Zero would’ve stuck. I doubt I’d be here today, even, instead of being stuck in whatever shattered negative reincarnating loop I had been.”

Jason winced, “Yikes. Just… yikes.”

“＼＼\(۶•̀ᴗ•́)۶//／／” Cass cheered, her playful sarcasm coming through in the gesture. ‘Yay! Even serial reincarnators can have a little existential horror! As a treat!’

Barbara’s face screwed up in confusion and disbelief, “What could’ve broken you like that, Sean?”

“[Negative Lives: Simple Nomenclature? Or Definitive Quality?]” Simmy inquired. “[Possibly Implies Existence of Negative Multiverse…?]”

“… That would do it, then,” Hecate nodded with a shiver of horror. “Negative universes absolutely do exist; here, at the very least. If Sean spent multiple consecutive lives within their grips, I can see how that would shatter even him to the point of needing a hard, mundane reset.”

“I could look, if you wish, Sean,” Didi quietly offered.

I smiled back but shook my head, “Maybe one day. For today, let’s not get off on a tangent. Ultimately, any of my potential negative lives are irrelevant; Life Zero wiped me clean. A hard, mundane reset, as Hecate said.

“Thus, I went into Life One fresh as a babe in more ways than one. I was right out of a world more real than fantasy, and it was all I knew that I knew at the time. In every way that practically matters, Life One could be considered my first reincarnation. And it left me rocked to the core of everything I thought I knew. I found myself alive again, and I found myself utterly lost.”

“I’ll be honest, knowing what you get up to farther down the line, it’s really hard to imagine you so lost,” Riddler chuckled.

“I suppose even Mr. Barkeep had to start somewhere,” Catwoman drawled.

“Did you greet Death kindly even then, my dear?” Didi asked.

“Quite frankly? No,” I chuffed. “You were a stranger to me, as far as I knew, my Death. I thought that was the end for me, an unceremonious death for an unceremonious life of soul-searching. Oblivion claimed me — Death, though I still didn’t know you, Didi — for an instant and an eternity. Then, I was awake and aware and alive all over again, screaming my newborn lungs out.

“It’s not an easy thing for a man who was only used to the mundane, the ‘real’, to come to terms with reincarnation. Sure, I knew the concept, but actually experiencing it that first time… There are no words to describe your first transition from life to death to life again.”

Jason shuddered, “There really, really aren’t… And to do it without Didi guiding you and keeping you company? I can’t even imagine.”

I nodded, “It was only made worse by how I came into Life One. All too suddenly, I was thrust out of oblivion through a contracting tube, sharing a racing heartbeat with the flesh all around me. I was assaulted by existence on all sides after coming to know the utter stillness of death. I learned immediately that there’s a very good reason the first thing babies do is cry…”

“You… remember your birth…?” Jim asked.

“Several. Each one is a trauma burned into reincarnating memory. Be very, very glad you can’t remember yours,” I intoned gravely.

I shook my head, “It’s much, much simpler if I come into a new life fully formed. Being a baby sucks. And being a child isn’t much better. It’s in the complete lack of agency, and in the lack of respect. I learned that quickly in this first life. But there is, I suppose, at least one silver lining…”

“That being…?” Damian asked, his tone flat and one of his eyebrows curiously raised.

“(✧ω✧)” Cass eagerly piled on. ‘Yeah, yeah! What?’

I smiled, “There’s nothing quite like looking up at your mother for the first time through a baby’s eyes. Recognizing the inherent connection you share… Seeing how she put her very life on the line to bring you yours… Even regular babies, I suspect, are struck with awe at that first sight, though I doubt they can process it as such.

“My mother in Life One was a beautiful woman, and I’m not just saying that as her son. She was, quite literally, a queen — monarch to Seven Kingdoms — and a dragon-rider to boot.

“She had hair of shimmering, shining gold, and brilliant pale blue eyes like a cloud-free sky. She was regal, a presence about her that defied all words in my newborn mind. She looked back at me with such love that it silenced my lost and panicking wails; for just a moment, then, I knew a peace that transcended my reincarnation.”

There were smiles all around as I said that. The statement resonated with a truth inherent to the human condition, to Life itself.

Most everyone who lived had a mother at one point or another, from the most mundane to the most transcendent. Even Savage, his mother lost to the sands of immortal time, bore an uncharacteristically soft expression on his usually boisterous face, and even Hecate, born of nothing but Magic, could relate.

“What about dads?” Jim asked, half-joking.

“I’m sorry to say that it’s not at all the same,” I chuckled, shaking my head. “A father is important, undeniably, but there is something so-… so base, so primal, so intrinsic in a mother’s love and sacrifice, the duty she takes on for your sake. Your first glimpse of that, wherever and whenever it comes, will take your breath away without fail.”

Sighing playfully, Jim ceded the point, “No, that’s fair.”

Barbara leaned her head on his arm, “I love you, too, Dad. Never doubt that.”

“What’s this about your mother in Life One being a queen and dragon-rider, then?” Ivy asked. “I already like the sound of her.”

I nodded and continued, “Ah, yes: the world I was born into in Life One… It was only slightly more Magical than my world in Life Zero. That one was completely mundane. A baseline, if you will. Life One was different, but not by as much as you might think.

“At its core, it was still a world of humans and the human condition, flourished with minorly magical elements and an underlying current of greater mysteries still. I was not born upon Earth. The learned men of that life called the world ‘Planetos’, and it was a world of ever-turning cycles.”

“Planetos?” Harley laughed.

“Oh, like ‘Earth’ is so much better,” Hecate gently chided.

“[Worlds named by host species: inevitably, consistently straightforward.]” Simmy stated.

“I would actually argue that the names only become straightforward because, ya know, ‘the world’ is all a ‘host species’ knows for the majority of their existence,” Jason said. “I am surprised this Planetos isn’t named for the ground beneath the feet of those who walk it, though.”

“I’m sure there were more than a few fascinating debates about that subject in the Citadel that you would’ve loved to sit in on, Jason,” I chuckled.

“Regardless, Planetos,” I said, continuing. “And the chief continent of my life there — Westeros — was deep in the grips of a multiple millennia-long medieval age. Several thousand years without much change in the social status quo to speak of.

“How do you spend multiple millennia in a medieval age?” Barbara asked, purely bemused.

“Don’t let their millennia of stagnation fool you; the technological state of Westeros was actually rather advanced for a medieval world. They were fantastic metalworkers and architects. Magic, while rare in the modern era, had deep roots in the world and played a major role in ancient wonders. Their medicine actually wasn’t all that bad for the era, though it still had major problems as you might expect. And most interesting, they shared a language across the whole of a continent, which is a feat of unified culture that I’ve rarely seen replicated,” I said.

“Still, ultimately, I went from modern society in my Zeroth Life to a damningly feudal one in my First Life. Lords and Ladies were, pardon the pun, king and queen.”

“(￣_￣)・・・” Cass’s reacting expression was flat. ‘Feudalism’s always kinda awful, but damn if it doesn’t make for some good stories…’

I elaborated, “I was born into the ruling family of Westeros: House Targaryen. Before my house, Westeros existed as Seven Kingdoms for thousands of years in a feudal stalemate: the North, the Kingdom of Isles and Rivers, the Vale, the Westerlands, the Reach, the Stormlands, and Dorne. Each was ruled by not-at-all-petty kings.

“The Targaryens were foreigners to Westeros, coming from a dragon-riding empire across the sea that ended in long-overdue magical Doom. The Valyrian Empire skirted deserved destruction for a thousand years at their height before they could skirt it no more. They danced with evils that Planetos had scarcely seen on such a scale: blood magicks and twisted chimeric experimentation and incest as a ‘noble’ rule, cruel slavery and brutal conquest abound. Eventually, the very land beneath them could take no more, rebelling in a magical calamity that scarred the Valyrian homeland forevermore and erased the empire at its stagnating peak.

“My newfound house escaped the Doom thanks to the prophetic dreams of one not-so-distant ancestor, Daenys the Dreamer. For a time, they stayed out of the Seven Kingdoms’ feudal stalemate. Then, my great-grandfather in that life set out to conquer his new continent on dragon-back, for which the kings and lords of the Seven Kingdoms had no answer. Aegon’s brutal conquest united Westeros into one realm by fire and blood, aside from one hold-out kingdom in Dorne, and he cemented his rule with a monstrous throne of swords forged from dragonfire.

“I could tell many stories of my immediate ancestors in that life,” I mused. “Their conquest and the rule that followed was not an untroubled one. By the time of my birth, however, it was accepted as the new order of Westeros. My father, King Jaehaerys, and my mother, Queen Alysanne, played no small part in that.”

I paused and gauged my audience’s interest. Jason was practically drooling at the prospect of a whole new medieval history to dive into. Hecate seemed most interested in the talk of magic and doom. Jim, as I’d somewhat expected from the man, was taking the tale of a whole other life and world well, just listening patiently and coming to his own conclusions.

“Odds on Sean becoming King of Westeros?” Penguin asked.

“Sucker’s bet!” Riddler laughed. “Odds on him being a dragon-rider like his mother?”

“Sounds like him,” Two-Face grunted. “I’ll take that action.”

I just shook my head silently. This wasn’t that kind of story. They’d see that for themselves soon enough.

“The Valyrians must’ve been real fuc-…” Alice stopped herself before swearing, glancing at Didi. “… Real fricked up if they made the actual land they claimed rebel against them like that.”

“Oh, I doubt I would’ve liked their efforts one bit,” Didi shook her head.

“Prince Gothboy?” Harley hummed. “Sounds like you had it set in Life One.”

My expression darkened at the memories, “I did. And in that life, I came to realize that so, so, so many didn’t.”

“Daddy was a tyrant?” Catwoman asked, lazily smirking.

“Yes and no,” I answered. “By Targaryen standards, he was a blessed king. But that still meant a rule enforced by dragon-riding dominance and a feudal structure to society that favored only the few.

“Tyrant or not, though, I never managed to make myself comfortable in highborn life he intended to give me by no right but birth. Not after such a mundane, simple, soul-mending Life Zero. For that entire life, I was just as lost as I’d been as a babe.

“I was depressed and angry, thinking myself so painfully, undeservingly lucky for being given a second chance at life. I was so very confused, desperately, frantically, madly searching for a reason, an explanation, a purpose. It was a madness born of reincarnation. ‘Why?’ I would ask, plead, demand, scream to the uncaring cosmos of that life, ‘Why me?!’

“I thought I was dreaming. I knew everything was all too terribly real. That first time, I imagined I must have had some purpose for being reincarnated, some quest that the universe wouldn’t tell me, no matter how hard I prayed. I obsessed over every little thing in that life that could’ve shown me anything that mattered if even death was meaningless to me.

“In my youth, I was driven — so madly driven. I sought to recreate lost magicks, divinitations like my dreaming ancestor, if they could only show me a sign. I pored over all the tomes in the royal library for any scrap of sympathetic wisdom. I burned and bled myself in hopes of finding the missing piece in my family’s words: Fire and Blood. I sacrificed the cold dragon egg placed in my cradle and never hatched, my ‘Targaryen birthright’ that must’ve known how lost and broken I was from living all over again.

“I was desperate to grasp… any meaning, any direction, any hope or answer or motivation or wisdom or revelation, anything at all.

“At every turn, I failed. Eventually, I took a step back from the mad desperation of that life's youth. I looked at myself, soul-searching as I’d done in my Zeroth Life, and there, at the height of my first reincarnation's madness, I saw privilege. Meaningless privilege, privilege I thought I'd done nothing to deserve.

“I saw myself swaddled in it and so selfishly embroiled in my own obsessive existence while the vast majority of lives in that world suffered the very privilege I enjoyed then. They didn’t even get the chance to obsess over selfish meanings and purposes.”

“The ‘Small’folk…” I scowled. “Their ‘small’ stories and lives and troubles — forever ignored, forever forgotten, forever under feudal foot. In that life, I quickly came to loathe nothing more than the word ‘small’ in that context. I’d been one of them, just a life ago. I thought only uncaring cosmic chance had seen me born ‘differently’.

“The cosmos didn’t care, and no one else would… but I decided in that life that I would. Oh, how I would care about those ‘small’ lives, so similar to the one I’d been stolen from… ‘Small’ as they were, I considered them the only thing that was real in the royal dream I’d been born into. Now, I know that the truth of what's 'real' and what's a 'dream' isn't nearly so simplistic and crude, so biased without nuance, but back then, at my beginning...?

“I fixated, lost and mad, and I cared, so deeply that it drove me even madder. That deepening madness had a purpose, at least. It had meaning. As soon as I was able, I threw off the royal trappings — the duties and privileges, the dream — and ran.”

My voice fell, soft and somber and sincere, and everyone leaned in to hear me. 

“When I did, I saw for myself how life in that world, ‘highborn’ or ‘small’, was anything but a song…”