Daniel startled up when the plane made contact with the ground again. He hadn’t fallen asleep, not really. 

Most people take being awake for granted. It is, after all, second to sleeping, the thing most of us get the most practice doing, in that spot between birth and death. What most people fail to realize is that being awake is a resource. Consciousness is spent on itself, certainly, and needs to be replenished every sixteen hours or so, but other things can bite into that pool of awake-ness as well. 

Stress, anxiety, excitement, physical exercise, all of those require the same energy (or similar enough that the distinction does not, in this case, matter all that much) as staying awake does. As such, we can be awake for only half a day and already find ourselves slouching over like a wax sculpture on a hot day, drained of energy. 

The mind will often tell the body to keep going, at which the body will simply sip its fifth cup of coffee and mutter “good luck” under its breath, and then an hour or so later come back around to slap the mind with all the weight of its own hubris. 

When the body and mind are pushed far enough like this, the average human starts to slip into a sort of in-between state. The body and the major functions are still going on automatic. The steps are still taken. But the actual processing is pretty much gone. 

To most people, this state of near-catatonia is known as exhaustion, although that word doesn’t entirely doesn’t do it justice. Exhaustion implies having done physical exercise that can be entirely absent here. The limbs are heavy, despite not having done anything. Among humans, this state of existence is known best by students and young parents, who exist in a state of automation that is nearly unrivaled among all species in the known multiverse. 

Daniel had been in that state for a few hours now. The trepidation he felt, the anxiety of flying itself, and of course the weight of the last few wordless days, had all come crashing down on him and he was barely conscious. He was beyond tired, although the shock of the plane landing had pushed him out of it momentarily through sheer adrenalin, which carried him forward all the way from the taxi to the gate, where he lost all energy when the plane came to a halt. 

He was barely aware of his surroundings as Eliza gently nudged him left and right out of the plane, towards customs and baggage claim. He wasn’t really present and just let himself be guided forward. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to be here anymore, but, his upper brain functions gently snoozing in the couch cushions of his mind, he didn’t really see anything for it but to just let it all happen. This was, his automaton-brain figured, simply something he had to see through to the end. There wasn’t really any alternative. 

He was startled awake again when they stepped out of the airport. The air was cold. It was beyond cold, it was freezing, and it was enough to shake him awake. He looked around. This was Iceland. It was nothing like… it was nothing like where they’d been living. He realized with a shake of his head he’d almost thought of the apartment he’d shared with Eliza as home. But it wasn’t, and he shouldn’t think of it that way. He wasn’t going back there again, after all. Home was where he was going. 

Iceland was different, at the very least. A bit more like how he remembered the world he’d grown up in. Sure, it was colder, but the air felt as crisp as it once had, without the pollution of big cities, and he could hear the sea nearby. The buildings, other than the large airport, were smaller, and stood further apart from each other. Eliza looked around, pulling her luggage behind her, its wheels loudly rolling along the floor. 

“This way,” she said quietly as she started walking. She’d memorized a map of the area, and she knew where to rent a vehicle. They weren’t expecting a very long walk, half an hour at most, and Daniel hoped that maybe the exercise would get his blood pumping a bit. The streets sloped gently, and the white buildings lined streets that were made with pedestrians in mind. The contrast was definitely stark. He’d gotten used to a world made for motor transport, and seeing a city so friendly to foot traffic and, by comparison, quiet, was not unpleasant. 

They came to a small building with a sign out front. He didn’t know what the word actually said, it looked like a jumble of letters to him, but they’d memorized it. This was where they were supposed to be. The man inside was nice, and luckily he spoke English, something the guide online had mentioned most people on the island would do. Eliza spent some time talking to the man, pointing to a point on the map. His nodding and asking a few questions was encouraging, even if Daniel wasn’t really mentally present for the actual conversation. He seemed to know where they were supposed to go, at the very least. 

After some time and payment (the credit card worked, it seemed) they were led to a car by a young woman wearing a thick orange jacket and short blonde hair. She was nice, and, Daniel, realized with relief, not very talkative. Whether that was because of a language barrier or simply because that wasn’t really the norm here, he didn’t know, but she communicated mostly in nods and gestures. That worked fine for him. 

He hadn’t been in a car before, but he’d seen it a lot and, after the plane, it was practically nothing. It was easy by comparison. Eliza and him sat next to each other, quietly, both looking out the window. The car starting was quiet, almost muted, and it wasn’t all that long before the buildings gave way to landscape, and something very strange happened. Daniel recognized it. The landscape was familiar to him in a way that was hard to put to words. He’d seen this before. The sparse vegetation. The mountains in the distance. The vague sense of timelessness. He frowned. 

“I see it too,” Eliza said. He turned around. He thought for a moment she was looking at him, but her eyes were fixed past him, out the window, a look of nostalgia on her face. “I’ve flown over landscapes exactly like this.”

“I’ve walked through them,” Daniel said, and looked outside again, getting the distinct feeling that Eliza’s eyes were on him. “Once. On my way to fight the Evil Demon Dragon Queen.” He heard Eliza scoff next to him and he chuckled softly, too. That felt like a lifetime ago, now. In a way, it was.

“You two are visiting Lagarfljót,” the woman in the front seat said. It wasn’t really a question. She looked over her shoulder with a smirk. “From the video game, já?” Daniel looked back at her, not really knowing how to respond. She just nodded and looked at the road again. “You two are not the only ones who want to see where the story was born,” she continued, her slightly singsong. “I will take you to the edge of the lake. From the pictures.” There was a playful quality to her voice, amused by what she probably thought were two tourists. 

“Sure,” Eliza said, blinking a few times, processing the new information. What neither of them realized -- or had any way to realize -- was that this was a coincidence. What almost nobody realizes is that coincidences are a way for stories to tell themselves. In one world, a Demon King, long ago, had built a castle on a mountain, overlooking windswept plains and distant, rolling hills. In another, a man had sat by a lake, looking at windswept plains and distant, rolling hills, and imagined a mountain with a castle and a Demon King.

The story was told in whatever medium it could find. In people. In the imagination of a man who grew up with a landscape open enough for him to paint a story on top of it. All of this, of course, completely went over Daniel and Eliza’s heads. They had no idea about any of this. But they still saw their past there. And, Daniel feared, their future. 

“What was it like?” Eliza asked. He looked at her, and the expression on her face was one of kind curiosity. “Back then. What was your life like? I didn’t… It never felt like there was time, you know?”

Daniel nodded and looked back. “It was… a lot,” he said. “The first time it was a whole adventure.” He looked out the window again, difficult as it was to tear himself away from Eliza’s face. “Friends. Magic. Evil spirits. I don’t remember half of it. I was a child.” He sighed at the memories. “After the first time it became… an obligation. It was still… the right thing to do. But now I also had to. I was supposed to be the hero, after all.” Eliza made an affirmative noise. She was clearly listening, and that made it easier to keep talking, even if he wondered what the woman in the driver’s seat thought about the strange conversation they were having. “It was… what I did. What I do.” He looked back at her. “What about you?”

“It was a lot,” Eliza said, looking out over the landscape. “Never great. I was always going to be the Demon Dragon Queen. I was always going to have to take over my father’s kingdom, and it was always a big thing. Whether you, or someone like you, was going to show up to defeat me. If not you, then a child or a relative.” She went quiet. “I’m glad that’s behind me now. That that’s not… who I am.”

Daniel nodded. He’d noticed it too. He wondered for a moment what sort of person she would want to be when she went back. Would she even want to? If she went back to her own world, she’d be almost ten feet tall, horned, the picture of, well, the Demon Queen. Would she put that behind her, too? “I know,” he said quietly. “I don’t know if I want to be the person I was then anymore, either.” They looked at each other for a moment, and he felt that hook in his very soul again, pulling him away from his own thoughts. His exhaustion was starting to catch up with himself. 

“You don’t have to be, you know,” Eliza said softly. Daniel frowned, not sure he understood what she was saying. He did. He was the hero. He had to go back. If it was without her, if he wasn’t good enough for her here, he might be good enough for himself again back there at least. 

“What do you mean?” he asked. He was a little scared of the answer, in that way people get scared of what they’re asking in case they get an answer that hits them at knee-height, wipes them out and slams them face-first into a realization they aren’t ready to realize yet. 

“I don’t want to be the Demon Queen,” Eliza said, resolutely. Daniel nodded. She’d said that before, but there was a tone in the air, the absence of words that absolutely promised that there would most definitely be more words in just a moment. “And I… don’t think I’m going to be.”

“I know,” Daniel said. “We talked about this. You’re not that, not anymore. You never were. You’re Eliza.”

“Yes,” Eliza said. “And I will stay that way.” She wasn’t saying what Daniel thought she was saying. She couldn’t be. There was no way for that to be what she meant. He gritted his teeth as he felt the bottom fall out of his heart when she continued. “Daniel,” she said, “I’m not going.” He wanted to respond. He wanted to ask why she wanted to stay behind if he was leaving, if the thought of even being in the same realm had become too much for her, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t, not because he couldn’t find the words, but because darkness closed around him, and he lost consciousness.

Elamimax

Hoo boy, that's unfortunate, huh? I wonder if it'll have any repercussions.

A reminder that this story is completely finished and has over ten chapters that have yet to be released on scribblehub, and that you can already read all of them through my Patreon, and you get a whole bunch of added benefits! On top of that, it keeps my lights on and even lets me eat! Patrons get a ton of benefits, like access to new stories, sometimes weeks or even months in advance, as well as cheaper commission rates, exclusive discord roles, and access to private polls about future projects. 

Regardless, I hope you like this, and I'll see you all soon!