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DRR Book 3, Epilogue 1 — Hopes and Dreams
🕑 Added 2025-01-28 15:57:35 +0000 UTCGheraa wasn't used to this.
Not the act of existing in realspace, though that was certainly strange in and of itself; the straight lines and square rooms of his home were nonexistent here, and the purity of Firmament he was used to was nowhere to be found. A part of him rebelled against it—yearned to apologize to Lhore and to be accepted back amongst the Integrators—but a much greater part of him reveled in it. Delighted in the thought of what they would think of him if they saw him now, cavorting and befriending the so-called lower lifeforms of the galaxy.
He was even getting used to the dirt. He didn't like it, exactly, but he was getting used to it. That was something, right? He could hold it in his hand without shuddering now.
All that was... different. But it wasn't what took the most getting used to. That honor was taken by Ethan and his friends.
Gheraa had never been able to let his guard down before, at least not to this extent. Integrator culture was competitive. Any interaction was a display of social dominance, every fight a battle for the right to exist. It was a necessity for their growth and evolution, or so the upper echelons claimed, and yet he'd never felt like he belonged.
In fairness, he wasn't sure he belonged here, either. Ahkelios and Guard treated him with respect, but he could tell they didn't entirely trust him, and he couldn't blame them. Ethan was the only one that seemed to look at him without judgement.
Sometimes, he was afraid that would change. He tried not to think about that too much.
"Hey, Gheraa?" Ethan called, knocking on his door. Gheraa flinched for a moment before he remembered himself and coughed, opening the door and putting on a beaming smile. At least, he assumed it was a beaming smile? Ethan seemed to interpret it just fine, but Ahkelios seemed a little creeped out by it.
"What is it?" Gheraa asked.
"Can we talk for a moment?" Ethan gestured inside, and Gheraa blinked, hesitantly stepping aside and allowing the human in.
"Of course," he said, with perhaps a little more doubt than he'd intended. "What about?"
"I just want to know," Ethan said. He leaned forward, a slight furrow in his brows. "What do you want out of all this?"
"What... do you mean?" Gheraa asked. Mostly to stall. He knew what Ethan meant, he just didn't know how to answer.
Ethan seemed to realize this, too, because he just raised an eyebrow and waited. After a moment, Gheraa sighed.
"I don't know," he admitted.
Half of this he'd done on a whim. He'd known bringing Ethan into a Trial would interfere with the Integrators and their plans. He hadn't anticipated how much, and more importantly, he hadn't anticipated...
Well, he hadn't anticipated caring.
He wanted the humans to succeed now. He wanted Ethan to succeed. Even wanting something was a new experience for him, in all honesty; he'd spent so much of his life simply serving the cause that he didn't know what to do with things like personal desire.
"This is your fault, you know," Gheraa grumbled.
Ethan blinked. "What is?"
Gheraa gestured to himself. "This," he said. "I don't even regret sacrificing myself, you know that? Do you know how out of character that is for me? I'm all about the show! I'm not supposed to care about what happens to my charge, but you just had to be..." He made a frustrated gesture. "You know! You."
"I don't know what that means," Ethan chuckled, amused. Gheraa let out an aggravated sigh.
"You noticed," he said. "Do you know how many people notice when I'm hurt? No one. I'm very good at hiding it. You had the nerve to ask me about it."
"Is that so bad?"
"I don't know!" Gheraa threw his hands up in exasperation—a decidedly human gesture, but how else was he going to communicate his frustrations? "And I don't know how to answer your question. I don't know what I want. I want to help you, I guess."
"And after that?" Ethan asked.
After that. He said it like it was so easy—like he would succeed and that would be that. Gheraa couldn't even imagine what a victory for Earth would look like. Would the Interface even still exist? Would the Integrators?
Would he?
Gheraa sighed again. "I'll have time to figure it out, won't I?" he asked quietly, leaving his uncertainties unspoken. Ethan watched him for a moment, expression unreadable.
"True enough," he allowed. "I just wanted to make sure you know you're a part of this team. And that means what you want matters, too."
"You are infuriatingly nice," Gheraa muttered. "But—" he struggled for a moment. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," Ethan said simply. "Now, about my core..."
Gheraa groaned. Ethan had been absolutely relentless on this matter, asking him questions about cores and phase shifts on a near-daily basis. Truth be told, Gheraa barely had any idea what Ethan had done with his core; the only thing he knew was that it felt similar to seventh-layer Integrators that had broken through the sixth-layer bottleneck. It was incredible. It was also bizarre.
But he steeled himself to answer the questions anyway. He enjoyed this process now, strange as it was. All these years and he'd never once really enjoyed being a practitioner of Firmament. It was just a means to wield his power. Helping Ethan figure out whatever it was he'd done was the first time he'd actually played around with it, stretching both himself and Ethan's capabilities in ways he hadn't known was possible, and it was… nice.
Funny word for it, that.
—
The days passed. Gheraa eventually came to admit that this experimentation with Firmament was some of the most fun he'd ever had with his skills. And this was in spite of the fact that he was weaker than he could ever remember being—all their experimentation had shown that he was at most equivalent to a fourth-layer practitioner. Presumably either his death or the form of resurrection had struck a blow of sorts to the foundation of his power.
There were times, though, where he felt his core tremble in a way he wasn't used to. He tried to tell himself it was nothing. Just another side effect of the way he'd been brought back.
Yet he didn't miss the fact that it happened not when he experimented with Firmament, but when he spent time with Ethan. Sometimes, though more rarely, it happened when he spoke with one of the others. He had no idea what it was or any way to find out, so he did what he could not to dwell on it.
Intead, he found himself going back to that question Ethan had asked him.
What do you want out of all this?
He didn't know. Not yet.
But he did realize at least one thing: he wanted to find out.
--
Author's Note: I'm thinking I might do some side/non-canon stories in DRR's universe. Not quite sure about it yet! Mostly because that kind of thing helps me recharge sometimes, if I do it right.
Thanks for reading!
Comments
Digit
This next book is gonna be really interesting with Ethan off the backfoot. He’s stronger than most other trialgoers now, though with a visible power gap between trialgoers and integrators.
Silver Linings
Appreciate it! I cleaned it up a little but might do more in final edits.
Brandon Steele
"Whatever he wants" Most of the story up until now was him learning the "game", himself, and the "truth". His goals were mostly just surviving and learning more. Now he has majority of the information he needs. Probably still some new twists in the future, but he knows enough to have a goal other than learning/surviving. From my perspective, even without Silver Linings reply above, he now wants to free Earth and all the worlds from the Integrators thumb. He is learning of a new player "Sunken King" and is currently assuming their goal is to get revenge on everyone.
Melissa Harden
Ok spitballing here, because I've been given the blessing to theorize in public forum, Ethan gets an army from linking fragmented people and healing rifts until he links with Hesta the planet. Kind of a power mix between Gilgamesh of 'Fate' from and the Green/Orange Lantern cores. As an end game. Turn that weakness of keeping up with others into literal military power of forming Boss Raid(s).
Jason Gross
:-) Each chapter leaves me excited for the next! Minor suggestions: - "Truth be told" used to start the second sentence in a paragraph twice in a row reads a bit off (unless it was intentional and Gheraa internal monologue has a "truth be told" flavor to it, which ... seems plausible). - "In some ways, though, this experimentation with Firmament" it's not clear what experimentation he's referring to. - "Through the rest of their time in the Quiet Grove" On my initial read, I missed the fact that this bit (and what comes after) happened across time rather than just in the conversation Gheraa and Ethan were having. Possibly putting a concrete amount of time ("the rest of their day" or "the next two weeks" or w/e) would make it more obvious.
Arrogant Savant
I wonder how other humans factor into this. I can see him becoming a messiah or pariah.
Pete Magnuson
My understanding is that he's realized something in the whole situation is rotten, so he intends to figure out what is going on and cut out anything that's awful and hurting his friends, even if that means killing the whole interface system. In the meantime, grow powerful enough to pull that off.
Silver Linings
That's good feedback, yeah; funnily enough, I wrote an answer for this in the draft for Epilogue 5. Short answer is that he's now looking to free the Integrated worlds. Long answer will be in Epilogue 5! He definitely does recognize he's been pulled around from goal to goal and he's gonna be taking control of that.
francis perez
Now that we are in the topic of asking characters what they want can someone remind me what is Ethan’s endgame? Don’t get me wrong I love this novel but I’m still kinda confused about what is his final goal, bc in my opinion since the beginning of this novel I had this feeling that everything the mc did was out of inertia and I’m not sure if his goal is to stop the integrators? Destroy the interface? Save Hestia from its destruction? Take care of all the Hestian Trialgoars? Defeat the Sunken kind?
CM
I loved this part. "You are infuriatingly nice," Gheraa muttered. Side stories would be great. It would be nice to see what some of the other humans tht we've meet are doing and what they're finding out. Thanks for the chapter!
Melissa Harden
: D, 💖
Joeskine Sabbe
Wooooot! Epilogues! Thank you!
