Serenity stood on a completely flat surface that stretched as far as he could see with no variation, surrounded by people who didn’t pay him any attention as he stared at the spot where Death vanished. He didn’t even remember what happened; he’d been unconscious due to drugged darts. How was he supposed to be more cautious?

Well, perhaps he shouldn’t get into that position in the first place. Definitely he shouldn’t. Still, he’d had no reason to believe there would be crazy ninja dart-shooters! He’d thought he was having a nice conversation with an admittedly fanatical ritualist, but he’d had no reason to expect a physical attack. If anything, a magical attack would have made sense, but any attack at all was nonsensical.

Serenity still didn’t understand why-

“I always assumed I’d be killed by a ritual I messed up in casting, not by the person I cast it on. Or maybe I was; it certainly wasn’t supposed to do what it did.” A man stood in front of Serenity, not far from where Death had stood moments before. The flat, emotionless voice reminded Serenity of Liam, but the face was nearly featureless. It looked more like the impression of a generic face than any particular person.

“Liam?”

“I was. If I were still alive, I think I’d be angry with you.” Liam simply stood there.

“Why aren’t you?” Serenity knew he’d been justified to kill the man - no matter what, human experimentation wasn’t acceptable; it was self defense. He also knew that being justified often didn’t make the opponent less angry.

“I haven’t felt anything since I died. Perhaps a body is necessary? I don’t know.” Liam didn’t sound like he cared, either.

“Then why are you here? Talking to me, I mean.” Serenity didn’t know why anyone would do anything if they truly didn’t care.

Liam seemed to freeze. It was a completely unnatural moment; normally, someone who was still would still be moving a little, breathing and blinking if nothing else. Liam didn’t move at all; he simply stood there with his eyes open like a marionette.

When he unfroze, it was like life coming into a statue; still disturbing, but in a different way.

He didn’t directly answer the question Serenity asked, yet somehow it was clear it was an answer in its own way. “The River of Souls keeps souls until they have met the requirements they need to move on. This is usually forgetfulness, but it is always set by the soul itself. Some souls need to confront someone or see something; others simply need to stoke their anger or fear so that it will carry to the next life - or to their next destination in a god’s domain. It is not as straightforward as setting goals to achieve in the future, though that is also possible.”

It wasn’t Liam’s voice.

If anything, it sounded like his own, as he’d heard it when it was recorded and played back.

“Russ has told you that the Guardian Sea always gives a gift to new Guardians. What he didn’t tell you is that it is truly you giving one to yourself. Here is yours: You will bring a piece of the River out with you when you go. It will contain no souls; any souls that end up in it will be swept into the full River. That is not its point. Instead, you will be able to use it to cleanse yourself as a soul normally does between lives. To gain it, you must first figure out how to use it. That is also required if you wish to leave.”

“Who are you?” Serenity felt like his first guess - that it was himself - was correct, yet it was saying things that sounded like it was something else.

“I am but a shadow of what-might-be, of what you could become in the future. Time magic is a strange thing, and possibility can change reality in ways that certainty will not. I do not believe that you will choose my path, but I’ve been wrong before.”

Serenity hated riddles like that.

The other being laughed. “Whoever or whatever I am, know this: the only ways out of the River for you now are coming to terms with what you are … or death. I know which I expect you to choose. You only need one, for now. I recommend Liam; recognize yourself in him but also see where you are not the same. Choose what to keep, what should fade, and what you do not need. The human memory is fallible, and the memories you want may not be the ones that he had etched the deepest.”

Serenity stood there staring for a long time after the other being vanished, taking all of the moving automatons with it. What did it mean?

How could he get out?

Serenity walked for days or perhaps only minutes. Nothing changed.

He sat and rested, though he did not feel in need of rest. Nothing changed.

No one came. No one spoke to him.

Serenity remembered the Final Reaper’s final years. They had seemed much like this. He could travel to different sights, yet they were all the same destroyed places he had been before. Here, it was simply the same featureless plain.

He stood up and walked again. With nothing else to do, his mind ran over the words spoken by someone who might have been what he could become.

You only need one, for now. I recommend Liam…choose what to keep…

Somehow, he was supposed to do something with Liam’s memories, but no matter what he tried, he couldn’t remember. He remembered telling Russ the candles were in the closet under the stairs, but not how he’d known that.

He tried every angle he could think of, but none brought the memories of any of the three men he’d killed to mind, not even what little of the strange dream he thought he remembered.

Serenity felt slow when he realized there was something he hadn’t tried. He’d never used Take Form. He didn’t want to, but he’d long since learned that reality didn’t conform to what he wanted. It was something to try that he hadn’t tried.

Take Form: Liam Brown

It felt more like stretching than the discomfort he remembered from shifting into a dragon. For a moment, he knew he was without a shape, then he was back in a solid shape. He had a moment to glance around and see that the place he was in was a dark plain with a lighter sky lit by many minute dots of different-colored lights that did not shed much illumination before he was overcome by memory.

So many memories.

Most of them slipped into his mind and right back out like water through a sieve, but some stayed. Those were the ones where he had to make a choice.

However long he spent sorting memories, Serenity would never remember it. The process didn’t make new memories, so it was lost.

All he remembered afterwards was the outline of his decision. He wanted to keep what Liam knew of Earth’s rituals … and he wanted to know who Frank was. Everything else could go. Liam was dead; there was no changing that.

Serenity stood up. He was done here. As he stood, he realized he was back underwater, but this time he could see through the light-flecked waters surrounding him. Directly in front of him was a pillar that reached towards the sky; he swam up. When his head breached the surface, he realized he’d been breathing underwater.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t water. It was beautiful, though; that was appropriate, given what it was.

Ahead of him, Serenity saw the oval platform holding Helena and Russ above the water. They faced away from him and seemed to be visually searching the water; Serenity was surprised by that. He’d assumed Russ would watch him. Couldn’t he see through the water?

Serenity’s normal sight - well, Liam’s normal sight - didn’t seem to have any issues.

As he pulled himself out of the water, Serenity realized that he was far stronger than he should be as Liam but also far weaker than he was as a chimera. He must still be getting the benefits of his increased attributes but not whatever invisible aid he received outside the Status panel from simply having a better body to begin with.

Russ whipped around and stared at Serenity. “Who-”

“Serenity. There was a trial to leave. I had to - resolve some things.” Serenity didn’t want to be too specific. He realized as he said that that he should have shifted back to his chimera form before climbing on the platform; he’d expected Russ and Helena to see what had happened, so it hadn’t occurred to him that they’d be surprised or that he could keep the shapeshifting a secret. “Should I shift back?”

He was terrible at keeping secrets. He always had been; whenever he tried to do better, something like this would happen where he’d realize there was a way right after he did the wrong thing.

Russ thought about the question before he answered. “No. Stay that way for now.”

“He’s a shifter who can imitate humans? And you’re letting him not only get near your daughter but marry her? I thought you hated shifters.” Helena’s voice broke any pretense of a quiet moment between Serenity and his prospective father-in-law.

Russ rounded on Helena. “He’s not a shifter. Or didn’t you notice? He’s wearing completely different clothes. He was wearing armor; now he isn’t.”

Helena seemed taken aback by Russ’s shift in tone.

“I can change what I look like here, too. So can you.” Russ sounded more sad than angry. Serenity wasn’t sure if he actually felt that way or if he was just watching a masterful performance. “Is it so hard to believe that Serenity can?”

Helena sighed. “You’re right. I need to stop jumping to conclusions, and not just about your latest trainee. I should get going; if you’re right and it’s a minor demon infestation, that’s not nearly as bad as I was afraid, but I need to take care of it before it gets worse.”

Russ smiled. “Good luck, and do call if you need help. I know things are a bit crazy right now.”

“They’re only going to get worse. I don’t have the backing you have; I still have to hide everything, and they’re watching strange things a lot more closely these days.” Helena shook her head and vanished.

“So what do you think of her?” Russ sat back down in the water. He seemed a lot more open and less guarded now than he had in front of Helena; it was probably a body language thing, but Serenity wasn’t sure exactly what made the difference.

Serenity shook his head. “She seems kind of inexperienced and excitable?”

“Oh, she’s experienced. She’s older than I am, actually; she just … shaped herself to fight, and actually stole from her mental capabilities to boost her physical ones faster. She didn’t think she needed them. It was a bad time for us, right after the second World War. We lost a lot of people then; we still haven’t recovered. She was chosen as a Guardian to replace one who died during an emergency, and her training was slapdash at best. So she took the fastest route to the power she could, and damaged herself.” Russ was definitely saddened to say that.

“It doesn’t help that all three of the people she’s Guarded have been the controlling type; they haven’t wanted her to think for herself, and they’ve just treated her as a tool to be taken out when they needed something killed.” Russ paused for a moment, clearly gathering his thoughts. “I’ve known her for forty years now, more or less. Sometimes I think she’s recovering and other times she’s definitely worse. This was not one of her good days.”

Serenity gave Russ a moment, then realized he had a very important question. “How long was I down there? I know we’ve been in here for a few hours…?”

Russ shook his head. “Time doesn’t really mean anything when you’re in the Starlit Sea. I expect we’ll find that they took us home and put us to bed; a trip like this usually ends up in normal sleep, so we’ll wake in the morning.”

Serenity looked around. The water glowed with an inner light, brighter than the dark sky. “In that case, can we spend a little more time here? I can see it. In color. And it’s beautiful.”

Russ grinned. “Take all the time you want.”