“What’s the frag count for Middle-earth?” Catharia asked.
“Let me see...” Grados shuffled through his stack of papers lying on his desk. He picked one page and looked at it intensely. “Seems like only 82 souls met death yesterday. Not much work.”
“Anyone important?”
“Hm... Nope, no one I would recognize. But you should still check prophecies and historical registry. Don’t want to miss any hero like we did with that one Calormenian guy, do we?”
“Okay, I’ll take this. What will you work on today?”
“I don’t know... Maybe Pandora?”
“Pandora? Again?”
“There are many people dying there, with all that Eridium and bounty hunters there...”
“Suit yourself. See you on coffee break.” And so, they started their work. The somewhat mundane task of interviewing all the dead people from all the worlds, then deciding their fate - whether it’s heaven, hell, something in between, or being reborn, either in the same or another world (did you know Nerevar’s soul currently lives in Hoenn?). Yes, you get to know many life stories, but when you do it for several thousand years, it gets old, believe it or not. Do something long enough and everything eventually becomes boring. And gods hate being bored. This is why all the natural disasters happen; this is why evil people rule nations and heroes fight them; this is why you break an arm the way you would never ever imagine. It’s all because gods are bored and want some fun. And what do you do when you are a god without any world to play with, like Catharia and Grados? Well, there are two options. You can make a prophecy. This allows you to mess with other worlds. The problem is, your prophecy must be very vague, in order to meet the quality standards; and if the prophecy is vague, you don’t exactly have control of how the events proceed. But it’s still fun to watch.
Another option is taking vacations. How does it work? Simple: every 250 years, a Soul Dispenser (stupid name for Grados’s and Catharia’s position) is allowed to temporarily leave their office and put themselves in any world they want, for one lifetime. They are born like a normal child, in a family of their choice (usually chosen at random), and they live a totally normal life. This means they have to suspend their god powers until they get back to afterlife. But they’re still allowed to give themselves whatever powers they want (within the species’ limits), and write up a prophecy or two for themselves.
Since it’s fanfiction, not a trilogy book, it’s no surprise this 250-year period is about to come due. But let’s not spoil it all to you and go back to the story.
As expected, Catharia and Grados met again during coffee break.
“How is it so far?” Catharia asked.
“Well… Better than expected.”
“What do you mean?”
“Only six hundred deaths today. I’ve already managed to go through them all.”
“How do you do it so fast!?”
“Simple: almost all of them are either bandits or bounty hunters. All of them died during gunfight. Because Pandora is in complete chaos right now, all kills can be considered self-defence. And the Book of Rules says that killing in self-defence isn’t to be punished. And because most of them don’t do anything but kill, almost all of the dead have a clean sheet - neither in plus nor minus. And the Book of Rules says that in such a case, they are sent back to the world they came from. Simple as that. And those who weren’t killers and actually lived a good life, I let them to go to some other world so they don’t have to relive that nightmare. Oddly enough, most of them choose either Oz or Equestria.”
“Sounds boring.”
“You have no idea.”
“Actually, I have. Middle-earth creatures have long and mundane biographies. Literally nothing interesting. And elves are the worst. Humans live only about fifty years, so they have like thirty, forty years to retell, and elves? Elves live for hundreds of years! And most of the time they just sit there and do nothing! SO. BORING. I literally fell asleep on one interview today!!!”
“Calm down, sweetie.” Grados pushed a chair at her from behind, which made her sit on it instantly. Not that she complained about it.
“I know you have a crush on me, but could you refrain yourself from calling me sweetie!? PLEASE!!??” Her glare was piercing his heart. I mean, it would pierce him, if he wasn’t used to getting it all the time.
“Had. And I’m trying - but it’s stronger than me, you know it.”
Catharia groaned loudly. “You’re SO annoying sometimes. Why do I have to work with you everyday? Can’t I have a break, for once!?”
“Sadly, no. Our names are inscribed in the Book of Rules, and no one can substitute us. Except when we’re on vacations, that is.”
“Yes, I know…”
Suddenly, they both stopped in their tracks. They looked at each other with blank stares. Then, after a second or six, realization dawned upon them.
“Vacations!” they shouted together. Catharia would say “at once”, but I like Grados’s version better.
“Grados, check the calendar!”
“On it!” He pulled a little book out of nowhere, and skimmed through its pages. Even though it was the size of a wallet, there were thousands upon thousands of pages in it. You know, magic.
After a longer while (even for gods flipping through thousands of pages takes time), Grados found what he was looking for. “Okay, last time we went on vacations was Year 4635, June 4. And we died on… Um… Do you remember?”
“Must have been Year 4653. Since it was on our school graduation day”, Catharia said.
“Ah, yes. That theatrical performance.”
“Yes. That theatrical performance.” Another heart-piercing glare.
“What? Don’t you like Romeo and Juliet? And you were playing the main role!”
“I would have liked it more if I were playing Juliet, and not Romeo.”
“Come on, you were a wonderful man!”
“Of course you’d say that! We were forced to be a couple for an hour, after all! And dying together for real during a performance is just so romantic! Just whose idea was it to give me a real poison!?”
“Uh… Um… Okay, found it! Just a second… I mean…” Grados was shuffling frantically through his calendar. “Okay, found it! Year 4653, May 31. Now, let’s add 91319 days… Year 4903, June 9.”
“And today is June 7.”
“So… We have three days to prepare!”
“Yay!”
“...Oookay, I think it’s time to go back to work.”
“I guess. See you in the evening!”
And so, Grados managed to avoid answering that very uncomfortable question.
~ * ~ Later the same day ~ * ~
“Are you done?”
“Just one more.”
“Okay, I’ll wait for you in the lobby.”
With this, Grados left Catharia’s office to let her handle the last applicant for the day.
“Another elf? Darn it.” She turned on the microphone. “Next please!”
In the door of her office, there stood a tall man with long ears and long beard. He entered the room and sat on the chair by the desk, finding himself face-to-face with the deity. Not the one he believed in, though.
“Name?”
“Somiran.”
“Occupation?”
“Elf.”
“That’s not what ‘occupation’ means.”
“Uh, sorry. You mean, my job?”
“Yes, I mean your job.”
“Well… I was the one who proclaimed punishments for those who chose the path of evil.”
In his chart, Catharia wrote “Judge”. Then she began the procedure.
“Please take off your clothes. I’ll need to peek inside your soul.”
Somiran did a double-take. “Seriously?”
“No, of course not. You don’t have to go all naked in front of me. But the part about peeking inside your soul was for real.” Despite having made this joke million times, she still loved it. The applicants’ reactions were always amusing.
“O...kay…” Somiran was now utterly confused about what he should do. He decided to just follow the orders.
“Stand up. Place your hands on top of your head.” When he took the said stance, she grabbed him by his throat, and stabbed it with her fingernails. It was a bit painful, causing Somiran’s eyes to widen - exactly what Catharia wanted. She gave him a deep stare, straight in his eyes. This way, she could see his soul - all his thoughts, all his memories, all his regrets, everything. But she didn’t pay any attention to those things. She search for one thing, and one thing only - the soul ID number. Then, when she found it, she broke the gaze and released his throat, then wrote down the number.
“39242… You were one of the first souls numbered! Current IDs have as much as fourteen digits! Now, let’s look for your archival data…” She walked to the metal drawers at the back of her bureau. They were taking the whole back wall. They were sequentially numbered, starting from 3572000 and ending with 3572999. She snapped her fingers, and the wall of drawers started to rise. They were going through the ceiling like it wasn’t there, and new drawers appeared from under the floor in their place. After a minute, the movement stopped. Now the drawers were numbered 39000-39999. Catharia pulled the drawer numbered 39242, and picked up the folder at the back - the most recent. She came back to her desk, opened the retrieved folder, and reviewed the documents there. She began questioning her applicant.
“So you were a judge?”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“Did you like your job?”
“It was my only job ever. I have no comparison.”
“And how long were you a judge?”
“My whole life.”
“Really? When did you start?”
“As an infant. My cries were my judgements. At least that’s what I was being told all the time.”
Catharia ticked the box labeled “Prophet”.
“How good were you, as a judge?”
“I have not received a single complaint about my work, and not a single of my judgements were ever appealed.”
“I see…” Catharia looked at his archival data. He had been a stone golem in his previous life, a punishment for something he did in his even earlier life. But only the last life should be taken into consideration when judging a soul. And in his golem life, he did nothing wrong; he killed nobody, he destroyed no settlement, he stole no ancient artifact. So he was made an immortal elf. And apparently, he did very well.
...Or did he?
“How exactly have you died?”
Somiran fell silent. A very uneasy expression appeared on his face. “I… Just died.”
“Won’t work. You’re an elf after all. Elves don’t ‘just die’. You must have been murdered. Who killed you?”
Somiran fell even more silent, with even more uneasy face expression.
“You understand that I’m about to send you to hell forever?” Catharia put her hands on the desk and rose from her chair. “You know what for?”
Somiran started to sweat heavily.
Catharia leaned forward, and added with the most creepy voice she could manage: “Because hiding truth from your god is the most serious offence.”
Silence filled the room. Somiran had never been so scared in his whole life.
“Why are you dead? Speak. Now.”
Somiran gulped audibly, like cartoon characters do when they realize they’re in deep trouble. And that’s no coincidence, since he was in deep trouble.
He sighed. There was no point in hiding anything from a god. “I… made a prophecy…”
“And?”
“And… my king didn’t like it.”
“What was that prophecy?”
“A great war, and death of the whole royal family. In ten years.”
Catharia pondered his words for a moment.
“How do you know?”
“I don’t know. I just know. I mean… You know what I mean.”
Catharia chuckled. “Yes, I do. Excuse me for a moment; I need to check something.” With this, Catharia exited her bureau, navigated through corridors (careful to avoid the lobby and not meet Grados), and entered the Hall of Prophecies. It was a giant round room. Along the white walls, there were countless cork boards, with notes of various colors pinned to them. Above every board, there was a text written in giant black letters. The notes were the prophecies, and the text was the name of the world they referred to. Catharia made a trip around the room, looking for a board labeled “Middle-earth”. When she reached it, she began reading all the notes on it. There were especially many notes there, compared to other worlds; a sign of old world with well developed civilization that survived countless cataclysms through history. Eventually, Catharia reached the end of the board. “Huh, his prophecy isn’t here. Well, seems like he was wrong, after all.” She headed towards the exit, wanting to return to her bureau as fast as possible. However, she stopped in her tracks just before the door. She looked up. Above the door, there was yet another cork board. It wasn’t labeled, though. No need for this, because this board was never used. It was there, holding the total of zero prophecies for the afterlife meta-world where Soul Dispensers’ bureaus were located, its only purpose to conform the standard of one board per world, no exceptions. And it was hanging there for ages, unused - because the world of dead needs no prophecies. But strangely enough, it was not the case today. There was a single, tiny pink note there, with the following written on it:
A prophet shall come, his judgements true.
Catharia blinked. Then blinked again, and once more.
“Holy guacamole! Whose idea was it to put a prophecy here! And such an overpowered one!” She finally exited the room and set course to her bureau, where one prophesied prophet was awaiting her. But she stopped mid-way for a second time. “On the second thought… Yeah… He will be perfect!” She resumed her walk at brisk pace.
When she entered her office, she didn’t waste any time and began speaking before she even sat back at the desk. “I have an offer you can’t refuse.”
A cold shiver came down Somiran’s spine. “What is it?”
“Let’s get straight to the point. You are a prophet. That’s a great power, but you must learn to use it before it can do anything good to you. I’m willing to teach you everything you need, but sadly I’m going on vacation now. And I need a replacement for the time I’m out. What do you say?”
Somiran needed a longer while to comprehend everything Catharia just said. The silence was even more prolongated by the fact he didn’t know how to answer.
“...Or I can send you back to Middle-earth as golem. So how will it be?”
Now, it didn’t take Somiran long to formulate his answer. “I will be your replacement during your vacation.”
“Excellent! Now, I need you to sign…” Catharia pulled some form that looked like a contract from her desk drawer. “...here.” She pointed at the bottom of the form.
“Can I read it first?”
“No, you can’t. I mean, it’s written in language only gods know; there’s no way you could read it.” By ‘language only gods know’, she of course meant all these legal terms and other fancy talking you usually pay thousands of dollars to your lawyer for him to make sense of it.
“Okay, My Goddess, I’ll trust you. I’m signing it, whatever it is.”
“Good. By the way, my name is Catharia.” She finished scribbling something in his chart, produced a new folder out of thin air, put the chart inside and deposited it in Somiran’s drawer.
“We are done here. Tomorrow you will meet with Grados, my coworker, who will give you training to your new job. You’ll be doing it for the next fifty years or so, after all.” With that, she exited the office. “Follow me; I’ll show you to your new quarters.” Somiran followed Catharia through the door. They walked down the corridor for just a dozen of steps, then stopped. “Here it is!” Catharia pointed at a blank wall. Somiran did a double-take. Yes, it was a blank solid wall. Definitely not a room.
“Um…”
“Just open the door!”
Confused, Somiran stepped to the wall. When he was within arm’s reach from it, the door suddenly appeared where he was standing. Caught off guard, he backed off - and the door disappeared. He took step forward - it appeared again. He gave himself a moment to understand what’s going on, then entered the room.
“Good night. Wake up at 6.”
With Somiran in bed, there was only one more thing left for Catharia to do: yell at Grados for what he done. She hastily made her way to the lobby. She bursted in through the doors, paying extra attention to be sure she broke the lock.
“YOU IMBECILE!” she shouted before even catching the eye contact.
“Uh oh, I see you met my prophet.”
“A PROPHET? MORE LIKE DEMI-GOD! Your prophecy is the worst one I’ve ever seen! Do you realize how much power you gave to that chump!? HE CAN MAKE FREAKING PROPHECIES! HE CAN DO ANYTHING!”
“Nuh-uh!”
“Uh-huh!”
“Nuh-uh!”
“Uh-huh!”
“Nuh-uh! Not if he doesn’t understand how the prophecy boards work!”
“But what if he does?”
Grados wanted to say something, but he held himself before he made any sound. Clearly he realized the flaw in his thinking.
“Well… Let’s hope he won’t. And when he does, let’s hope it won’t get too bad. It’s just one lifetime, after all! How much can happen in such a short period?”
“Remember Sauron’s return?”
“...Point taken.” He made a short pause. “But still. What can happen to us? We are immortal gods, for goodness sake! And you fear of all those words? Well, all of them went through terrible crises multiple times - and somehow they survived. Well, not all of them - but most did. Come on, it will be fine!”
Catharia didn’t want to continue this argument anymore. So she just glared at Grados with her trademark heart-piercing glare. Through her teeth, she uttered: “Let’s. Go. To. Sleep.”
~ * ~ The next morning ~ * ~
Grados woke up before sunrise due to a certain someone standing next to his bed, a whip in her right hand. The whip was, of course, lashing fiercely over his head.
“Wake up! You need to make a tour for our new employee!”
Grados growled, then yawned heavily. “Just what time is it?”
“Early enough for you to make us some nice breakfast and prepare for your daily office work. Because since there are three of us here at the moment, I’ll take a day off.”
“Ah, sure, whatever.” Grados yawned again. Then, he shot up from his bed instantly. “What did you just say!?”
“I’ll take a day off.”
“No, no you won’t. You still need to find a second substitute. Until that, no vacations for you.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Catharia snapped her fingers, and an orb appeared before her. It was floating mid-air, and inside one could see a human face. “Hi Azura. I’m taking vacations, and I need a substitute in the bureau. Would you mind taking my place while I’m off, please?”
“But of course! I’ll be right there.” With that, the orb disappeared, and in its place there stood a whole person.
“Thanks. But no need to rush; there are still three hours left before the work starts.”
“THREE HOURS!?” Grados interrupted. “You mean that you woke me up at FOUR IN THE MORNING!?”
Catharia grimaced. “Well… yes?”
Grados mumbled something under his breath which was not heard by anyone, then went to make himself an early breakfast. When he was done eating, he went back to his room to play some video games. Because what’s better time waster early in the morning than video games?
Meanwhile, Azura and Catharia got to the lobby, and spent remaining time chatting together. At six o’clock, Azura came by to check on Grados. He was still playing. So she smacked him in head and shouted:
“Enough games! Go and wake up your successor!”
“Just… to the checkpoint…”
Catharia pulled out the power cord of the console. However, to her chagrin, the console was still running.
“I am a god! Do you think my console needs electricity? I told you: just to the checkpoint. Because there’s no other way to save! And it’s just one minute away!” It is really hard to argue while playing a game, even for gods, so he was getting really irritated.
“You are a god! You can make it save whenever you want!”
“But it would be cheating!”
“Oh, for goodness sake…” Catharia materialized a double axe, and readied her stance for a swing at the plastic box. However, she was stopped by Grados’s sudden outburst:
“FINALLY!”
From this point, everything went smooth. Grados went to Somiran’s room, woke him up, got him to the office, gave him a brief course about what he was supposed to do for next half of century, then watched him for the next two hours. Meanwhile, Catharia and Azura were in Catharia’s office, doing the usual work (Azura was fairly accustomed with it, since she was Catharia’s replacement very often) and gossiping about other gods. They all met again at coffee break. The girls looked happy, which can’t be said about the boys. Somiran was terribly exhausted, and Grados seemed incredibly annoyed.
“For the hundredth time: if you aren’t sure, read the freaking manual! The Book of Rules has all the possible cases explained already! Your job isn’t to think up what to do - your job is to follow the rules in book! Simple as that!”
“Give me a break. There are so many souls, and each one is different…”
“This is why the book is so thick. There is a rule for everything there! Really, trust me on this one!”
“But how am I supposed to know each and every rule there is!?”
“Well, you just search for it! Think of what you want, and the book opens on… Oh. Right. You can’t do that.” Grados facepalmed at his own behavior.
“Can’t do what?”
“Come to me. We need to do something.”
“What?”
“Just come here.”
Little nervous as he was, Somiran still obeyed Grados’s words. Because, well, Grados was a god, and Somiran himself was just a mere mortal…
Somiran was now standing in arm’s reach from Grados.
“It’s simple. Just answer all questions with ‘yes’, okay?”
“Yes.”
“So…” Suddenly, Grados’s voice grew ten times louder, and hundred times more serious. “SOMIRAN! DO YOU BELIEVE IN JUST JUDGEMENT OF SOULS!?”
“Yes.”
“DO YOU BELIEVE YOU ARE THE RIGHT PERSON TO JUSTLY JUDGE SOULS!?”
“Yes”, he said, despite his mind telling him otherwise.
“THEN I GRANT YOU MY POWER THAT WILL MAKE YOUR JUDGEMENTS TRULY JUST. FAREWELL, MY CHILD.” Grados added with his usual tone: “Okay, we’re done.”
“What exactly has happened?” Somiran asked curiously.
“You’ll see soon enough. The coffee break is almost done.”
Indeed, it was soon done, and they all returned to their work (and gossips, in case of girls). Somiran was doing much better now - his power was really helping him. By the end of the day, he mastered the basics - and in this job, it was all that he needed. Grados was very proud of him.
When they were done with last applicant and Somiran wanted to get off his chair, Grados stopped him. “Wait a minute. There’s one more thing we need to get done.” With that, he conjured up an empty, little blue note, and placed it on the desk. “Write your prophecy here.”
“Um… Shouldn’t things like prophecies be written in… um… more… secure places, than small piece of paper?”
“Trust me, it’s perfectly secure.”
“But why paper notes? Why not forms similar to the ones for soul forms?”
“Because such are the rules. And we need to conform them. Now, write your prophecy.”
So, Somiran has written his prophecy. But when he was half-way through, he ran out of space.
“You need to keep them short. Leave off the unnecessary details, like that ten years thing.”
“But then it will become unnecessarily ambiguous!”
“Why do you think all prophecies are ambiguous? That’s the reason - we have only so much space for them!”
“...I see…”, Somiran responded. Grados conjured another note, and Somiran once again wrote his prophecy. All he managed to write was ‘ROYAL FAMILY DIES, ELVES IN TURMOIL’.
“Good. Now, you can go to your room. Have a good night’s sleep and be ready for tomorrow.” Himself, Somiran headed to the Hall of Prophecies and pinned the new one to the Middle-earth board.
And there was evening, and there was morning.
~ * ~ June 9 ~ * ~
Everyone got up at six o’clock. After a breakfast together, they went with their duties. That is, Azura and Somiran went to their respective bureaus, whereas Grados and Catharia… well…
“We need to prepare for our vacations!” Catharia exclaimed.
“Indeed. But first thing first: where do you want to go?”
“Uh… I don’t know.”
“Wait. You wanted to prepare, but you don’t even know where you want to go?”
“You have a problem with that?”
“No, it’s alright”, Grados lied. “Just… I’d rather get done with it fast.”
“Okay. Let’s do it fast. Equestria.”
“Why Equestria?”
“Why not?”
“Because it has talking ponies. Talking ponies!”
“So? There are many talking creatures of all kinds in other worlds.”
“Yes, but… Uh… Okay, Equestria it be.”
“And I want a perfectly normal life. No goddessing. No worrying. No nothing. I want to forget everything about myself.”
“Why? Don’t you like being goddess, Catharia?”
“I do. But it gets boring after a while.”
“But I like to be a god!”
“Then you’ll be, after you die.”
“But I won’t know I will become a god when I die if I won’t I am god in the first place!”
“Oh, seriously? You were god for countless centuries, and you don’t want a break?”
“Argh… Okay. Just, not whole lifetime. Let’s say… How about… 30 years?”
“30 years what?”
“After 30 years, we will get our memories back. Hmm… This could make for an interesting game, actually.”
“What do you mean by game, Grados?”
“30 years, we won’t remember anything, not even each other. Then when the time will come, we will receive our memories back, and then we’ll see how we ended up. Consider it a bet.”
“A bet about what?”
“Who gets a better life after 30 years, wins.”
“Okay. Let be it.”
Catharia blinked.
“Done. Now we are cursed with 30 years of amnesia, starting with our birth.”
“Good. Now, who are we gonna be born as?”
“I would like to be born as a normal child in a normal family…”
“Of unicorns!”
“A normal family of unicorns. And there will be nothing special about us, at all.”
“Hm… That might be a nice change, for once. And I of course will be your twin brother who is better at everything than you.”
“Oh, really? I would gladly see it, but I doubt I’ll ever see you beating me in anything.”
“Don’t be so sure about it. I’ll have long 30 years to show you your place.”
“Okay then. Equestria, here we come!”
With that, they disappeared.
~ * ~ Meanwhile in Equestria ~ * ~
What is the happiest moment in parents’ life? The wedding, of course. The wedding night, to be exact. And the second happiest moment? The thing that comes roughly nine months after the wedding night.
Canterlot Hospital is the biggest hospital in Equestria. Hospitals located in capitals generally have that trait. It means that everyday, there are many, many couples who had their wedding night roughly nine months ago. But we will focus on only one such couple - one perfectly normal stallion and one perfectly normal mare, forming a perfectly normal family and now having two perfectly normal foals - one perfectly normal colt and one perfectly normal filly.
Author's Note
Yes, this is not Equestria proper, and this kinda breaks the rules - but the rest of the story would take place in Equestria. If this story gets through moderation and receives any attention, I can put a summary of the rest of plotline in next chapter - I have everything thought out (I planned about 20 chapters) and I will never, ever write the rest - so why not publish my raw thoughts instead?
