Tales of Death´s Daughter

I relaxed on Aska’s couch, a comfy blanket on me. Laying on my side, I tipped with my free hand on a rather weird brick looking almost like one of these ‘phones’.

“Aska, why isn’t it working?” I asked the man snuggling up from behind, constantly caressing my exposed skin.

“Maybe you shouldn’t press on it with your fingernail.” Annoyed, I pressed that rectangular symbol with my knuckles with my fingertip and looked at the black screen in front of us interested. A split second later the first episode of the first season played out in front of me.

“A world filled with demons and dangers, dungeons and dragons … five hundred reincarnators from another world and a single villain pulling the strings in the background.” The introduction blasted way too loudly in the house, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t turn down the volume. In the end, Aska had to step in as I had apparently changed several settings already.

“Who is that villain?” I asked with interest. So far, I haven’t found anyone like that … or did they mean the demon king? Surely not…

“That’s you.” For a second, his answer made me concentrate on him instead of the screen, but we were still seeing the introduction of several characters.

“Huh? I’m not a villain? I’m doing good stuff as well for example … I fed pigeons once?” I proposed as the screen showed a grid with a whole lot of characters on them. Coincidentally though, I wasn’t in that. “And what’s this?”

“It’s not a single story which shows all the events on Solaris. Rather, it’s five hundred each with their different tone and genres. Sofie for example …”

“Light hearted? Adventure? … okay, so where is my story?” I recounted until he went back to the previous screen and made the tiles move upwards until we were at the end of it. And there I was … as the last character to select.

“Gore, Crazy Protagonist, Torture … hey, where is all the fluff?” I protested and wanted to smash something into that screen, but Aska kept me in his embrace no matter what I tried.

“In comparison to the slaughter fest you make, the fluff is minuscule at least concerning the viewer. Most just don’t want to watch how you eat the innards of a still living person.” He whispered into my ear and kissed my nape afterwards. His hands still roamed my whole body, especially his left one, but I wasn’t in the mood at all.

“Just play it.” I said and he happily obliged. And so, the story started with one of my many deaths while drowning. I was told I had lost my memories because of this – which wasn’t true at all – and that my vampiric nature took me over.

“What? They can hardly show how I raised you?” Aska pressed his thigh in between mine and started playing with my left breast, all while I was highly concentrated on the screen.

“Oh, I see how it is.” Aska didn’t want to appear in a bad light himself. “But I have to wonder, is it because you don’t want others to see it, or because you can’t?”

“There are only a few living soul shards, because we made it illegal to reproduce this way. Imagine creating an army of yourself … which was what nobody wanted. To create you, I had to negotiate with the council of gods. I was allowed to split of part of my soul under the condition that you participates in this show, along with all the requirements it bought with it. That is the reason you still have these early memories I tried to erase.”

“Huh …” Since when did he follow the rules? “So every god basically selected his or her apostle, right?”

“Correct.”

“So why did Irminsul take part in this? I can hardly imagine she wants to put Sofie in this situation.”

“She only joined after I told everyone on the council my plan. My guess is she wanted to help you … she always does.” For some reason, it did seem the topic made him rather uncomfortable especially because he intensified his assault on my chest.

“I want to speak with her.” I demanded and bit my lower lip, still looking towards the screen how I talked with Arthur for the first time.

“She is busy.” Aska rolled me over onto my back and started kissing my nape wildly.

“Make an appointment for me. She’ll have time.” I looked to the side, following what was happening closely while Aska settled down in between my legs and pried them apart.

“I told you … she is busy.” I wouldn’t meet her on Elysium, that was painfully obvious. But it also showed me he was still lying about something. But what? I didn’t think he lied about my creation, nor the series I was presented in. It made me furious for sure to have everyone on this planet know my whole history, but it wasn’t a lie.

Like usual, I couldn’t figure it out at all. It had something to do with Irminsul, that was for sure and possibly the glasses as well, but I didn’t know what.

As such, all I could do was to take note of what was shown on the screen, so that I knew what Aska definitely knew about me. And that was by far means little. That first episode covered far too much in my opinion. So much so that tears left my eyes when I talked to Mary – the old Mary – about her plight and my way of overthrowing Arthur.

But I wasn’t crying because of what was shown, but rather the fact that Aska’s chest pressed against my cheek and he used me for his own pleasure yet again.

I couldn’t do anything against it. He was stronger than me and had Hannah in his grasp.

At least my friends were safe when I spread my legs for him.

And there was another additional benefit. I learned about the concept of binge watching. Which I did. For weeks, we did nothing else but to rewatch my life, at least the scenes meant for the public. First of all, they did show nudity, but no sex scenes whatsoever. My kinky bed live was safe from their view!

But other than that, seeing my own life as a series for others entertainment drove me crazy, especially when they presented me scenes no one else should witness from me. For example, they showed Luna’s death underlined with theatrical music which was just disrespectful.

I had already wrecked the screen several times as I finally caught up to where everyone else was, upset about what I saw and furious that I was one of their shitty main characters.

“Lucinda?” Aska knelt behind me and massaged my shoulders while I was resting my chin on my hands. I was constantly thinking of ways to avoid their surveillance, but hadn’t found a way of doing so. There had to be something they called a camera, but I already caught myself looking into them several times already without noticing them. And if I couldn’t see these things, there was no way I could destroy them easily. Gripping the table in anger, I sighed a deeply and put on my fake smile.

“Curry?” I had all the information I ever wanted at this point. I knew who I was, where I came from and why things were happening the way they did, at least for the most part. And yet, I still didn’t know what to make of it.

“Gladly.” Aska said as I stood up, grabbed a bathrobe and clothed myself with it. It was obvious that I needed time to think about everything and Aska left me alone while I was making food since the last time I fucked up because of him.

And so, I used the opportunity he gave me to think while my hands moved on its own.

“Aska … what is the endgame?” I asked a little unsure, even though I already suspected how he wanted things to end.

“You can’t leave Solaris for too long until the series finishes. And so I want to end it, quickly.” He stated, playing with the little flask on the table. Luna’s soul was still inside there, protected by my magic at all times. But he wouldn’t make a move on her. He could have done so in the very beginning, but chose not to after all.

“By murdering every single protagonist.” I continued, somehow feeling exactly like the twins must feel.

“Precisely.” Aska nodded in approval.

“I … I cannot allow that to happen.” I pointed towards the flask right away. It still hurt to see Luna in this form and while Sofie wouldn’t be that bad, I still didn’t want to do it.

“Think about it. Sofie will fight against you when she finds out we murdered the others and that’s something the viewers want to see. If you do not get rid of her, you play right into her hands.” That may be true … but it didn’t change my feelings one bit.

“I won’t murder her.” I glared at Aska, even though he didn’t seem to mind.

“Then I’ll do it for you.” He slid the flask a little from one hand to the other as if he wanted to threaten me with that.

“I will not allow her to die.” I growled angrily and finally, he seemed to relent somewhat.

“We will see.” He said and slid the flask towards the middle of the table. And then he remained silent until I finished my work in the kitchen and placed curry in front of him and on my place.

“… I don’t want you on Solaris.” I stated dryly, my plate still untouched as his was already half eaten.

“But you understand why I needed to get there?” He asked, his mouth nearly filled with curry.

“Partly … you could have told me right away, but that would apparently break some stupid rule some god made, wouldn’t it?” I asked finally knowing why he did the things he did. And that was honestly a good sign. It meant that we had the same amount of information to judge our decisions on.

“Correct.” He nodded happily while stuffing even more of my food into his mouth.

“Then you did your job. You don’t have to follow me back.” I told him right away.

“Lucinda, I just want to spend time with my family. Don’t take that away from me.” He pleaded and actually made me feel a little bad for him. I didn’t have the strength to reach Elysium on my own yet, so the only way we could continue our love-hate relationship was if he got along with me.

“I …” I muttered, really unsure what to do. On the one hand he was Aska, the person I loved. My family. But on the other, he was also Aska, my torturer since the moment I was born.

“Just let me help you this once. And if you still want to have Solaris all for yourself afterwards, I will leave. Okay?” He proposed which did wash a few reservations I had about it.

“… but only until we have beaten the other gods in their fucked up game.” I stated and finally ate the first bit of delicious curry.

“That’s what I want to hear! Us two against every other god … I can’t await it.” Aska threw his arms into the air happily which made me smile a little.

For the first time in my life, I actually had the feeling I found an ally in him, instead of a rival in any field possible. Don’t get me wrong, our egos would still stop us from cooperating too much, but at least we shared the same goals now.

We both wanted to be together as the family we were and we both wanted me to be free from the grasp of the other gods, so that I could move to Elysium whenever I wanted to visit him while I had my own place for myself in which he wouldn’t intrude without my permission.

Finally, the long streak of disaster after disaster had the potential to end.