2 The river of souls - unbreakable bond

We went back to scanning our minds.

When the silver elven girl started going through the first part of the things I was trying to retain at all cost, she erupted with a wave of admiration and pure joy. She immediately told me to move my attention to the things she was protecting herself, it turned out that many of our core dreams, values, and experiences were highly compatible with each other, such as:

She dreamt of having a dependable older brother, while I always wanted a cute younger sister.

We both yearned for a true friend, a person who would always unconditionally stay by our side. At the same time, we looked down on lukewarm relations that were enough for most people to abuse the noble term 'friends'.

For us, a promise was something that had to be honored at all cost, a person who didn't value promises wasn't worth talking to.

Serious trust issues were plaguing our previous lives and were at the root of many mistakes we regretted greatly. While she surrounded herself with slaves that were unable to disobey, I chose the path of solitude. Each of them led to the overwhelming feeling of loneliness, apathy, and resignation.

We were both convinced that given a second chance in life we would do much better, easily becoming the greatest and most powerful among our peers. While she wanted to find glory and fame on the battlefield, I craved for power and authority connected with ruling others.

She was extremely interested in the remains of my technological knowledge, while I found her magical and fantasy filled experiences fascinating.

On top of that, it turned out that each of us was making the best use of the current situation to selectively remove the most significant flaws of our respective characters - especially the parts that we hated and that literally ruined our previous lives. Of course, not all of them and not completely. We feared that removing too much wouldn't be any different from reaching the river's end and being reborn as a new person. As for which parts exactly… it was hard to say. For example, only a general disgust for procrastination was left in my mind.

This made me realize that I already wasn't the same anymore...

'Neither am I. Don't worry, I will bring you back if you change too much. I've got a great memory, and your soul is a very simple one.' The elven girl helped to redirect my mind away from the incoming wave of fear, although it was hard to take her thoughts seriously. I bet she already forgot about the previous two times when she had used the exact same phrase to reassure me.

However, not every value, dream, and memory each of us treated as important was readily accepted by the other.

'Quite disturbing…' A wave of distaste and aversion was sent my way when she moved to the second part of the things I was sheltering in my core.

'You're not much better.' I wasn't the only one who tried to smuggle elements that the other party deemed as highly controversial, immoral and somewhat sick.

In her case, the non-compatible elements were connected with her racist and slightly sadistic tendencies, her slaves didn't have an easy life. She was also bloodthirsty and rarely accepted apologies from people who wronged her without inflicting a lot of bodily harm upon them first. I doubt that me getting on her good side would be possible if not for our merged situation, and even that would be unrealistic if she still was the same person as before.

Her previous self was mentally unstable, suffered from extreme mood swings, and demanded absolute obedience. She hated those elements and cut them off right after finding herself in this place, leaving behind only their shadow as a reminder to prevent herself from ever again falling into that atrocious state.

On the other hand, hidden within her core were also some really meek and heartwarming dreams that easily won me over. Under the spiky and warped exterior was a small, scared girl who wanted someone to hug her tightly and hold her hand while she was falling asleep. But while doing it, one had to be careful not to hurt her pride or embarrass her publicly. Otherwise, that would be a very costly embrace and five broken fingers.

In my case, the non-compatible elements were connected with everything that was cute, twin-tailed, flat chested and small. My desire for an adorable younger sister wasn't exactly a pure one. Nevertheless, I wanted to retain this part of my old self since it was relatively harmless. I was perfectly content with hugging and patting alone. For the proud elven girl, it was hard to understand and slightly alarming, but it wasn't the thing she found the most disturbing.

I also left an echo of my previous self to stop myself from rolling back to the same horrendous state. It was composed only of four words:

Weak. Lazy. Boring. Victim.

I couldn't recall how exactly each of them influenced my previous self, but I remembered that hiding in my own room, limiting the connection with the outside world to the minimum, and unconstructively wasting time in front of a computer screen, wasn't a good long-term solution. After a few years of such 'existence', everything lost all meaning, leading to a state of apathy and depression. However, this wasn't the thing that the elven girl deemed as sick and controversial.

On the contrary, she mostly ignored my previous state with a message that doubled as a pat on the back 'that's not you anymore'. After which she went back to browsing through my memories for an explanation of various technical terms such as 'computer screen'.

She wanted to help me realize that just like her, I already started moving in the opposite direction to my previous self. We could only hope that it wouldn't turn out to be a different type of a dead end.

Strangely, the thing that she found the most off-putting and barely tolerable, to the point of weakening the link between our souls, was the fact that I was trying to preserve my collector's heart. Collecting books, games, and especially anime figurines was always one of my greatest joy and passion. Given a chance, I wouldn't think twice before starting a new figurine collection in a new world-

'Figurines?' She didn't wait for me to answer this question and found the explanation by herself. 'Oooh~… so those weren't enslaved fairies. This explains a lot.'

'Enslaved fairies?' I asked to refocus her mind on that topic and scanned it for an answer, it was the fastest way to convey a large amount of information.

In her eyes, the existence of fairies and only one dominant race in my world weren't mutually exclusive. When she saw the static memories of my figurine collection, she thought that those were enslaved fairies. On top of that, she was convinced that I forced them to wear skimpy outfits and did perverted things to them… well, I kind of did, but to plastic figurines and not living beings. No wonder she had sent me that huge wave of distaste and aversion.

'You know… the fact that those weren't living beings but inanimate objects raises an entirely different set of questions and problems.' Underneath the layer of chuckling and mocking was a large dose of relief. She understood that figurines were something akin to dolls and relaxed.

Apparently keeping slaves was fine as long as they belonged to one of the lower races such as humans, but only a truly corrupted and cruel person would do such atrocious thing like enslaving and collecting innocent fairies. Her double standards were irritating and added fuel to my desire to pay her back for that mocking comment.

I picked one of her most embarrassing memories, planning to voice it and make fun of her, but the proud girl noticed my intentions and sent me a short warning 'don't'. In her eyes, tolerating the fact that I knew a lot about her remaining memories and treating me like a member of the elven race, were already the biggest concessions she could provide me with. She was prepared to pay any price to avoid further shaming - including cleansing her entire mind and dragging us both into the oblivion's embrace.

In other words, she wanted me to silently accept her teasing as any retaliation from my side would cross the line.

'If you truly want to stop hiding your insecurity by surrounding yourself with obedient slaves and make your dream of finding a true friend come true, then you will have to learn how to take a hit or two. I won't be able to stay on the receiving end all the time.' Interwoven into my message was the importance of accepting another person as her equal.

It was only thanks to the power of soul link and her craving to change that I was able to convey this adequately. Her previous self would never take it to heart, especially if I were to use the traditional verbal methods, instead, she would probably order the slaves to execute me on the spot.

The result of poking a hole in her once impregnable barrier was immediate.

'You may be right... Having someone to tease me back from time to time may be rather fun… A-anyway! I will think about it some more if we will get out from here.'

She was unwilling to raise her hope to such an ungodly level as obtaining a 'true friend', and the idea of us being equals clashed strongly with her deeply rooted selfishness and racism. Nevertheless, her soul flame moved to snuggle a bit closer to mine.

We learned a lot about the other without even a tiny bit of falsehood mixed within. At the same time, we understood that the dark side each of us treasured was a vital part that made us unique. And even if every minute spent submerged in the river of souls changed us slightly, we protected each other from drifting too far.

She was finally ready to take the first step in the process of true acceptance, one I had already made.

The soul bond between us changed. It stopped being a shaky, temporary connection that was only created because our soul flames were somewhat compatible - hers literally made a dent into mine. The bond evolved into an unbreakable chain that was going to permanently connect our souls even if we were to be separated… although there was still a lot of room for improvements, especially on her side where it looked more like a barely visible thread.

Still, it was an unbreakable barely visible thread.

The desperate afterlife situation didn't really change, and yet the pressure of the incoming doom was slightly easier to withstand.