This world has "life", "sapients" and "magic". This world is better than the average, but the locals have failed to produce anything worth of Sadde's interest.

At least until that woman falls from the sky and crash lands half a mile away from Sadde

"I CAN HELP!" She shouts.

The truly impressive thing is that that reaches Sadde, stirring things inside her that the vampire recognizes as emotion.

...she turned them off for a reason. She dislikes this.

Still, she'll go explore. She's there in a second.

The woman is a blue humanoid with white hair. She glows with an aura that is mostly green, but flashes with everything else in the rainbow.

"Wow," she says when Sadde arrives so fast, "hi, I'm Killala of the glow. I had visions of... you and your journey and possibly of a solution."

She looks at Sadde with a pained expression and her aura flashes indigo.

She dares not feel hope. "Is that so."

The glowing aura flashes bright blue when Sadde dares not feel hope, almost in defiance.

Killala stands up and dusts herself. "Uh, yes. My people learned to harness the power of the emotional spectrum - I call it the Glow - and you are an emotional singularity. Your presence in the universe overwhelmed other Glow users and I started seeing visions of you. I think we can harness your vast love to make your trip faster."

"...how."

"I have researched interactions between the Glow and magic - the Glow is not magic - and at one end of the spectrum the Glow has an affinity for love and the power to find loved ones. I think we can wake that power in you and let it guide you."

"It's magic. It breaks the laws of physics and is magic. How does it work?"

"Magic is a separate thing in this uni- not important. The easiest way is for me to spark the Glow inside you and guide you on how to manipulate it the right way."

"And what will I actually get?"

"If my guess is right the Glow will work like a guided teleport to you. Instead of searching for a door that is good enough it will take you to the best door it can find in that universe. Or to your loved ones if they are in the same universe."

"I'll take it," she says immediately. "I'll do anything—please—"

Killala flares indigo.

"Alright," she answers, "I am going to try to kindle the Glow inside you."

And presuming that Sadde is agreable, Killala reaches and touches the vampire on the chest, right above the heart and her aura glows brighter, and brighter. It loses the green and becomes pure white.

And Sadde feels, the light permeates her entire being and reaches into her soul. The emotions were never absent, but all but the core of them is paralyzed and the Glow makes Sadde suddenly aware. It would be suffocating if Sadde still needed to breathe.

She doesn't need to breathe, though.

And she doesn't move. She stops, still as a statue, and doesn't say anything.

Killala tries harder, she glows so bright that Sadde's vision is nothing but white.

Then she is interrupted.

"It's not going to be that easy, dearies."

The light dies down and Sadde notices a stranger. They are paler than a vampire and just as pretty. Their eyes are golden as those of a vampire who has just drunk animal blood, yet possessed of a predatory edge greater than that of a typical people-drinker. Not the same kind of predation, but definitely something in that vein. They cast two shadows, one very dark and sharp and the other translucent and wavering, which Sadde finds very noticeable because Killala is still glowing quite brightly and both shadows look right despite being incompatible with everything the true vampire knows about optics.

Their prettiness is somehow unsettling. Part of Sadde's mind knows she is better looking than her mates combined, but other parts are very skeptical of this assertion.

She ignores the lying part and merely looks at the new arrival.

"De-Desire?"

Killala asks this like she is expecting that the answer "no? Desire is not even real."

"Killala! My dear how is Sto-Oa? Still a bright fellow?"

"Yes? Why are you even here?"

"What? You really think that I wouldn't notice her here? Please, if your group of friends noticed, of course I would."

"That really only answers half of the question."

"I supposed that is fair my dearies. Well, you are here because her pain is like a tsunami in the emotional spectrum. She is here because she desperately wants something. And wants are my domain. But the despair inside her is my twin sister. And I just got a new twin sister and it's appropriate to give people birthday gifts. Nothing to worry, I believe we have a great opportunity for a transaction that is very agreeable."

"How is your twin sister new. And it does not sound like I want to give someone called 'Despair' a gift."

"She is reborn," Desire says like there is nothing else to add to that, "and I can guarantee no extra harm will come from this bargain. If anything, quite the opposite. And at least this way something constructive can be made of the despair."

"What is the bargain?"

"It's quite simple. One of her rings? It's the reason why you can't kindle the emotional spectrum inside her. It's constraining her emotional range in a very twisted way. If removed, the Glow would work normally, which would mean years if not decades of working to get a proper hold on the power she needs. While she is suddenly very, very aware of the billions of lives that she simply ignored. Despair is going to savor that regardless, but I want to give her something more sophisticated. It even works on magical principles so it's not gratuitously sadistic. She can get the power now and get to her destination faster. But she is going to need to make a sacrifice. In this case, she won't be able to return to any of the many worlds she visited before, even her native one. Metaphorically, she is going to lock all the doors and throw the keys away."

"What about my mates? Will they be able to go to those worlds?"

"Not by using your charming little key, no. And to clarify, the precise effect is that the key won't be able to access any worlds that it opened doors to between the moment you picked it up and the moment you leave this universe. And if you find yourself in one of those worlds the effect is going to be similar to wearing the ring of heart-shielding: nothing but your mates is going to matter. No one else is going to be affected, but once again you're going to walk through atrocities and each tortured soul is going to be a dust speck."

"I'll take it."

"Of course, now give me your hand. Killala, prepare the light show. Do it when I remove the ring from her finger."

Desire takes Sadde's hand, almost gently, and then removes the heart-shielding ring crushing it in her palm in a fluid motion.

Killala's is already intensifying her glow and if it felt intense before, it now feels overwhelming, even to a vampire brain.

It's light. It's emotion. It's power.

The light is permeating and echoing through Sadde's mind like a meteor hitting a planet.

Her self becomes a prism to that all-encompassing light. Fragmenting it. She feels from deep inside.

                                                                           The absolute fury and wrath at the unforgiving universe that did this to her-

                                             The understanding empathy that feels the pain and joy of others like part of oneself-

                       The paralyzing terror that she won't ever seen her mates again, nor her own world, to have it all for nothing-

                                                       The sheer optimism that better things are yet to come and that she can bring forth brighter days-

                 The powerful resolve to face the challenges anyway, whatever they are and however strong they may be she will try-

                                                       The overwhelming hunger that demands you to take what is rightfully yours-

                                                                                And the love, the hole in her heart that led her through a journey through thousands of doors.

                         The deepest pain she's ever felt, yet the one thing she would never give up-

Somehow the light kicks up a notch and gets stronger and it fragments further inside her.

                                                               MINE! MINE! MINE!

                                                                                                      BURN! BURN! BURN!

                          EVERY SOUL IS PRECIOUS!

                                                                                                                                           ALL WILL BE WELL!

                                                                                    NOOOO!!!

                               AS LONG YOU CAN!

                                                                            FOLLOW YOUR HEART!

And something latches on to the last one; Sadde has a sense that was Desire. The light starts to... not diminish but focus on more specific parts of its fragments.

                                                                      BURN!

                                                                                                                      MINE!

                                           NO!                  EVERY SOUL!

                                                                                AS LONG YOU CAN!

                                            ALL WILL BE WELL!

                                                                                               FOLLOW YOUR HEART!

And something else happens, a connection between the fragments until they become a single unified message:

                                             ALL WILL BE WELL AS LONG YOU CAN FOLLOW YOUR HEART!

Sadde's aura glows mostly violet, but with hints of blue and green and it's beautiful.

...it doesn't offer any help at the sudden realization of how many lives she failed to help. How many she condemned through sheer negligence.

She falls.

And she stands again and screams.

And she runs ten miles away, then twenty miles back, and she flies, and she writhes in the ground in agony, and digs a hole and stays in there and whimpers—

—and stops moving. She just stays there, nerveless, still.

She remembers everything—

She remembers how she passed by a million civilizations, a million peoples, a million million sufferings. With crystal clear quality she can recall-

That world dying of a gruesome plague, she crossed a boy carrying a young girl in his arms, she did nothing. That world could have handled newborns trivially with their technology, yet she did nothing. Plenty of other worlds could've handled vampirism and she didn't even consider-

The magically gifted people from "Torturotopia" begged her to evacuate them, at least take someone, at least one child-

She passed by a girl dying in a ditch, it was raining but Sadde was visible enough that the girl managed to ask for help before coughing up blood-

Thousands of hands reaching up for her, begging for help-

A family watching their home burn, all safe, but their belongings lost. They didn't even know Sadde passed by them-

A single lift to the right place, a minute or a second of Sadde's attention and lives could've been-

And not everything can be blamed on the ring. Even before that-

She simply left Sam without an explanation, for all she knows that place is barbaric enough to execute him for associating with witchcraft-

There was a homeless person in the market where she got her magical rings. It would've been trivial to give him a small fortune or even just an apple-

The very first world she came across could have benefited tremendously from just one hour of Sadde explaining advanced technologies to someone-

And that 1989 Earth, Sadde could've warned them of so many disasters to come-

So much and she did nothing-

So many and she didn't even try-

The world turns indigo and it takes her a moment to notice that it's her aura reacting.

Killala lands next to Sadde's hole and looks worried.

She doesn't notice. Not anything. No light, no nothing, only her own thoughts, her own memories, one after the other. She could've—could've—she starts making a million excuses, one for each world, and they crumble before her eyes as she realises the magnitude of her selfishness, of the horror she let by—

—but she couldn't. Couldn't. She wasn't strong enough, she isn't strong enough, and one day they'll fix those worlds, one day—

—but that day is not today.

Desire is long gone and Killala senses that Sadde should work through some of that on her own.

To pass the time she practices with the Glow, creating a multi-layered dome around them in different shades of green, telling a simplified story.

She'll be there for several hours.

Then when she emerges Sadde will find a very pretty dome.

Yeah she doesn't give a shit.

"Tell me this was worth the price. What do I do now?"

"You're supposed to focus on the feeling of love. Desire called it 'following your heart', which I think is appropriate, just let that part of the spectrum glow brightly and tug you towards the right direction until it pulls you. It shouldn't be too complicated, only intense."

...okay... she tries that.

The aura flares, the glow emanates even more strongly from the vampire's unbeating heart and from her chest a line of light extends to the horizon. It tugs at Sadde, and makes Sadde feel like one of her mates is tugging her by her hand, asking her to come.

It's surprisingly easy, in fact it's so easy that Sadde might do it by accident if she doesn't hold back and leave Killala without saying a goodbye.

...she barely cares.

But she still does, a bit. "Thank you. Thank you so much—I owe you everything, what can I ever—"

"Don't worry. I am more than glad to help. ...You now have the power of the emotional spectrum in you. I am not sure how much you can learn on your own, but if you learn anything please use it responsibly."

She looks in the direction the light is taking her, then at the dome, then at the light, then at Killala, then at the light again. "I—I—"

The dome is dismissed. Killala looks upwards in the same direction. "I am sure you will find them and I am sure they are eager to meet you again. Please go, and let yourself be happy again, at least someday."

...yeah that's good enough for her she runs—

And the light pulls her upwards and now Sadde is light and then something else.

Sadde has walked through many, many worlds. She has however never crossed a distance this vast.

All other distances she crossed before this moment are nothing compared to this single leap.

Sadde finds herself floating in the void between galaxies, and the light tugs at her key and shows where the keyhole is. She apparently has some ability to propel herself in vacuum.

The light starts pulling again the moment the door is open. She leaps another interplanetary distance and lands in space once more. Another door. Another universe.

This time the light appears to have two options. It soon picks one and she lands in the interplanetary void a third time. The door is once again right there.

She opens it—

This time the door lands her on a planet. There is a lush jungle on the other side, the fauna and flora don't look like Earth.

...okay. She steps through.

And there is a sudden shower of sparkles right next to her, it takes the shape of a...

...glasswinged butterfly, writhing in pain.

Which causes Sadde to start writhing in pain, too. "What—who—"

"I don't know," the butterfly cries, fluttering over to Sadde and landing on her.

—on him. For the first time in who knows how many hundred years... he's a boy.

The aura gets an yellow edge to it, still mostly violet. It surrounds the butterfly much in the same way it surrounds Sadde.

The planet remains a lush jungle, but very far in the distance, Sadde hears what sounds like metallic tools against rocks.

Nope. He can't. Not right now. He doesn't know what—happened—" Who are you?" he whispers.

"I don't know," the butterfly replies, miserably. "I'm—you—I remember everything, from before, I was you, and then I—wasn't—and now I'm not—" She lets out an extremely human-sounding sob.

Yeah he can't function too much at the moment. He'll snuggle his magic butterfly and just stay still, there. Again.

Eventually they are going to hear the sound of... well, it's definitely a kind of footstep, but definitely not from a humanoid creature. It's accompanied by the sound of two voices speaking to each other in hushed whispers.

—well he still has super hearing and his ring of translation...

The voices are definitely talking about Sadde - or rather the "sparkly weird-person that was somehow born before their eyes." The creature apparently has pretty good eyesight given how far away it is.

Apparently. He slowly sits up and looks at the sources of the voices, cradling his butterfly in his hand.

Then Sadde will see what can be best described as a cross of ant, grasshopper and praying-mantis that is at least six feet tall. And on its shoulders there is something that looks like a lizard or salamander with stubby little legs. They are talking to each other.

The mantis-person notices that Sadde saw them and calls out, "Greetings! Can you understand me?" Its voice is very weird, but that doesn't affect the translation.

"...yes," he says. His butterfly remains quiet. "What just—I'm sorry, I—I'm from another world, this butterfly appeared, it—said it was me—"

"She," the butterfly murmurs, possibly too low for the mantis-person to hear, but definitely not too low for Sadde. "I'm a she."

He blinks and looks down at the butterfly. "Sorry."

"Sorry?" Mantis-person shouts back, "I misheard and it sounded like you said your daemon just appeared!"

...it's really interesting that this ring translated whatever the mantis-person said into a proper word in English. He wonders what this implies.

He stands up and starts walking towards the person, still cradling his butterfly in his hand. "She did just appear. I did not previously have a daemon."

Reading alien body-language is weird but not impossible and the mantis-person appears maybe a bit startled, and so is its shoulder-lizard. "You weren't always a person?"

"She has my memories," he explains, "so I think I probably always had her, but not—outside—what is she?"

"Do you think drone-their* people can like... hold drone-their daemons inside?" the shoulder-lizard whispers. "That sounds barbaric. Also, did drone-they* just called drone-their daemon a queen?"

"Uh*," the mantis-person says after a moment, "daemons are your soul. If you are a person, you have one, you get them the moment you were born. But I just saw yours showing up. Which is confusing."

*The translation is rendering the language like that in English.

Well that's an annoying translation. "I'm not from around here," he explains. "I'm from another universe, reality, world, whatever. We don't have daemons, or not—on the outside, like that. What do they—do?"

"They do the parts of you that make you a person?" the mantis-person tries, "Without them your crystal-brain can still work and have all the memories, but not have the parts of you that let you... have a personality, feelings and stuff?"

"Drone-they might not have a crystal brain?" whispers the shoulder-lizard.

"Do you have a crystal-brain?" the mantis-person asks.

"Not in the sense you mean it, no. My biology is probably very different than yours."

"Ah, I guess that isn't very surprising. All things considered." The mantis-person peers at the butterfly. "Are you okay?"

The butterfly flutters away from Sadde's hand to cling to the back of his head.

"...no. Not really."

"Why? Also, how did you get here?" the mantis person asks.

Shoulder-lizard whispers, "Drone-they won't know how to take care of drone-their daemon."

"And I should explain how daemons work to you."

"I got here with a magic key. And yes, that would be useful."

"Okay..." The mantis-person thinks. "They don't need to eat, but need to breathe and sleep the same as you do. They are part of you and if they die, you do too. It is uncomfortable to go too far away from your daemon unless you go far enough away that the connection sort of becomes flexible. They cannot reproduce." That last part sounds somehow like a correction to something Sadde demonstrated to be wrong about. "They can change shape when you're young, but settle around the pupation period. And their shape is related to your personality. Oh, you must never let someone else touch your daemon, or touch someone's daemon yourself. It is... violating."

Shoulder-lizard whispers. "Unless it's a queen and her reproducing drones," the mantis-person repeats.

He nods slowly at all of this. "And... what do they do? I mean, are they just... some other person that is also you at the same time?"

"Ah, they help by doing parallel socialization and being someone to talk to, remind you of things. If the shape is convenient they can do things that are shape appropriate."

"I see." The butterfly peers over his head at them. "—I suppose people would usually name them."

"Oh yes. Mine is called 'smooth-chubby'."

The butterfly flutters back to Sadde's hand and looks up at him.

"Crystal," he says​ after some deliberation.

She nods her tiny bug head.

Smooth-chubby slithers down one of the mantis-person's arms (the lower right one). "Greetings, Crystal."

She takes flight and stops in front of smooth-chubby. "Hello."

"Welcome to existing! Do you remember being born? What is it like?"

"I... I was him?" she tries. "Not really, it's like I was inside him before, but there wasn't a me to be anywhere, and then there was, and I was outside, and I—remember—everything—" She turns to look at Sadde. "We need to get them back. And we need to save everyone else. We need to."

"I know."

"Save who?"

He shakes his head. "Never mind. Can you tell me more about your world?"

"Well, yes? But if you don't have daemons and belong to a different species, I don't know what is basic to you? Like, we have one sun, one moon, my species, the," he makes a series of clicks and hisses that don't translate to anything more than his species' name, "are the only sapient species."

"Is there any magic other than daemons?"

"There are two kinds. One is perceptives." The word is very badly translated, but close enough that the translation goes for it after almost going for "sensitive". "I am a perceptive, I use it to see better. It can be used to make senses work better or differently or trick other perceptives. The other kind is halo-fliers." Another very bad translation, the use of halo instead of circle suggests a very vague religious significance, "That can make circles made of metal that float and move."

"...huh. That's very specific. How often do people have this magic, or does everyone always get one or the other?"

"Queens can make perceptives whenever but it's harder than a regular egg both the first time around and all the subsequent times. Halo-fliers are random as far anyone can tell. Perceptives are like two in sixteen, and halos-fliers are maybe sixteen times less than that." They have a hexadecimal number system so these values are likely rounded up. "I don't think it's impossible to be both, but I've never heard of it."

"Subsequent times? And harder how?"

"Oh, right alien biology. Uh, a queen can swallow someone's crystal-brain and then put it in a new egg to give them a new body. I don't know what it feels like, but making eggs takes effort and for perceptives the effort is greater."

"—wait do you mean your species is immortal?"

"No? If you destroy our crystal-brains we are gone for good."

"Does that happen often?"

"How often is often? I think the number is thousands per year and the world has a billion people? That can be more if there is a war."

"What sorts of things cause these deaths?"

"Usually something like fire or lighting. And strong enough force also does it, but it's rare for impacts like that to happen by accident. I guess acid could work too."

"So mostly accidents? Or, I guess, murder?"

Crystal shudders slightly.

"Yeah, or things like firefighting... which might count as accidents. There is little reason to kill people outside a war."

"I see." He frowns. "People in my world die of old age."

"Oh, I am so sorry."

"Yeah. They're fixing it—might've fixed it already, I've been away for... hundreds of years... I want to be of some assistance to this world, but I'm not sure I can be."

"I don't really know it myself. Maybe you could talk to a queen, she might know."

"That sounds like it could be useful, yes."

Crystal flutters back to the top of Sadde's head.

The mantis-person who has yet to introduce themself leads them to a stone-walled city that looks surprisingly human considering its decidedly non-human population. It becomes clear very quickly that there are specialized castes which the main difference being sizes. Sadde's guide is the second tallest caste and the heaviest.

Everyone looks confused at Sadde and Crystal. It takes surprisingly little to allow them into the city's central structure.

He pays attention to everything, and follows his guide. At some point he asks his guide's name.

Drone-their name is a series-of-clicks-followed-by-a-short-buzzing-sound. Drone-they appear to find "Sadde" very hard to pronounce.

The queen can be best described as a combination of the insectoid species, with something similar to the xenomorphs from the Aliens series and a couple of other vaguely Lovecraftian things and maybe a Pokémon to balance the ugliness out. She possesses a very long distended abdomen that spirals out of where her multi-limbed torso raises. She is covered in various veils and several daemons stand over her abdomen walking down through it. Sadde sees an egg being deposited and a daemon jumping on the sticky sphere that is then carried away by more insectoid aliens.

...ew.

He waits to be introduced.

Which does not take too long. The queen apparently has her own dialect because of the different mandible configuration. She has already been apprised of the situation.

"Come my visitor. Is it true that you're a faraway visitor?" she speaks. The translation makes her unnatural voice sound maternal and gentle. "It is easy to believe by just looking at you. But one does well to ask such things, even the obvious, before starting a friendly conference."

"I am, yes, although perhaps 'far' is not the better word. And you are, I presume, the Queen?"

"Yes," she says amusedly, "Queen," a very long series of insectoid sounds, Sadde would need to seriously reconfigure his vocal apparatus to make half of them, "but call me Queen Bah."

"I am called Sadde. It is an honour to meet you, Queen Bah."

Crystal emerges from behind Sadde's head, looking at the Queen.

"I know it is." This is technically less arrogant than it sounds. "Thank you for coming. What can we do for each other today?"

"I have some magic foreign to this world. I would try to help it. But... I'm not sure how best to do that, or where to start, and I'm... fairly confident this is not the best use of my time in the long run."

"Well, what does your magic do? Could it be used to restore the dead? Create resources? Advance the sciences? Why wouldn't it be the best use of your time?"

"Your world has only thousands of deaths per year, out of a billion people. Mine had tens of millions out of around seven billion, some worlds are worse. And your biology is very different than mine, so there's no guarantee my main immortality solution would work. And culture seems very different—" He explains the magic he has access to, about humans and vampires and sorcery (which they probably have access to, too, now that he's here) and explains why he's emotionally compromised.

Crystal becomes more restless by the minute. At one point she takes flight and starts flitting about.

She is sympathetic to his pain.

It sounds very unlikely, but not necessarily impossible that their species could be turned into vampires, but the need for that is greatly obviated to the point she doesn't want to create a "husk" (a body without a crystal-brain) to test that.

She thinks his personal magic is interesting, but not all that game-breaking - times of scarcity can be endured by having the queens storing surplus population inside themselves.

She is greatly curious about sorcery and magic in general. Is he willing to share sorcery knowledge at all? What can sorcery do? Does this mean that every world that Sadde has ever visited also has sorcery?

He can share what knowledge he has, yes, but he didn't actually spend that much time around his mates learning it. And yes, it does.

Queen Bah would be glad to know more about sorcery. Is there anything they could trade in return? Maybe some could sing what they know about technology and history?

That would be useful.

"You should take something from here. So you can open a portal, later."

"—also that, yes. I—should have—" He looks down at his feet. "I would take something, from here, so I can return someday."

Queen Bah thinks for a moment - going uncannily still - then she says, "We can certainly grant you such thing, yes. What exactly do you need?"

"A native sapient always works, but I don't want to bring a person with me. A living creature I can keep in suspended animation should be the best alternative."

"That shouldn't be hard to arrange." Queen Bah ensues orders to that effect.

And Sadde presumably starts teaching someone the rudiments of sorcery.

Which they're eager to learn! They sing about their history. The insectoid chorus is actually not bad, Sadde could imagine people enjoying it for relaxation purposes. This world is clearly per-industrial revolution. And writing doesn't appear to be very common, but they get by with longevity and magic.

They bring a creature that is about the size of an apple. It only gets out of hibernation to feed or to mate (if it detects any other members of its species) and should survive a couple dozen years without intervention. It looks like a beetle.

How cute.

In addition to sorcery he also has technology knowledge to share.

Technology! They'd like some!

He imparts as much knowledge as he can.

Apparently Queen Bah doesn't need to sleep and has a pretty impressive memory, she listens attentively to every word. There is a lot of knowledge that can be imparted.

There is. He does not know how politics is organised here but he will also go impart that knowledge on other Queens so this polity won't conquer the others. He informs Queen Bah of this.

She was already going to impart this with her allies, but Sadde can do it for the rest of the world, for sure. There are about three empires in the world - no empress, but hundreds of queens working together - and about seventeen other political unities of lesser importance (they have less than a dozen queens each). Here is an optimal path to reach the ones in this continent, and Queen Bah thinks this one is likely to share knowledge with these other two and there is that one in that one polar island that might just shoot him on sight.

He can, as he has demonstrated, be shot with anything that does not set him on fire. He has enough magic that even fire should not be a concern. He is okay with this.

Sadde's journey through the world is uneventful. They tell him more about this world's history, which fares better than Earth's.

The people from the polar island don't shoot him, instead dropping rocks on him, but are willing to listen once that proves futile. They don't share anything with the vampire, but bid him farewell.

That's alright, he doesn't need anything from them, he's just sharing technology and magic.

Eventually he runs out of good things to do in this to this world. Sadde stayed long enough that word got around and some of the advancements took place. A star is named after Sadde.

Their aura shines around them with a blue edge to it. There is something content about it, or rather... rested, healed, strong, hopeful.

But it tells Sadde and Crystal that it's time to go, and it pulls them upwards towards the stars.

So she starts flying up—

—but Crystal stays.

And the agony is strong enough that she comes crashing back down, whimpering. "Crystal—my Crystal—"

"You've been ignoring me," she says.

"—what? No, I—you're me, how could—"

"Listen for once in your life!"

She falls silent.

"You're running. You found a solution and you kept running. And now you're running towards them, all fine and good, yes. You've found a solution. What are you going to do? Did you think just helping this one world would be enough, you'd be able to move on after this?"

"—what? No! Of course not! I—I would never—"

"You chose it once! You chose to ignore it all, to stop looking, to look for them. You rationalised it, you told yourself you weren't functional enough to help—you could've done more."

"Do you think I don't know that? I know!"

"What changed? What are you going to do when it takes hundreds of years to see them? Ignore it all again, fall into desperation?"

"I—"

"You have thousands of years of advancements in your head, you know sorcery, you've infected every other world you've visited with it and you didn't spare that a second thought."

"I'm you. Listen to me. I miss them, too, I need them, you don't need to be yourself, you just need to be functional. You could have afforded an extra five minutes per world, you know that. Promise me."

"Promise me you'll help. You'll help everyone. You have to."

"I—I promise—"

She flutters back to the top of Sadde's head.

"Then let's go find them."

She nods. She takes a bit to compose herself, and goes up again.

And her aura glows and reaches into the vast darkness of the universe and takes her to a door that opens to a barren asteroid. No sign of anything interesting around, but she can collect the rock and snow for later. The next door leads to the Saturnian rings, she can collect material from there too. The next door takes her to a planet.

Rocky, inhabited planet?

Yup, she landed above the open ocean but ways over there there is a school of manta rays.

Sapient species?

Here they are! They are short humanoids with colorful hair which determines what sort of magic they get (mostly the ability to conjure things like water, plant matter or metals at small quantities). Sadde recognizes this world, she visited what was likely a future version of it before.

Well then. She has some work to do, doesn't she?

Yes, yes she does.

--

On a planet with crystals on its beaches an old woman tells her grandchildren about the visitor that created their majestic garden. They don't believe her, but she just smiles at them and tells them to get ready for supper.

She is tired and decides to take a quick nap. Ana Luzia doesn't open her eyes again.

--

People are making fun of Sam because of what happened with Sadde. Which is hardly that much of a change of pace.

At least he no longer feels cold. That sort of blessing can never be overstated at The Wall.

--

On an Earth in the nineties things proceed as normal.

--

A sentient goo-ocean is still really curious about that very weird creature that appeared and bounced off it for a time before disappearing, even this many centuries later.

--

The spaceship is parked in orbit, still too scared to land because of the spiders.

--

This is a very happy fox on their way to the bank who made quite a profit today, if in a bewildering way.

The fox turns the corner and collides with a homeless person.

A guard comes over and threatens the poor man with a baton. "Please, stop. It was entirely my fault," the fox says. "Also, sir, I think this is yours."

"Oh, thank you," the homeless person accepts the platinum coin and the two go their merry way as the third sun sets.

It was a small fortune, but in this fox's opinion sometimes you just have to change people's lives when fate gives you the opportunity.

--

This is the worst moment of his life. And that says something.

He is the richest and most powerful man in the world. Living in his castle and living a hedonistic lifestyle, he is certain there isn't someone that doesn't hate him with their very soul, thinking that he caused their predicament.

Pain if you don't behave well. And an effect that makes people act like they are not in pain so people wouldn't suffer if their doctor was writhing in agony somewhere. A couple of very stupid wishes. So fucking stupid. An endless cycle of pain because the second wish still makes you behave like you did before including misbehaving.

Outwardly the world looks normal, but every adult suffers progressively increasing agony.

Including himself, because he didn't word himself out.

And this is the worst day of his life.

The richest and most powerful man in the world kisses the forehead of his newborn. The magic doesn't give him any option. Inside, he tries to do something, to kill his own child and spare him of the suffering.

But he can't.

--

Doctor Malek watches his biography on the spaceship screen. It really is an honor to have a movie about him at all...

...but it is okay to be bothered by the changes. And this scene bothers him a lot. The night his sister died was a turning point in his life and sure that beautiful stranger that ignored them in the rain - while he carried poor Hanifa - was memorable. But Malek never gave her enough importance to make a speech about how he forgave her.

Well, it made for a good scene at least. And maybe it would be good for the doctor's soul to exercise a little forgiveness. Allah would certainly find this graceful.

--

She isn't very lucid, too much cold, too much pain. Her thoughts are simply too nonsensical. And amidst all that her mind turns to dark things.

Maybe she was really worthless. She was never pretty. Never thin. Never anything valuable.

No wonder that beautiful girl left her behind.

She can't feel her tears and soon she doesn't feel anything.

--

A bacterium from another world was brought here on Sadde's shirt. Billion of years later life is thriving.

--

On the planet that is the cradle to the most ancient sapient species of its universe, Killala of the Glow looks up as the sun sets.

There is a knock at the door. It opens as she turns.

"Ganthet?" she says, facing her fellow scientist. "What brings you here?"

"I have been thinking about that story that you told. About the otherwordly visitor?"

"It happened."

"I believe you," Ganthet says fiddling with his datapad. "I saw the crushed ring and studied."

"Oh?"

"It's fascinating and while it works through magic some of the principles can be adapted to work through the emotional spectrum. In fact, I have been so inspired that I have - a side project that I wanted to show you."

He shows her the files under the title "Project Green Lantern".