I have stood at the end of all things for longer than memory can measure.
The gods call me Keeper. Shepherd. Warden of Return.
When they are in brighter moods, they call me Continuity.
When they are not, they call me Depressing.
I have never minded.
There are worse things than being the one who remembers that everything ends.
Astraea is radiant.
From my shore I can see fragments of it in the distance—cities of sculpted flame and crystalline towers rising beneath a sky suspended between dawn and dusk. Storms sing across the dominion of war. Endless harvests ripple like oceans of gold. Libraries made of light drift above marble steps where knowledge gathers like incense.
The gods built monuments to eternity.
I built a dock.
The Luminous Shore stretches in quiet defiance of grandeur. Pale stone extends into the River of Souls, a current of silver light flowing upward from Eldara—the world below—carrying the completed lives of mortals like drifting constellations.
The river does not roar.
It hums.
It does not mourn.
It continues.
So do I.
Beside the dock stands a small house.
The gods see a simple dwelling of pale stone and warm windows.
The souls see something else.
A farmhouse porch.
A childhood bedroom.
A tavern at the end of a long road.
A doorway they once believed they would never see again.
The house reshapes itself gently according to memory. It does not grant fantasies. It reflects comfort.
Only I see it unchanged.
A modest house with steady light.
I have come to understand that perhaps this, too, is fitting.
The river delivered a child to me once.
Small.
Alone.
Children rarely arrive alone.
He stood at the edge of the dock barefoot, light trembling faintly around him. His eyes searched the shore as though expecting someone else to appear behind him.
"Is… is everyone else coming?" he asked.
The river behind him flowed on, empty.
I walked toward him slowly, the soles of my dark shoes soundless against the stone.
"You came a long way," I said gently.
He swallowed and nodded. He was trying very hard to be brave.
"I tried," he whispered. "There were too many soldiers. I told them to run. I told them I'd hold them off."
Images flickered across the surface of the river—fire consuming wood, smoke swallowing sky, a small body standing between violence and something fragile.
I saw more than he did.
I saw what he would have become.
A protector.
A voice others would follow.
A leader forged not by power, but by compassion.
An entire era of peace undone before it began.
"Did I lose?" he asked me.
"No," I said softly. "Living is never losing."
He studied me carefully. Children always look more closely than adults.
"You send people back, right?"
"Yes."
"Will I get stronger next time?"
"Yes."
The answer eased him.
He glanced toward the house, which had already shifted into the shape of a modest cottage with a crooked fence and a warm hearth.
Then he looked back at me.
"Do you ever get to try?"
The question struck harder than any accusation.
"…No."
He frowned slightly, not in judgment, only in thought.
"That sounds lonely."
It was not cruelty.
It was observation.
I offered him my hand.
"Would you like to rest?"
He nodded, and together we walked toward the house that was not truly mine.
After he slept and his soul steadied, I guided him back to the river.
He stepped into it without fear.
I remained on the dock long after his light vanished.
The gods come and go.
More often than they admit.
When their vessels begin to strain—when memory blurs or power flickers—they descend to my shore for renewal.
The war god once arrived in unstable flame, armor cracking at the seams of his existence.
"Let's be quick," he muttered, though his voice was quieter than usual.
"As you wish," I replied.
I shaped his new vessel beside the river, silver light condensing into form.
He hesitated before stepping forward.
"Did I change?" he asked, not meeting my eyes.
"Yes."
He nodded once.
"Good."
He transferred, his old body dissolving into motes of light.
"Thank you," he added, softer than flame should be.
Velmira, Goddess of Dreams, lingered afterward.
"He would have dreamed of flying," she said of the boy.
"Yes."
"You carry what they could not finish."
"I carry what remains."
She watched me for a long moment.
"You never ask what you could not finish."
I did not answer.
Not all gods rush.
Thaloren, Keeper of Seasons, once sat beside me on the porch.
"Mortals accept decay," he said. "They mourn it—but they accept it. We resist it."
"You do not."
"I am decay," he replied with a faint smile.
Caerith debates probabilities on the dock, eyes sharp with curiosity.
"Do they choose differently the second time?" he asked.
"Sometimes."
"And does it change the outcome?"
"Always."
Serapheon stands in twilight silence beside the river, saying little. When he is present, the sky above the shore dims gently into evening.
"You keep us honest," he once said.
"I keep you continuous," I corrected.
He inclined his head.
"Both."
And then there is Nysera.
Nysera, Goddess of Time.
Her dark hair fades toward pale light at its ends, as though tomorrow is always overtaking yesterday. Her eyes shift like sunset—gold dissolving into rose, rose into violet.
She does not arrive with spectacle.
She arrives like a moment deciding to exist.
She sits beside me on the dock as if it belongs to her as much as to me.
"You paused," she said after the boy departed.
"I answer many questions."
"Not like that."
The river reflected her shifting gaze.
"You envied him," she said softly.
I did not deny it.
"You envied his chance to begin."
"I guide beginnings."
"You stand outside them."
Her voice held no judgment.
Only truth.
Later, the river delivered two lights intertwined.
They stepped onto the dock hand in hand.
Heroes of Eldara.
Not broken.
Not confused.
Complete.
"We did well," the woman said, leaning lightly against the man beside her.
"We did," he agreed.
They looked around not in fear—but in wonder.
"So this is where we go," he murmured.
"For a time," I said.
They listened as I explained rest, reflection, and return.
"Will we find each other again?" she asked.
I traced their threads through existence.
Across lifetimes they had chosen one another repeatedly.
Not destiny imposed.
Choice renewed.
"Yes."
Relief passed between them without words.
Before stepping toward the house, the man turned to me.
"You must see this all the time."
"I do."
The woman tilted her head slightly.
"But you don't know it."
The boy's voice echoed in my mind.
That sounds lonely.
Nysera came again that evening.
"You are moving," she said.
"I am still."
"No," she replied gently. "You are beginning to move."
"I preserve continuity."
"You preserve repetition," she corrected. "Living is not repetition."
"What is it?"
She looked toward Eldara below.
"It is uncertainty."
The word felt fragile.
"For the first time," I admitted, "I do not know what would happen if I stepped forward."
Her sunset eyes softened.
"That is why it matters."
Silence settled between us.
"For eternity," she said quietly, "you have stood where stories end. You know how everything concludes."
"Yes."
"But you have never known how anything begins from within."
The truth settled deeper than the river's current.
"What does it feel like," I asked, "to have only one life?"
She met my gaze.
"It feels like fear. And hope. And loss. And love sharpened by time."
"And you?"
"I feel time pass through everything," she said. "But I do not stand inside it either."
We sat in stillness.
"You do not stop me," I said.
"I cannot," she replied. "Stagnation is the only thing time cannot forgive."
I created a vessel.
Perfect.
Anchored.
Empty.
A form waiting should I ever return.
Velmira saw it and grew quiet.
Thaloren bowed his head.
Caerith said nothing.
Serapheon watched the sky darken slightly.
Nysera stood closest.
"You've chosen."
"Yes."
"Are you afraid?"
"Yes."
She smiled faintly.
"Good."
"If I do not return—"
"Then you will have lived."
The others gathered, not to prevent—but to witness.
"Dream well," Velmira whispered.
"Observe everything," Caerith added.
"We will wait," Serapheon said.
Nysera stepped aside.
"For eternity," she said softly, "you have been the one who waits."
Her eyes held every color of sunset.
"Go," she said. "Be one."
I stepped into the River of Souls.
It did not resist.
It embraced.
For the first time in existence—
I did not know what came next.
My name is Aetherion.
And this—
is my first beginning.