Rest for the Weary: A Sophie's World / SWTOR Crossover

by Rens_Knight

Summary:

"...a fundamental sense of isolation from a world that had already at such a young age moved past her..."

To be freed of their imagined world felt like far more of a curse than a blessing to Sophie Amundsen.

----

Perhaps that could change for the better.

Chapter 1

Sophie's World / Star Wars: In the Burning of the Light 

 

Rest for the Weary

"...a fundamental sense of isolation from a world that had already at such a young age moved past her..."

 

 

To be freed of their imagined world felt like far more of a curse than a blessing to Sophie Amundsen.

Cruising along the Scandinavian motorways with their convertible's top down, the wind whistling through their hair, should be nice. But it wasn't, considering she knew the truth of what it all was.

From what her philosophy teacher Alberto Knox, the mastermind of their escape from the control of their author Major Albert Knag, had deduced, they could go back to their old universe at any time. She could try and patch things up with her mother for the mess everything devolved into at the end. She could try to fit herself back into its confines once more...but she knew it wouldn't work.

The Major's final sadistic demonstration of his control over her universe had about broken every last sense of continuity and logic the place had ever had. Strange compulsions, shattered causality, blurring between story continuities...unless the memories and the marks of all of that on the landscape could somehow be erased too, her home could never be that again.

Maybe--maybe--the animals...her cat Shere Khan and the rest of her menagerie...Alberto's dog Hermes...maybe in what she imagined to be their uncritical ever-present, they might still be the same at the core. But could they ever be rescued? Animals did remember the past. What had they suffered? What did they still suffer? It mattered to her...that much Sophie knew.

They inhabited a nether-world between worlds now. On one hand, the vistas of Major Knag's world in which they wandered invisible to the real people--the people who led logically-ordered lives nestled deep within the comfort of the rabbit's pelt that Alberto had used to represent the universe they'd known at the time. There was a virtue to that, she'd long since concluded now, for the price Major Knag had demanded of her and Alberto for knowledge of their state had been entirely too much to bear. The immense disorder that stretched before them for all eternity testified to that. Something rebelled within them both--some innate part of them that told them this was not the state for which humanity was intended.

On the other, there were the fantasy beings that wandered with them--a fantastical clash of universes and imaginary visions...fascinating when she and Alberto allowed themselves to be drawn into the here-and-now of the stories they could tell. In that, perhaps, there was some worth, for through that they still had some sort of means to expand their horizons, to know, and to experience. But the utter lack of control--the lack of ability to experience the continuity, the logic of reality through the exercise of their own choices upon it--rendered it all hollow in the end.

All of it a mere bagatelle, Sophie thought to herself, as Alberto used to say. He'd long since given up on trying to assert himself upon his reality. And to see him--the once the ever-wise, the ever-optimistic, just as defeated as her if not even more so...it stung. Perhaps that which made them human was slowly ebbing away. Perhaps what awaited them was an eternity of fading away into the static nothingness of memory. Perhaps this was what people had once meant when they referred to ghosts, forever bound to the site and the remembrance of their deaths.

There'd been a little respite once--a foray twenty-five years ago or so now, to the classroom of a student her own age in a reality even more senior than that of Major Knag's, who had been given a school assignment to detail her own philosophy after reading the Major's book. She still had her own copy of the hated manuscript--Sophie's World, Major Knag had called it, after the place he'd taken such pleasure in stripping away to the seams.

The young student had had the courtesy, unlike Major Knag, to write a note asking permission before she set about on her assignment and temporarily gave direction to her and Alberto's lives to complete her assignment. Nor had the scenery she'd provided been all that bad, compared to the land of the absurd in which Knag had stranded her, and to which they'd been left to return afterwards.

She and Alberto had stuck around after the essay's composition to see what happened. Unlike with Major Knag, she'd felt a few hints of commiseration with the fourteen-going-on-fifteen year old girl when her refusal to surrender the idea of an absolute truth to the postmodern relativism of every one of her classmates had introduced to her a fundamental sense of isolation from a world that had already at such a young age moved past her, heedless of the consequences of what it might be doing in its headlong abandon. Sophie recognized that sense in her own present existence, and felt a bit sorry at the idea that another being besides her and Alberto might experience even a little hint of what she did.

Then--though benignly through the cessation of the writing and the turning of the student's mind to other matters--she and Alberto had faded back from the shadows of the senior reality into the shadows of Knag's Norway once more.

Damn it, had it really been twenty-five years? Hmm...more like twenty-three. That didn't count the four years of limbo before that, when the higher reality's version of Sophie's World had been released, or the four years before that, when Major Knag had released his damned book.

She'd turned fifteen then; her birthday party had literally been the end of her world because that sick man felt like shaping her life in the image of some Romantic-era pedophile's 'love' interest, who'd died at fifteen years and four days (hopefully off to somewhere better than this fate). No, two sick men, if she counted that sadist-in-chief from the senior reality, Jostein Gaarder. She'd never met him, and had no desire to do so. Better his ongoing salutary neglect than to draw his attention and risk whatever awful predations he might seek to dish out.

So what did all this leave her now? Fifteen plus four plus four plus twenty-three--damn, was she forty-six years old now? Forty-six and yet aside from adding on new memories, her body and brain had never had much chance to develop past that. Maybe for Alberto there was at least a little grace in it for him...he'd had the chance to reach full maturity, which would have given way by now to the ravages of old age if not for the philosophical party trick that yanked them free of Major Knag's grasp.

That's when something shifted--something to jolt her out of that morose turn of thought. It wasn't Luke Skywalker blitzing above the on the motorway at a breakneck pace in his speeder. No, that was normal as far as their nether-world went, though she couldn't help noticing the farmboy-turned-Jedi was more than a little bit crazy behind the wheel.

Rather, it was the advertisement along the side of the road that said, "Rest for the Weary: Next Exit, If You Choose." The sign was green, it was written in English instead of Norwegian, and it had the look of something she'd briefly seen when the young student had taken the helm all those years ago.

"Oh, no...here we go again," Sophie mumbled, even though she had to admit, rest for the weary sounded sort of nice. It reminded her of something her religious teachers had mentioned from the Bible all those years ago.

Alberto had seen it too. "I guess it's a mild one as far as authorial magic tricks go," he conceded. "Shall we?"

"'If you choose.' Do we really have a choice?" Sophie retorted.

"Probably not," Alberto grumbled, equally dour. "But...I don't know. If this has something to do with that American student from all that time ago, I at least doubt there's a negative motivation behind it."

"Do you?" Sophie hissed.

Alberto sighed. "Don't remind me again. Please."

"All right," she reluctantly conceded. "Well, at least we are allowed to complain."

"Wouldn't any reasonable person complain under the circumstances?" Alberto noted.

"Yes...but someone could pass a law--or an authorial fiat--against it," Sophie commented. "And if it's her again, it at least seems like she hasn't."

Alberto nodded as he nudged the car towards the exit ramp...to the United States again, it seemed. "That's a shred of dignity I'll be happy to enjoy for the moment. By the way, Sophie," he added, "you've become extraordinarily perceptive all of a sudden. Analytical, I daresay. Philosophical even." He grimaced. "Now that was a terrible joke."

He glanced about him, reflexes well honed by those perverted chaos monkeys from the past who'd dared to label themselves their authors and creators. He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop as he hunted for more hints of the promised Rest for the Weary--but no shoe ever did drop, figuratively or literally. "Well, again," Sophie added, "we're not being punished for pointing it out."

"And why should we have been?" Alberto snarked. "Why should we ever have been put through the hell we were just for wanting to know what was really real?"

"Or if anything ever was?"

"Seems like this author understands how a reasonable person would feel, at least. Or makes an effort if nothing else." There was that 'reasonable person' thing again. Alberto's words in a time like this wouldn't be an accident; there'd be some sort of authorial influence right now, even though it felt like him, and not some sort of override of his essential character.

Was that a hint as to what sort of philosophy they were going to encounter ahead? This had all the trappings of another one of those Socratic dialogues about philosophy. Was the young student (not as young now, Sophie supposed...and again, no backlash appeared in their world for pointing out the obvious) coming back for a second pass?

They arrived at a reasonably crowded 'big-box' style bookstore, pulled their convertible into what would have been a highly illegal parking spot marked off with blue lines for the access of disabled customers to make their way to the ramp and onto the sidewalk. Hopefully no one in the senior reality--that's where they had to be now--would pull directly into this area and cause the disturbing appearance of driving through their imaginary vehicle.

For her part, Sophie felt a twinge of residual guilt at the illusion of blocking off the handicapped access area from people who might need it. Then she reminded herself that she, Alberto, and their vehicle, for the matter, were most certainly reality-impaired. With that realization, all vestiges of remorse fell away, replaced by a faint satisfaction of some sort of justice in the nether-world.

Sophie and Alberto took stock of the bookstore and its environs. They couldn't help noticing the temperature had grown quite a bit hotter than they were used to. It never got that hot in Norway--though she had to admit her memory could be spotty in light of all the nonsense they'd encountered since the breakout from Major Knag's control. Or spotty in light of our current author's ignorance of Norway, she added to herself. And again, nothing happened around her to reproach her for pointing out something that really made a lot of sense if an American without travel experience in their home country really was at the helm for the moment.

Almost 31 Celsius, according to the temperature display in the car (had that been there before?), or 87 Fahrenheit, when she pushed the unit selection button out of curiosity. Might as well blend with the natives, she thought--not that it mattered since the multiethnic assortment of Americans milling around weren't going to see her or Alberto anyway.

And they definitely didn't see the slightly-built man who casually passed through the door towards the outside cafe tables, carrying a set of three drinks--one for himself, and two more that had to be for her and Alberto. As for the man himself, he wore a crimson suit of a sort she'd never seen in her own world before its boundaries were breached, nor in the 'reality' of Major Knag's world or even this senior reality during her last brief visit.

"Another fictional character," she muttered to herself, then covered her mouth. This man, being on the same plane as herself and Alberto, had the capacity, in theory, to take offense.

"Pardon?" he asked--in what sounded to her like British-accented English. With that, Sophie sighed in relief. America...English...likely, the man hadn't understood what she'd said, since it had been in Norwegian. (Or had it? Well, at least some sort of rational rules were functioning here, given Sophie knew herself and her two primary authors to be Norwegian speakers.)

Fortunately, those authors--and the current one as well--had equipped her with a background of foreign language classes that prepared her quite well for this. A faint hint of a Norwegian accent remained when she spoke, but only a touch. "Sorry," she said. "I forgot we were out of Norway--the transition happened awfully abruptly."

The middle-aged man smiled, faint laugh lines serving as a pleasant accent to kind, almond-shaped eyes. Sophie would have thought to describe him as a European-looking man with a hint of Asiatic features...but the terms didn't sit quite right. Especially when the elegant outfit he wore didn't seem to correspond to any Earthly culture she was familiar with.

"'Norway'?" he queried. Then he smiled again. "Sorry...that's not somewhere I'm familiar with. For that matter, I don't really know much about this place either, except that the locals seem to speak Basic around here, albeit with a Republic accent. It's quite curious--and interesting to see a pre-hyperspace world like this in full flower."

"Um...hyperspace?"

"Ah...I see. You're from a similar world to this senior reality. That's no bother though--I shan't care to argue with another reality's fundamental physics. Please--" He gestured towards one of the cafe tables. "Let's have a seat. This one happens to be compatible with our substance."

A woman--still rather youngish though working her way towards middle age--glanced over from another table and smiled, though Sophie got the idea she couldn't actually see the three of them. She typed away on a tablet (my, computers really had shrunk over time, while growing immensely in sophistication)--

"That's her!" Sophie pointed; after all, it wasn't exactly rude to point when the object of the pointing couldn't see you. Though that said, she had to know they were there even if her physical senses weren't set up to register it. "That's--"

"Ren's Knight," the man from the...science-fiction reality...interrupted before she had a chance to say the woman's name. "I'm sorry," he said. "I know that was rude. But I do have a request in hand--" He waved some sort of futuristic tablet with words written in an alphabet she couldn't read. "She'd rather that name not be put out onto the Internet. So if you wouldn't mind, could we use the pseudonym?"

"Do we have a choice?" Alberto sniped.

Sophie, for her part, decided to find out. She shouted the woman's name at the top of her lungs. The words didn't catch in her throat, her voice wasn't stolen from her, no censorship or other unpleasant effects manifested themselves. "Well, it looks like we do in some way or another."

"She doesn't claim to be a top-shelf author or anything of that nature," the 'future guy' said, "but she does have experience with fanfiction, to include a sort that allows the reader to insert themselves into the story."

At that, Sophie actually gave a little smile. "A Choose Your Own Adventure?" She remembered those from her own childhood!

"Something like it," the other man confirmed. "Though many of the younger set, who most frequently write that sort of fanfiction, didn't grow up with them as you and Ren did, so they call them by another name. And the degree of reader choice varies."

She and Alberto frowned at that.

"To be fair," Alberto mused, "I cannot imagine a true Choose Your Own Adventure would be an easy sort of book to write."

"No," the other agreed as he handed out the drinks, "I don't suppose so."

"Wow," Sophie exclaimed. The cup had her name scribbled on it in marker, but inside--her favorite drink! She cut a glance over to the other table where Ren puttered away on her tablet...writing...them? She looked away. That was still disturbing but..."Nice to see someone's making an effort."

"A mere..." Alberto stopped himself. He'd been about to deliver his aggravated catchphrase for Major Knox's obnoxious reality trickery, but...was it politeness towards Ren, who knew what was being said without her ears being able to hear it? Or was it just the fact that this, at least, had been curated for him and Sophie rather than against them? "A mere moment," he decided, "but I suppose it's a nice one." He took a sip and felt himself starting to relax just a touch. No alcohol in it, he noted--nothing calculated to loosen his inhibitions too much.

Sophie squinted at the other man's cup to see if it had a name on it. Sure enough, it did. "Talos?" That certainly didn't sound like an ordinary American name--though 'ordinary American name' could be a bit of an oxymoron considering the assortment that made up its population.

"It happens to be pronounced 'TAY-luss,'" the future man noted, "but no harm in it. My full name is Talos Drellik."

He seemed unbothered by her guess, but it still seemed polite to emulate his own pronunciation, even if it wasn't anything like the sensible Norwegian way of saying it. Or...was the name Greek? She posed the question.

"'Greek'?" he asked. "I'm afraid I'm not familiar with that either. Though..." Talos cocked his head in thought. "Considering Ren over there and her world could be said to have responsibility for the creation of our own world, perhaps someone did base the name on one of the senior reality's cultures."

Ren, for her part, pulled out one of the tiny earbuds--which didn't actually connect to anything she could see--out of her left ear and stuck her pinky in, perhaps to soothe an itch.

"Those things don't look convenient," Sophie muttered. "And that's gross."

Ren quickly jammed the modern version of an earphone back in her ear, as if self-conscious. Maybe she was.

"Funny that she'd be embarrassed in front of us," Sophie commented.

"I doubt it," Alberto cynically remarked. "She's probably self-conscious about how it looks to all those 'real' people like her."

Talos scrolled through the contents of his datapad. Odd, that he clearly spoke English--though he called it 'Basic'--but read it in an alien alphabet. "From the information I have about Ren," he said, "I'd say it's both. And she wouldn't exclude the notion of our own reality, either."

"Really," Sophie drily remarked. "I don't exactly feel real right now. For God's sake, I still look like a fifteen-year-old girl, but I'm older than she is!"

"That notwithstanding," Talos said, his tone gentle and lilting, "considering the evidence of the multiverse you've seen with your own eyes--one which, I might add, joined with the works of other authors she knows to shape her own suppositions on the matter--perhaps a little open-mindedness would help. It might at least make you feel a little better," he suggested.

"How do you feel about all of this?" Alberto questioned. "Surely our ability to interact with you suggests you are a fictional character yourself, perhaps even partially from Ren's imagination there."

"I would be lying if I said it wasn't a bit awkward," Talos admitted. "That said, where I come from, I am actually no longer 'alive' in the sense that people like Ren use the world. I am..."

"Dead?" Alberto interjected. "A ghost?"

Talos laughed. "I can't manifest myself in living realities that way--that happens to be the specialty of my brother Tarssus. He happens to be quite skilled in the art of presenting himself as a Force ghost. As for myself, my specialty in immortality happens to be the navigation of time--to include the multiverse as a whole."

Sophie smirked at that. "Star Wars? Really? Well, that explains Luke Skywalker committing a bunch of moving violations...not mention physics violations...on the way here."

"I've heard of him," Talos confirmed, "and yes, Luke Skywalker comes from a point well uptime from me. Further ahead in the timeline than myself," he clarified, catching the brief look of confusion on the philosophical pair's faces. "I come from a few hundred years after the time of Darth Revan, and millennia before the time of Luke Skywalker..."

"I get the latter part," Sophie confirmed. "A long, long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. I don't recognize this 'Revan' guy though."

"People in my own point in time tried to make sure he was forgotten, too. But judging from the chronology I have for the 'senior reality,' it unfortunately seems the two previous authors never gave you the chance to learn about those things before they so rudely interrupted your ordinary timestream. But no worries, Sophie, and Alberto...I don't plan to bore you with the minutiae of another timestream. Perhaps at another time, if you wish...but not now."

"I suppose you have some philosophy to elucidate for us?" Alberto grumbled. Though it did pique his intellectual interest, the old, familiar drill had grown rather old after the way Major Knag used and abused it. "Part of me wants to apologize for your getting drafted into this mess--" He glared over at Ren. Was she unaware of it...or accepting of it?

"You could say I was conscripted, yes," Talos acknowledged. "That said...I do find myself in a position extremely well suited for my background and intellectual interests. I would have found myself far more out of my element, commentating, shall we imagine, a Hutt-ball match." Some sort of sport, Sophie inferred. Talos, after all, likely didn't know anything about football or the like, as they played it in Norway. "The intricacies of timelines and the multiverse, however...that I am quite familiar with."

"Could we at least have a break before we begin?" Alberto pressed.

Talos smiled again. "Of course. Let me know whenever you'd like to pick up. I'm in no hurry."

Ren, for her part, was starting to look a little tired, not to mention staring at a restaurant across the way. Perhaps it was she who was in no hurry to continue at the moment. That said, this pause did come with the option to say and do as they pleased, in the meantime.

It was a choice. Sophie would take it.

Chapter 2: An Improptu Interlude

An Impromptu Interlude

"Is every box really a bad box to be in?"

 

 

"What?" Alberto exclaimed. "We're back again?"

"That was fast," Sophie groused. "A little more alone time would have been nice. No, scratch that--a lot more alone time."

That said, they didn't seem to be in the same there as last time. They were definitely still in the United States but this time the trio found themselves in the middle of a crowded Asian fusion restaurant, where--surprise, surprise--Ren was sitting at the bar eating by herself.

Sushi, Sophie thought, and confirmed with a look at the menu's restaurants--she'd heard of it, though it hadn't gained tremendous popularity in Norway before their breakout. Not that she objected to fish; she'd had plenty of it, and probably in ways these Americans had never seen and might not even want to. That said, she wasn't sure this sushi even took the form that its inventors in Japan would recognize. She was pretty sure that in Japan, they weren't in the habit of deep frying a sushi roll.

Talos couldn't help scrutinizing the food with anthropological interest. "I've never seen anything quite like that before," he remarked. "It's in line with general human sensibilities, to be sure, though I'm not sure I'd venture to taste raw seafood. Assuming it actually is what it looks like." He searched around looking for some sort of clue.

Oh, right, Sophie thought to herself. He can't read the Latin alphabet; he reads whatever that boxy-looking stuff is on his little computer, although it somehow gets around to our world's kind of English. But even if he could read the signs around here, the word 'sushi' still might not mean anything to him.

"Talos!" Sophie shouted over the nose, before the Star Wars man (which would have sounded utterly insane to her if not for the other far worse insanity Major Knag had subjected them all to) had a chance to get far across the restaurant--presumably to inspect the other bar...the sushi bar...or perhaps the kitchen. He turned, heading back their way as she clarified for him, "It is seafood. Fish, to be specific."

"Now why the hell are we here?" Alberto questioned as Talos nodded a quick acknowledgment to Sophie. He jabbed a thumb at Ren. "I don't see her writing on that mini-computer, so why would she call us back? It doesn't seem very nice, assuming that's really what she's trying to be towards us."

Alberto leaned around the bar, and a little bit through it (though he would have backed out if he'd noticed), to scrutinize the woman's face up close. It probably wouldn't have been that obvious to anyone who wasn't paying extremely close attention, but Ren seemed to be making a concentrated effort not to glance in a certain direction. Specifically, to the right of her, where a younger couple sat, talking very loudly.

And, to Sophie's astonishment, when she followed Alberto's gaze over to the young couple, very philosophically.

It seemed rather New Agey at first, though the New Age didn't seem exactly new anymore, considering Alberto had first told her about it thirty-two damn years ago and it had already been in progress then. Something about a thing called 'reiki,' which Sophie wasn't really that familiar with, and the young woman relating a story about having been asked whether what reiki practitioners did differed in any way from what Jesus had done when he healed people.

The man sitting with her started to explain that there was a difference--that Jesus had derived his power from God, whereas as he understood it, it derived from a different source in reiki.

That suggestion of a difference seemed not to sit well with the lady that was telling the story though; she seemed not to be a great fan of organized religion, though perhaps spiritual (but equally interested in hearing opinions from an atheist, if she ever got the chance). And she made the very pointed remark--several times, in fact, through the rest of their conversation--that "some people don't like things that are outside of their 'box.'"

Which referred to believers in organized religion, Sophie inferred, maybe even to believers in Jesus specifically. She remembered that time twenty-three years ago when Ren had asked for her and Alberto's help with that school assignment, and at that time, Ren had been very concerned with the question of Christianity and had just moved further north from a state that--based on the glimpses Sophie had caught of it then--was very conservatively religious in the way some people in America tended to be.

Ren really seemed to be trying her best to keep a straight face and to keep herself from staring or interjecting herself into a conversation she had no business barging into. But Sophie couldn't miss the abrupt little side-glances over at the couple every time the woman made that comment about people who didn't like things outside of their 'box.'

Did that mean Ren was still concerned with religious questions, perhaps even Christian ones? If Sophie had to guess, there was something personal about the way the remark was coming across to Ren. The almost middle-aged woman was trying to keep a tight lid on it, but maybe she didn't like the fact that she was being put into a box by the younger one's assumptions.

The conversation eventually meandered on to something else, and the very hungry Ren got much more singlemindedly focused on her food again--sometimes biting off a little bit more than she could chew, and then holding up a hand, with or without a napkin, to try and hide the result from anyone who might be watching.

The comment about being in a 'box' kept rattling around Sophie's brain. She remembered how excited she'd been at the beginning of the philosophy course--the heady excitement of seeing more about the world around her and...embarrassingly, in retrospect...the very teenaged feeling of superiority over her mother when she'd started to ask the important questions about what reality was and what her place in it might really be.

The excitement had taken a much more sour turn since the discovery of Major Knag's malicious shenanigans, and the revelation of another author controlling even Knag (and not seeing fit to deal out even a little bit of abuse on Knag as he had on Sophie and Alberto). And the years and years of stranding in the nether-world, without the ability to grasp hold of anything that felt like a truly solid, coherent, and logical reality, only disjointed figments of the imagination.

Well...Talos here might be another figment of the imagination, but at least he seemed reasonably rational-minded considering the whole Star Wars thing.

Yes...it was important to understand the nature of reality. But after everything they'd been through, she found that 'box' comment starting to rub her the wrong way too, even if not necessarily in the same way it might be bothering Ren.

Finally, she said it out loud. "Is every box really a bad box to be in?"

"A starship isn't necessarily a bad box to be in," Talos quipped. "It does carry oxygen, food, water, gravity...all those useful little things humans need to stay alive."

Sophie cocked an eyebrow. "Gravity? Does it spin really fast or something?" She thought she remembered something like that from long-ago science classes. Or maybe it was that movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. There was no telling. But she knew astronauts were weightless in space. In her old reality, anyway--maybe not Talos'...

"Artificial gravity," he clarified. Of course it would be something like that, Sophie thought. That said, what Talos added suggested his world wasn't completely unlike the one she'd known. "Prolonged exposure to microgravity tends to be bad for human health, along with cosmic rays and other sorts of hazards if the right precautions aren't taken.

"But that's beside the point, I think." Talos' brow furrowed for a second. "Or maybe it's not. I was joking a second ago, but now I think I've meandered my way towards a point of sorts. That being that the interior of a starship is a far preferable place for a human being to be than floating helplessly in the vacuum of space, which is very much not compatible with our form of life. I suppose that really does fit the definition of a 'good box.'"

"We definitely have some experience with being in an environment that isn't exactly compatible with our form of life," Alberto remarked. "We're eternal, true, but this has not been good for our minds, to say the very least. Who knows--maybe that starship of yours might really be an improvement if we could actually stay there and get used to the place instead of continually being yanked around from one reality and one set of rules to another."

"Yeah, Ren." Sophie glared at the woman, who was just finishing up her meal. "Yanking people around again, after seeming to be playing 'nice.'"

Ren didn't hear, of course, but...was Sophie imagining a slightly sheepish look on the woman's face for a second?

Alberto used to say--quite frequently and quite vociferously--that Major Knag ought to be ashamed of literally playing God with their lives. The same, of course, went for the original author in the senior reality, who also hadn't cared one whit about his creations. Assuming we really are his creations, Sophie found herself wondering. And the fact that this bizarre little coincidence--a philosophical chat--had actually occurred in Ren's vicinity right after she'd set about writing on the subject...that did make Sophie wonder.

In fact...

"Huh," she mumbled quietly to herself, looking at the single woman with new eyes. "She couldn't help it. Ren couldn't help calling us here. She never planned this--it just happened."

Now that was one extremely odd and unnerving thing to observe about what she'd come to think of as the senior reality. Was someone tweaking that reality too--someone with a sense of humor? It certainly didn't seem as warped as the two Norwegian authors' senses of 'humor,' if Sophie could call it that, but it really brought a lot of questions to mind.

What was a senior reality?

What was this multiverse Talos had referred to, beyond the realms she'd experienced, and did it really exist beyond his talking about it?

Was there, despite all the chaos she and Alberto had been put through, some sort of ultimate, guiding entity at the center of it all?

And how far did Ren's power of choice go? Sophie had thought maybe people like her and Gaarder were the ones truly blessed with free will, but was that the case?

Was there, as Ren had believed when she was younger, an absolute truth, a true and ordered reality to be had?

And might there be a greater, overarching afterlife above it all that promised a better eternity than the one she and Alberto had been handed?

Ugh, philosopher's projects, she thought to herself, after the term Alberto had once used to describe the primary concerns that shaped each philosopher's work. But then she reminded herself one more time, Ren actually couldn't help it. She didn't mean for this opportunity to follow the other authors' tropes to come up.

All three of them had fallen silent at her epiphany that Ren had not planned to summon them. For her part, the former student seemed to be settling the bill. (That on an electronic device too, with a credit card? Electronics really were everywhere in 2022, Sophie thought to herself.) At least, as the American woman left the restaurant by herself, Sophie noted the three of them weren't being pulled along with her. That counted for something. Maybe.

"Seems like the introverted type," Alberto remarked, nonjudgmentally. And Ren really hadn't seemed too disturbed, if at all, to be alone in the middle of that crowded restaurant.

"Indeed," Talos concurred.

"I think she's always been like that," Sophie added. "I mean, true, she did catch us right after she moved to a new school in a new state the last time, but it seems like maybe that's just the way she is."

"'Introverted'...reminds me of Carl Jung," Alberto remarked.

"Who?" Talos, of course. He was from a galaxy a long, long time ago, after all--even if somehow his world had an 'Earth' in its future, he would've died long before any of Earth's philosophers were ever born. There was just no way he could possibly have any of Earth's cultural references, save for those things that might be universal to human nature.

English isn't universal either, but he somehow seems to have that, Sophie thought. I guess that's a symptom of being spawned from the same senior reality as Alberto and me, where English and Norwegian are a thing. Whatever this multiverse business was, it was a real headache and they hadn't even dipped into whatever philosophy they were going to.

"Carl Jung was a psychologist in the early twentieth century who followed after Sigmund Freud," Alberto supplied. "He was also a philosopher. And he also happened to be the first person to use the terms 'introverted' and 'extraverted' to describe inwardly-oriented versus outwardly-oriented personalities. With Ren being introverted, I suspect after being out all day, she needs to go home and recharge."

"Like all these wireless electronics I've seen around here," Sophie added.

"Precisely," Talos said. He may not have known who Carl Jung was, but someone in his reality seemed to have invented the same concepts. And given that datapad or whatever it was that he carried everywhere he went, he certainly knew about wireless technology, too.

"According to Jung--and according to me," Alberto emphasized, "there's nothing wrong with being introverted. I am, and I think you are as well, Sophie; you always did take well to pondering on your own. Perhaps Talos himself fits the bill."

Talos laughed softly to himself. "I do, I do. Hmm...'a pondering of introverts,'" he contributed. "If that isn't the collective noun for it, perhaps it should be."

"Or maybe it's just another bad joke," Sophie editorialized...though it wasn't that outrageous of a play on words compared to some. "We can leave that up to a vote some other time. So--" and she cursed her curiosity for playing along with this philosopher-course trope-- "you said Jung wasn't like Freud exactly?"

"He wasn't," her philosophy tutor confirmed. "He did believe in the idea of an unconscious mind that exerts an influence over us without our meaning it, and he did believe certain unhealthy things in that unconscious mind could lead to dysfunctional behavior. But he wasn't obsessed with the same sorts of sexual fantasies that Freud was."

Sophie groaned. "And Major Knag." That obsession was definitely the explanation for certain incidents they'd been forced to watch--and everyone else there forced to play along with--as Major Knag ripped their world to pieces right before Sophie and Alberto's breakout.

"Ugh, don't remind me," Alberto agreed. "Thankfully Jung was more concerned with the types of cognitive functions different personalities prefer to use to process their worlds, as well as mythical and symbolic archetypes. I suppose if one is going to incorporate a psychologist into their philosophy, Jung is a healthier choice to pick."

"Did Ren?" Sophie couldn't help asking.

Talos consulted something on his datapad, then glanced back up. "Yes, I did find that name in the description I was provided, though I had to play with the spelling a few times to get it to show up."

How Talos made anything out of the spelling on his device, Sophie had no idea. Was it as cantankerous as English spelling had the habit of being? It had certainly given her plenty of fits in her English courses growing up, seeing as neither the literary nor the colloquial forms of Norwegian saw fit to be that illogical.

"I think I've had enough of philosophy for the night though," Sophie announced, shooting a glance over at the door where Ren had left.

Alberto yawned. "Me too. Especially since I'd thought we were done for today."

Talos seemed to take the distruption in greater stride than the two of them--then again, if Ren had been working with him for a while, and not Major Knag or Jostein Gaarder, maybe he didn't have as much cause for exasperation at these circumstances as they did. And he had said something earlier about being selected for this role based on his existing experience and inclinations. Like Jung, maybe Ren had at least some kind of awareness of individual differences and understood you couldn't expect everyone to act and think exactly the same way and then do with them as you pleased.

"I guess she's gone home for the night," Talos said. "Maybe we should wrap it up here too, and find somewhere else to go for the meantime."

One detail Sophie had noticed before Ren headed out brought a little smile to her face. "I suspect that involves animals," she said. "Even on what looked like a brand new outfit, I still managed to spot a cat hair or two. There's just no helping it when you have pets."

Talos just barely managed to restrain himself from asking what a cat was, though Sophie could tell he was itching to ask. God, she missed Shere Khan, and the rest of her animals.

"Don't worry, I'll show you a picture of a cat," Sophie assured him. "Or maybe even a real cat, depending on where we go."

"Hopefully not home with Ren," Alberto added. "I am not in the mood for forced voyeurism."

"I highly doubt she is either, if she really is as introverted as the three of us," Talos contributed. "My pre-reading suggests the same."

"Good," Sophie declared. "Because I really want that alone time we were promised."

The Star Wars man smiled. He pulled Sophie into a gentle, reassuring hug. "Please don't worry," he murmured as Sophie caught a whiff of foreign but not unpleasant incense in his crimson suit. "I promise you, this is going to be all right."

Notes:

So I really didn't mean to write this improptu interlude; there are going to be three parts now instead of two. The incident in the restaurant actually did happen as described (though of course I didn't see any fictional characters around me...my senses really aren't set up that way, even if somehow it were true ;-) )

Chapter 3: Ren's Knight--Truth and Choice

Sophie's World / Star Wars: In the Burning of the Light

 

Ren's Knight--Truth and Choice

"...to deface the free will of another is a crime even worse than murder."

 

 

The night, and the morning of the next day, had been relatively pleasant as far as the nether-world layered just beneath (or above?) the senior reality went. The author who used the odd pseudonym of Ren's Knight--or Ren--had held true to her promise this time, after the impromptu interlude at the restaurant; the trio of Sophie Amundsen, Alberto Knox, and Talos Drellik had the time to go where they wanted and discuss whatever came to their minds without any further interference.

And, as Sophie had promised Talos, there were cats.

Talos, for his part, had caught wind that Ren was leaving her house early that afternoon to take one of her cats to the vet for an allergy shot, of all things. Sophie had always been interested in caring for animals--another stolen dream--but she hadn't heard of that treatment for humans being extended to pets. One of the several new developments over the past decades, she supposed.

A vet tech came out to take the cat into the office for someone to administer the shot. With a start, Sophie caught a glimpse of the young woman's nametag...

Sophie.

The young lady even looked a bit like Sophie might have if she'd had the chance to grow and change a bit more before Major Knag ripped her world apart. She darted a glance over at Alberto. With somber eyes, he nodded. He'd spotted it too. Another one of those bizarre coincidences--and this being the senior reality, something she realized Ren had never orchestrated. Talos was completely oblivious to this, of course--he only read a blocky form of writing from his own world that he referred to as an 'aurebesh' rather than an alphabet.

She and Alberto tried to focus themselves in the moment, where Talos...well, squealed as Vet-Tech-Sophie opened the little carrier to reveal a small, if slightly rotund brown torbie cat, who glanced up with mild annoyance as the tech administered the shot, but couldn't be bothered to do much else. "How small, and harmless!" Talos exclaimed with a grin that seemed as if it could reach his ears. "Adorable!"

"Not totally harmless," Story-Character-Sophie amended. They did have teeth and claws, after all. But considering the examples of creatures from his own galaxy that might qualify as 'feline,' not to mention a whole other bestiary Talos had shown them on his datapad, it wasn't hard to see why Talos thought so. An ordinary house cat could send you to the hospital for antibiotics with a bite. A nexu could swallow you whole and come back for more. Even a tooka had some nasty aquiline talons in place of the far smaller claws of the cat. "But I guess that's relative."

Talos nodded and observed, "Earth's creatures do seem rather small for the most part." By then, Vet-Tech-Sophie was zipping up the cat carrier and taking the little round animal back to Ren. "Shall we head out of here?"

"Let's do," Alberto said.

It wasn't long before they found themselves at the same outdoor bookstore cafe as the previous afternoon--and this time their car's temperature display showed it was even hotter than last time. Ren and the locals didn't seem to react much to it though.

Just as Talos exited the cafe with a set of their drinks, promising 'bottomless refills' for anyone who felt overheated, a woman rounded the corner with--was that a hairless Sphynx cat in her arms?! Sophie had never seen one of those before even though she'd read about them. In fact, to judge from Ren's own reaction...awe and a barely-restrained impulse to give chase around the corner, maybe she was also seeing in person for the first time too. A cat in a shopping center certainly wasn't a usual thing, and a Sphynx? Now that was just weird.

It wasn't long before Ren pulled out that black tablet of hers again, and settled down to write. Filled with morbid curiosity, Sophie leaned over the woman's shoulder and read the words over her shoulder. Major Knag hadn't been a very good writer, she remembered--not exactly giving a lot of depth to Sophie and especially not to her mother or her friend Joanna. It stung, honestly. Ren's writing style...it was clearly a lot more elaborate than Knag's--or even Gaarder's, for that matter. Whether or not that was a good thing...that she supposed she'd have to leave up to others to decide--readers who weren't personally invested in the outcome, most likely.

There was one other thing she noticed, now that she'd actually had the chance to observe the working process of one of the authors that had taken control over parts of her life. "Look," she said, gesturing to Alberto. "The things she writes--they're behind what we're saying and doing. Not before."

"I wouldn't read too much into it," Alberto remarked...then winced at the bad pun. "Though it seems like she only noticed that pun after the fact, like you said. It may be we're acting at the speed of her thought, rather than the speed of her writing."

"Or maybe..." A tiny hope soared in her chest--the first she'd felt for a very long time. "Maybe we really are acting first, and Ren's only recording it after we decide."

"I don't know that it's all happening that way," Talos said. "From the preparatory brief I received before I came here, there is some degree of authorial fiat here. But I also inferred that Ren really doesn't know everything before it happens." He smiled, keying up something on his datapad. "She does have a tendency to refer to the characters she works with as independent beings who tell her what they want to say and do."

"Is that what happened with you," Sophie asked, "before you came here? Is that what that briefing was? Were you two collaborating?"

Talos shrugged. "I'm really not sure. Something's interfering with my memories in that area, though I'm sure I knew in advance there were going to be some odd phenomena of the sort once I stepped into your world. It may well be I can't remember because Ren herself doesn't know--or she is choosing not to know, in order to leave it open somehow."

"Like our drinks," Alberto observed. "We can see them, touch them, taste them...we know very well what they are and all of us can say they're our favorites. But when I was looking over her shoulder, there's not a shred of description there. The form they took came from something in us. Something she's avoiding."

Sophie smirked. "At least she knows she's not a god, unlike some authors. Seems like she knows she has limits when it comes to other people, even if they are spending time as her characters. I mean, as far as I can tell, she's just an ordinary woman."

"There may not be anything 'ordinary' about any of us," Talos intoned. "Her...me...you two...any of those 'real' people walking around this place." Sophie found thoughts drawn back to the scent of incense embedded in his clothes, that she'd noticed when he'd drawn her into her that comforting hug the night before. Sacrosanct, Sophie thought. That's what it sounded like to her...as if Talos spoke not in mundane words, but from a holy liturgy. Perhaps the Star Wars man himself believed in something. The Force, maybe? Or something more?

"Let's sit," Alberto said. "I have a feeling we're about to get a philosophy lesson--and for once, I'll have the chance to share the burden with someone else."

Talos nodded as they all sat at a cafe table visible--and tangible--only to them. "Indeed," he replied, scrolling again on his datapad. "I can supply some of it...I do understand the concepts and the terms, even if I'm not familiar with the names and the history of your realities. I'll need your help with that context."

"All right," Alberto agreed. "I'll do what I can. Sophie, you'll keep us straight when we're not doing a good job explaining?"

She offered her own nod. While the old role grated upon her, she had to admit Alberto's--Ren's?--phrasing was quite a bit more dignified than anything Major Knox had assigned to her part in the story all those years ago. Maybe Ren understands I'm not fully a child anymore, she thought, despite what we've been through and how I look.

That's when a conversation started up at the next table, just like the night before. Not the exact same conversation--that would have been Major Knag levels of creepy--but it was philosophical...and therefore unnerving...enough. This time, the topic was abortion. That had been settled a long time ago from Sophie's perspective, but now, in 2022, in the United States at least, the topic was apparently open again, and it was heated.

Sophie had always been an advocate for women, especially since her mother had lived in a time when women's status in the world was in very many ways not what it was now. That said, to hear the discussion, there had been a number of shifts in the science and the way that some people were feeling on the subject. Should the topic be reopened again? Sophie wasn't sure--though she wondered if her indecision in the moment stemmed from Ren's choice to leave her to draw her own conclusions.

And Ren was just in no mood whatsoever to listen. An awful, weary weight seemed to settle on her shoulders as she put her earbuds in and selected some music. Probably some very loud music to drown it all out. It was more than just a need to concentrate on her writing--on the trio themselves.

Alberto spotted it too. "There's a sadness in her that wasn't there before, when we helped her with that school assignment." They could all see it during those interludes when Ren would lose herself in her music and stare off above the buildings and into the clouds above. "I think the whole world is a lot sadder than it was when we left it."

Talos nodded. "Something happened in her country not long after that," he said. "The year 2001, according to my briefing notes. There was a terrorist attack on her home soil, something that took more lives in one day relative to anything they'd experienced in a long time. I would provide the casualty statistics, but--"

Talos glanced off at the clouds for himself.

"It feels so cold to reduce lives to statistics," he finally continued. "And it doesn't seem relevant to the discussion. A plethora of universes are destroyed a single life is taken. Any suffering is real to the person who experiences it. She may not have witnessed it in person but this attack changed her. Pushed her into adulthood prematurely. And for the moment, that's what matters."

"I know what it's like to be changed by trauma like that," Sophie reflected. She didn't ask for details on how many lives were lost the day that Ren changed. It wasn't her place to compare, to decide which pain inflicted was 'better' or 'worse.' The pain, the grief, the anger...the hatred, though she was loathe to admit to that one...for each who suffered, an entire universe grieved.

"And I carry my own griefs," Talos replied succinctly. After a moment's silent reflection on whatever he had seen and experienced in his own galaxy, he mused, "Perhaps it comes with being human. The world is broken--and the sharp edges whittle away at us whenever we come into contact."

"That sounds a bit different from what St. Augustine had to say about original sin," Sophie commented. "Or Martin Luther."

"It does," Alberto supplied. "She seemed to be a Christian when we saw her last--but is she now? And is she Protestant, or something else? I find myself wondering, because those things she's saying don't sound Protestant."

"Let me do some searching on her dossier," Talos said. He keyed in a few terms into his datapad. "I'm coming up with the term 'Methodist,'" he reported. "That's the kind of temple she attends. There are also references to an 'Arminius' and a 'John Wesley'...key figures, I suppose. I'm also getting a hit for 'CS Lewis,' and 'Russian Orthodox,' but that latter one seems to be a side influence, via..." Talos' brow furrowed and he squinted at the datapad. "What sort of name is this? 'Russian,' maybe..." He sounded it out slowly. "Fyo-dor...Dos-to-yevsky?"

Alberto's eyes lit with recognition. "I know all of those. Two are theologians; one is an author. Arminius...that's a Latin version of the name 'Jakob Hermanszoon.'"

"I'm glad you didn't ask me to do a search on that one," Talos remarked. "Especially since you wouldn't be able to tell me how to spell it."

"We'll go with Arminius for the sake of brevity," Alberto decided. "He was born in the late 1500s, and while he believed that God does extend grace towards people before they decide to serve Him, he also emphasized that it's up to the individual to make that decision. John Wesley--an Anglican clergyman--took up those ideas and ran with them when he founded the Methodist Church."

Sophie recalled a bit of history from her old religious studies course. "The Anglicans broke off from the Catholic Church separate from Martin Luther, right? Just because some English king wanted a divorce?"

"That's a highly abbreviated form of the story," Alberto said, "but yes, in very general terms. The Methodist Church, and its descendants, do have a lot of Protestant influence, but Methodism itself does have its own line back to Catholicism, separate from that. CS Lewis happens to be a twentieth-century theologian who was a practicing Anglican; he wasn't a Methodist, but certainly their 'cousin' in some ways."

"So I guess Ren sort of is Protestant and isn't," Sophie concluded.

"It gets even a little bit more complicated when you bring the Russian influence in," Alberto added. "It sounds like Ren came upon it by way of the nineteenth century author Fyodor Dostoyevsky."

"That wasn't there when we met her the first time back when she was in school," Sophie pointed out. "That's new."

"Though it wouldn't surprise me if it started that year," Alberto suggested. "There were students from just about every country in the world in that new school she'd just started. Maybe she met some Russian ones, and that spurred her to do some research."

They couldn't ask Ren, of course--she couldn't hear them the normal way and the revelation that she was recording their words after they spoke them meant they were a bit on their own sometimes. This seemed to be one of those times.

Alberto, for his part, moved on from that theory. "The greater Eastern Orthodox Church became its own entity in 1054 AD, after the Pope excommunicated every patriarch of the church that wouldn't submit to his authority. That's the way the Catholic Church tells it.

"According to Orthodox Christians, the 'excommunication' was the last in a series of major overreaches in power by the Pope that were out of character with what the Church and Christianity themselves were meant to be. The Pope was supposed to be honored, as a sort of first-among-equals, but he wasn't supposed to force the other patriarchs into total submission to his whims. From their view, the Roman Catholic Church is the one that's out of step with them. And it's interesting to note that while the Eastern Orthodox Church has had a few more schisms since 1054, it's been far less than the massive shattering that happened in the Western world with the Reformation."

"So what is it about Orthodoxy that's influenced Ren?" Sophie asked. "Something about original sin?"

"Well, Sophie, the Orthodox Church has a different notion about what's wrong with the world and with humanity. You actually touched on it some yourself, Talos. Something about the world being broken and it injuring us?"

Talos smiled. "Interesting," he remarked. "I suppose when Ren works with my family and me, some of her philosophies come through even though we practice the Sith religion rather than what she does."

"Sith?" Sophie asked. She hadn't heard of that before.

"I won't bore you with the details," Talos said, "especially since my family and I happen to be heretics in the eyes of most people, but it's a way of looking at the Force--and using it if you happen to have the ability, which I don't. It's unfortunately been overtaken by a terribly violent sect, not unlike the group I gather made the attack on Ren's country. I think Ren's world must be lucky to have so many different countries and leaders, though."

"Why is that?" Sophie asked. That was very much not something Major Knag would have said, as big a proponent of the United Nations as he was.

"Because," Talos answered, "it's kept that one group in the senior reality from overtaking their entire religion--Islam? Or is it 'Muslim'?

That answer Sophie definitely knew from her religion class. "Islam is the religion. A Muslim is a person who practices it. Islam is younger than Christianity, but it's had some schisms too, kind of like the Christian world has."

She thought, too, about the many varieties of Muslim dress she'd seen for women in the Islamic world, flipping through her textbooks and the many books she'd checked out from the library growing up.

Many Muslim ladies covered their heads out of a sense of modesty, but there were a lot of different interpretations of what constituted 'modesty,' both official and personal. Some women, in the Arabian kingdoms, were forced by strict law and custom to wear all-covering black garments that only revealed the eyes--and that really seemed stifling and unfair if they weren't choosing to dress that way for themselves.

But many other places, like Indonesia and India, women showed their smiling faces and adorned themselves with makeup, jewelry, and cheerful patterns and flowing clothes...outfits that looked like a genuine joy to put together and display in public. She'd even noticed during their brief time in the United States, a few women whose outfits hardly looked different from what the locals wore, except for long sleeves even in the summer, and the scarf over their hair. Maybe some Muslim women didn't even wear the headscarf at all.

"I see," Talos replied to her clarification on the terminology. "All those different countries are fertile breeding ground for many different ways of thinking and acting, even when you start from the same religion. Where I come from," he explained, "there are really only two major powers...and the one I come from is a theocracy. And the only place where the Sith religion really exists."

"Rather like Iran," Alberto remarked. "Or Saudi Arabia. Minus the 'only place where the religion exists' part."

"I'll have to take your word on the quality of the examples, since I'm not familiar with your countries," Talos temporized. "But if those two countries have enshrined strict religious laws--if there is a lot of oppression--then the comparison may stand. The trouble with having only one Sith Empire where our faith is practiced is that all competing theologies are suppressed if not outright destroyed, whether that be the Jedi, or any alternative ways of being Sith. And unfortunately the regimes we've had are thoroughly hostile. Centralized authority always carries that risk...if not violence, then large-scale corruption and abuse of power...so it's fortunate not everyone in your world lives in those conditions."

Sophie wasn't sure what she thought of that line of reasoning given she hadn't actively participated in a logically-constructed world for decades. Still, she did have to admit she rather liked this middle finger to Major Knag's constant, ham-fisted touting of a single world government under the United Nations as a cure-all for everything that ailed the planet, just on grounds of how bloody annoying it had become by the end. She wondered just how badly it had irked Ren to see it thrown in her face ad nauseum.

Though... "I don't think Ren had that kind of pessimism before," she observed. "But I guess she does now."

"Yes," Talos said. "That attack we were talking about...it really stripped a lot of her optimism away, at least when it comes to human nature. I also noticed, on my datapad, that she lives in a very, very deeply fractured society--one where a segment of the population is hung up on identities...skin colors, genders, sexualities, even, in a way, I really, really cannot get my mind around.

"According to the people bandying around that sort of 'identity politics,' as it's called, my preference for men ought to be the cornerstone of my very self, not just who I choose to marry. Apparently there have been some sentients' rights abuses...I really do not understand why," he emphasized again, "though the situation is vastly improved from what it was in her country even within her lifetime.

"I never grew up thinking of myself as separate from people who prefer the opposite sex," Talos reflected. "A little different, yes, in a statistical minority, yes, but not some sort of subspecies, for lack of better words. This idea that my biology, which I never selected for myself, should dictate how I think or act in any way other than my personal love life and the man I share it with, is alien. No--I take that back. I've met aliens. Nonhumans. And this falls into a realm well outside of even that."

For a moment, Sophie and Alberto just stared at Talos. Not because he'd just outed himself to them as gay...actually, did he even know the term 'gay'? Maybe not. And it really sounded as though the concept of 'coming out of the closet' meant nothing to him either, if his culture never treated him as if he had something to hide.

Rather, it was the fact that they hadn't seen Talos that agitated about anything since they'd first met him. Whatever this 'identity politics' thing was, to say it rubbed him the wrong way was an understatement. And if some of the details of his life and universe before coming here had anything to do with Ren and her work, well, no wonder the Star Wars man found it to be such anathema!

Alberto was the first to speak up. "No wonder she looks so pained. No wonder there are such heated philosophical discussions everywhere we turn in this place. Her country is being torn apart from the inside. I can't imagine Norway...well, at least the Norway we left in 1990," the philosophy tutor clarified, "in that kind of state."

"I sure hope it's not like that now," Sophie seconded.

Alberto nodded. "Me neither. Maybe some places in the world haven't corroded as badly as the US has. Can you tell, Talos, if she's given up completely? Do your notes say anything about that?"

Talos seemed to have been anticipating their question...he'd already been searching something as Alberto and Sophie discussed the specifics of Earthly nations he didn't recognize. "What I'm gathering is she views the current course as unsustainable. Not just because it's bad for social cohesion--assuming the parties in question even want to remain in a single society together..."

"America has nuclear weapons and one of the world's strongest militaries," Alberto pointed out. "If they have another civil war, that's not just their problem. That's the whole world's problem."

Sophie shivered. Well, at least in an ever-fluid, incoherent nether-world getting nuked wasn't a risk...right? Or did her world end if enough people in the senior reality perished? There was a whole new definition of 'existential crisis'--that was for sure.

"My apologies," Alberto said. "Please continue, Talos."

"I quite understand," Talos replied. "I am familiar with conventional nuclear weapons and the impact on a planetary ecosystem. It's alarming to contemplate, and even more so for a pre-hyperspace civilization with no means to evacuate. I hope for their sake that it never comes to that. One has to hope that either the various groups...however stupidly they choose to define themselves, in my opinion...can disentangle themselves peaceably, or that this 'identity politics' poison gets jettisoned out into a black hole to where it will never come back."

"Does Ren have any hope for that?" Alberto pressed.

"As I said, the current course is unsustainable in her vision, if nothing changes. That said, she's certainly not nihilistic, or one to think humanity is nothing but bad."

"That Eastern Orthodox influence," Alberto remarked. "Also, to assume history follows a certain, upward trajectory...that assumption, which she did seem to still have in place as a child, is definitely gone."

Both a tragedy, Sophie reflected, and a sad accommodation to the state of the senior reality, much like the one she'd had to make to her own blighted existence.

"I've noted that myself as I've traveled backwards and forwards in time," Talos supplied. "History...people...civilizations...they change and flow, in the temporal sense. They ebb back and forth. But whether or not all of that change is good...that most certainly should not be a default assumption."

"Not a Marxist," Sophie commented. "More like Hegel."

Talos looked to Alberto for clarification, but Sophie suspected he wasn't going to get much of one if Alberto kept speaking to her in Earth terms. "Definitely not a Marxist," Alberto confirmed. "And the similarities with Hegel very much end with the metaphor about history. About point, counterpoint, and synthesis. Everything you've described makes her sound like a strong individualist."

"Based on this," Talos said, "I would agree. Not without the idea of uniting around higher values," he clarified, "but only by choice. And this is one quotation that was pointed out to me as central to understanding just how key that is: 'No words or acts can have any moral worth to them unless they come entirely by choice--that is, completely without coercion. In fact, to deface the free will of another is a crime even worse than murder.'"

"I can attest to that, thank you very much, Major Knag," Sophie spat with as much venom as she could muster. "And Herr Gaarder. We've basically been living in Hell for thirty-plus years, Talos. It's awful beyond words!"

The Star Wars man nodded--a solemn, knowing expression in complete and utter contrast with his fantastical origins. "I know. That's a large part in why I accepted this mission. Even with my vague memories at the moment, that part is very clear."

"Does that mean," Alberto prodded, leaning forward in his seat, "that you have a way to get us out of here?"

"I don't," Talos said. The beleaguered pair deflated. "Not by myself, anyway. But I do have some direction that we'll get to very shortly, I promise."

"Can we hurry up and get there already?" Alberto grumbled.

"I want to," Talos said. "I very much want to. But it's important--and not just because of whatever 'plot' Ren is writing over there--that you understand the context of the choice in the fullest."

Sophie wanted to cut to the chase--or choice--those two words really did make for a groaner of a pun in English, didn't they?--right that second. But, loathe as she was to admit it, it was an actual logical argument, more than Major Knag had ever offered them by a long shot.

That's when the sky, which had grown increasingly cloudy as they spoke, saw fit to open up with rain and thunder. "Again?" she snapped. "Another well-timed storm to generate tension, or to scare us away from helping ourselves?! Major Knag isn't here, but don't tell me Ren didn't do that somehow! That's just beyond belief!"

Did Ren look a little startled, harried--and guilty--as she scrambled to get inside the bookstore and away from the worsening weather? That look softened Sophie up just a little, though she wasn't sure it was taking the edge off of Alberto.

Well, Ren was subject to the effects of any ill-placed lightning where the trio weren't, and Sophie supposed she couldn't blame Ren for not wanting to sit on a metal chair with lightning somewhere in the area. (And if Sophie saw a bolt of lightning strike the store that would be even further beyond belief and very much a sign that any hopes Ren might have for a merciful God were absolute bunk!) There had been far, far too many stupid coincidences during Ren's writing process and...was it her or was the 'real' woman herself starting to get a little concerned? Maybe more than a little, Sophie allowed, considering how some introverts tended to hold in outward signs of their emotions.

Once they'd settled on a conveniently-placed set of armchairs where Ren had set up shop again, Talos offered a small, half-smile of apology. "I don't know the full background of that, but I know it's disconcerting. It has to be for her, too, based on the pre-brief materials I received. I can assure you, she is not controlling the senior reality around her, other than what she chooses to do in response to it. That was made very clear and based on my own life, at least, I have no reason to doubt it." He frowned. "I wish I could transmit that certainty--that faith...to you. But I can't. I can only give you the promise that was given to me, that she is going to do something for you where, for the moment, anyway, she can have an effect."

"But is she having an effect?" Sophie rebutted. "Can she, even if she wants to? Look," she said, gesturing at the screen of Ren's tablet. "I know you can't tell, Talos, but her typing is still lagging behind us, like she's recording, not directing, which makes absolutely no sense when she can't see or hear us."

"We still don't know why that is," Alberto cautioned as the weather worsened outside. Damn these ridiculous coincidences--how could Ren not be controlling it?

Talos jumped to another spot on his datapad, then glanced up. "I think Ren is very much aware of the limits of her knowledge and her control. Again...she's been very clear she is far from any sort of deity. But I can tell you what her best estimates about the world are. The things she takes as articles of faith."

"A leap of faith...that sounds a bit like Kierkegaard," Sophie remarked.

"It does," Alberto agreed. "But I don't know that the similarities extend all the way. There's been a heavy emphasis on logic, order, and empirical evidence this whole time. I suspect she'd identify a lot more with the British Empiricists than anyone else. Locke, for example. And that's not surprising if she's an American traditionalist--their founding fathers drew heavily upon Locke's philosophies. I also think there's a lot to do with the natural philosophers of the Enlightenment and the Middle Ages."

Sophie cocked an eyebrow. "Don't tell me she's dumb enough to believe the Sun goes around the Earth like Aristotle was. We won't have any chance of getting somewhere better if that's the case."

"Aristotle wasn't stupid," Alberto cautioned, "any more than you and I have been when we've been presented with things beyond our knowledge. He did the best he could with the tools he had available at the time. And so did St. Thomas Aquinas, when he tried to reconcile his observations of the world with what he believed."

Talos was looking a bit lost in this conversation. "I'm not sure why there should be a conflict between science and faith. They're just two methods of looking at the same thing."

"Is that you talking, or is it Ren?" Alberto questioned.

"I've thought this way before we started this writing process," Talos said, "though Ren and I have had a long-standing working relationship, so I'm sure that has something to do with it."

"What do you mean a working relationship?" Sophie snapped. She was losing every last shred of her patience. "And is she controlling all of this or is she not?"

"All right," Talos said, throwing up his hands a touch defensively. "I can say that as far as Ren can tell, there's only one answer to that question. There's only one absolute truth to this universe. To the multiverse, in fact. She just can't be sure what all of it is since her senses won't let her see the kind of hard evidence it would take to draw a conclusion. But like I said, one thing Ren knows she isn't is a god, so that at least speaks to the level of control she has over her own universe."

"Yeah, but why is the storm letting up right on cue?" Sophie grumbled, crossing her arms.

"It is strange," Alberto said. But he was starting to look a bit less rattled. "Still, if Ren is right in her conjecture that there is a deity beyond her--the Christian God, in her view--then it does fit. So," he asked Talos, "does it say on that thing if her God controls many universes?"

"And does that mean the old Greeks were right that everything that exists has always been, if the Big Bang here was just one of many?" Sophie threw in for good measure. She couldn't remember which Greeks, but she supposed it didn't matter at the moment.

Talos didn't have to scroll this time; maybe he was already in the relevant section on his datapad. "According to the many-worlds interpretations of quantum physics, which in my experience, at least, happens to be true considering I've seen multiple universes with my own eyes--"

"--and so have we," Alberto cut in.

Talos nodded. "Right. According to that theory, there may very well be an infinity of universes and timelines. Even so, that does still bring one down to the question of why anything had to exist in the first place. Within one of these universes--especially on a world like Ren's, that is less scientifically advanced, there is just no way to physically detect anything outside the bounds of that universe, whether that be the Christian God, or other universes.

"But what it would mean...what if I told you that Ren suspects that aside from her God himself, and whatever he has designated as his senior reality--an afterlife in his image, where all is healed--that no other reality can be considered senior or superior to another?"

"You mean fictional universes like ours could be real?" Sophie gaped. "You mean we aren't just meaningless ghosts?"

"We certainly experience them as real, don't we?" Alberto said.

"I think, therefore I am," Sophie quoted, after Descartes.

"That wreaks a bit of havoc with causality, doesn't it," Alberto suddenly noted, "if some of these realities are intertwined but still distinct from each other."

"It does as far as ordinary beings are concerned," Talos said, "though Ren would say from the vantage point of God--which lies adjacent to time, where he can see and interact with all of it at will--that's not a problem at all. That means whatever the alignment of universes might appear to be...whether Ren truly does record after us, or if she anticipates us somehow, her God is the ultimate cause behind it all, and brings an inherent order to the chaos."

Sophie pondered that for a moment. So did Alberto. "I'm still not entirely sure about this deity stuff...but I really would like some kind of order to my reality. It's been hard living without that."

"And so it has," Talos observed with a somber nod. "And so I have accepted the invitation to be here for you. Like we were talking about earlier--not every 'box'...or rational framework is a bad one. Some have an inherent order to them...and there's beauty to that."

"Talos," Alberto pressed, "I think you're about to present that choice, if I'm not mistaken. Do you know all of the conditions to the choice you're about to present to be true?"

Talos sighed. "I can't lie to you. It wouldn't be right. But with my memory being the way it is while I'm with you, I can't give you that absolute assurance. There is a single answer. I just can't reach it."

"We see through a veil darkly," Alberto replied, something like what St. Paul of Tarsus had written in the Bible.

"That seems to be our situation at the moment."

That's when reality shifted again. This time, they stood in a beautiful forest, something like Norway except the fauna and flora were somewhat wrong. Ren had vanished from sight, from their perspective. An American forest, I guess, Sophie thought. Since this scenery must be Ren's doing, she's going off of what she knows.

Within that forest stood the approximation of a castle or a fortress--not like anything she'd ever seen in Norway, but something inspired by it, and perhaps by other fantasy novels. Two portals, both with images in the colors they associated with reality but shimmering and out of focus as if swirling like the waters of a turbulent lake, lay before them. The first was labeled, "Take the Leap." The second was labeled, "Something Else."

"This is it," Talos said. "If Ren is correct, then that doorway on the left will lead you to a coherent reality. To a place where you can truly interact and live a full life and afterlife. I can't say what form that will take, but I assume it's shaped by her religion. It represents salvation."

"So we're to become Christians," Sophie asked, "Alberto and me?"

"That is up to you; from what I received in the pre-brief, both of you have sufficient background beyond what's taken place during this time to know much more about that decision than I do."

Sophie frowned. "What about you, Talos? You're Sith, aren't you? Some Christians say no one who isn't exactly in line with their theology has a chance."

"I'm not a Force-wielding Sith, but I practice the religion," Talos clarified. "Or specificially," he added with a laugh, "A certain heretical form of it. For myself, I know only one thing from what I was told before I agreed to come here. I know that my time is not now. I know that my story is not resolved and there is no existential pressure on me at the moment. What I have to choose is whether or not I will retain my memories of this excursion before I return to what I know as the afterlife in my own experience. It's something I'll have to consider most carefully."

Alberto nodded. "I can imagine. Our memories have a great deal to do with who we are, and tampering with them changes us."

"Yes, it does. Even with only a certain section of my memories currently blurred--specifically, the full details how I came into the possession of this knowledge about Ren and about your plight, and some of the deeper intricacies of what we discussed..." He waved the datapad in illustration. "...it does have a bit of an effect on me.

"For me," the Star Wars man elaborated, "if I choose to retain my memories, I am also agreeing to never speak of or even allude to any of this experience with you two any other time I work with Ren, and not to speak of it with anyone else I interact with until a point in our eternities when Ren's work with me is done."

"That sounds awfully restrictive for someone who believes in free choice," Sophie snarked.

"I have to weigh it against the other option, for certain," Talos acknowledged, "though on the other hand, 'times I work with Ren' represent a small fraction of the eternity I have, since I have already died in my original, living universe. I'm not being asked to shut up about it for anything like an entire eternity. I feel as though somehow, the restriction is meant to protect not just those around me in my world, but also to protect the integrity of your choice, which is much weightier. It would keep me from ever saying something around Ren in the future that could retroactively impinge on what you decide now. It is an understandable sacrifice, at least.

"That said...knowing as I do now that I am perceived as a fictional character...do I want to carry that with me forever? Would it be better for me to give up these memories--and never know of any restrictions I could've had to keep, even for a limited time? I don't know how I feel about that yet."

"I know how I feel about it," Sophie retorted. "Used and abused. That's how Major Knag and Herr Gaarder made me feel about it."

"If you choose to Take the Leap," Talos supplied, "my understanding is that you might well be offered some choices about your memories as well. Major Knag committed a grievous sin against you and Sophie, whether it's by Ren's religious beliefs or by my own according to the Sith Code. If Ren is correct, then healing is available for you in some fashion. That may be the removal of memories, or it may be a change in environment where time is allowed to heal your wounds instead. But there is healing. That's the promise if you go that way."

"What about the other way?" Sophie quested. "Something Else."

"It is what it says," Talos replied simply. "It is something else...something Ren doesn't know and something I have no information about. I can't promise whether it will help you or not."

"Is it an eternal choice?" Alberto interjected. "I need to know the ramifications."

"If you Take the Leap, to Ren's reckoning that very much is an eternal choice," Talos confirmed. "If you choose Something Else...I can't help you very much there. If you find after you pass through that portal that your story continues--and Ren does think that's a distinct, nonzero possibility even once she's stopped writing--then you could well find your situation to be much like mine is...a situation where it is not your final time. If that's the case, you still have plenty of time to take in more information and make more choices. Choices that could present themselves in forms I can't speculate on."

"But you don't know if that's what will happen," Sophie summarized.

Talos shook his head. "No. I wish I did know that. But I don't."

"But--but--" A disconcerting thought was taking shape for Sophie. "What if Ren herself really doesn't actually know for sure if the promises she's making about Taking the Leap are going to hold? If that's true...then we don't know where that portal leads either. We don't know if there really will be any healing."

"In other words," Alberto summarized, "if that's the case, where that leaves us is facing a literal, physical embodiment of Pascal's Wager. All of this hangs on a conjecture as to whether or not the Christian God exists and whether we--all of us, Ren included--are right about how his promises would apply to a situation like ours."

"Do I want to know what that is?" Sophie groused. "Ren, why did you have to do this?"

Alberto sighed. "Given Ren's belief in an informed choice...it seems proper to explain. Blaise Pascal was a natural philosopher from seventeenth-century France, and he made an argument...an argument--let me be clear, not a proof as some assume it to be--in favor of God stating that a rational person should act as though God exists because we stand to gain eternal rewards if we do.

"And if he doesn't exist? Or we actively choose to believe he doesn't, but it turns out he does?"

Alberto considered. "If he doesn't exist," he posited, "or a god or gods exist that do not align with the Christian version of him, then there is no difference between those portals. Whatever comes, comes--whether it be reincarnation, merging with a universal soul, or eventually becoming nonexistent. Nothingness." Alberto shuddered. Even if there were a chance that were true, that didn't prevent an instinctive human emotional reaction at the idea of nonexistence.

"Though having some hope before that point is not a bad thing as far as Pascal was concerned," Alberto elaborated, "not to mention the fact that rational, moral conduct as he understood God to require, is a betterment to anyone and anything around us. For Pascal, those were reasons why it would still be rational to Take the Leap even if we were ultimately proven wrong."

"But if we were proven wrong...wouldn't we be setting ourselves up for disappointment in the end? Or what if what's really moral were something other than what Pascal, and Christians, think is a betterment to the world? Wouldn't we be better off in that case to choose 'Something Else'?"

"Remember," Alberto cautioned, "to 'Take the Leap' offers the very real possibility of an eternal reward that 'Something Else' does not."

Sophie pondered that for a little while longer, as Talos respectfully sat silently on a bench to the side. He, after all, knew his existence didn't risk ending immediately after Ren's story ended, whatever he chose to do with his memories.

"A lot of Christians believe in Hell." Sophie shuddered. The idea of going there for eternity was also a terrible thing to contemplate.

Alberto stared at the two portals. "Judging from the fact that the other portal in our case says 'Something Else' instead of 'Hell,' I'd say Ren's formulation of it might be a touch milder than Pascal's. Pascal likely would have assumed that if God truly existed and one chose not to 'Take the Leap' when offered, that it would result in eternal damnation. I think the way Ren perceives the wager is slightly different."

"How so?" Sophie pressed.

"There are a few ways I could answer that," Alberto posited, "based on the two theological streams of thought Talos told us she's pulling from."

"Shoot."

"John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, saw salvation as a process. He would probably say that nothing is final until the last instant of our lives. That means that if our existence continues in some form past these portals in the here and now, that it's not our last opportunity to choose. In fact, we'd have endless opportunities as long as our existence continued."

Sophie shifted her weight from one foot to another. "But we could end the instant we step through that portal. The sort of immortality we have at the moment outside of any Heaven ends--we're really and truly dead."

"Yes," Alberto acknowledged. "It's a possibility. It's always a possibility for any mortal being, at any time, that they could die."

"Which could theoretically mean Hell if someone got caught at a bad moment, or didn't hear about the choice in the right way," Sophie said. "That is really not fair."

"It isn't. Still, a lot of Protestants think that way. It seems at least as far as what Ren believes to be correct, she may not follow a strict Protestant line of thinking, at least in the sense of following directly from Martin Luther. That means her theories might not be quite as restrictive. At least one Anglican theologian--CS Lewis, to be specific, whose works we know influenced her--did put forward a case in one of his fictional works..."

That suddenly rang a bell with Sophie. She smiled, if at nothing else, at the warmth of childhood memories before all of this insanity started. "Are you talking about Narnia? The Chronicles of Narnia?"

Alberto echoed with a little smile of his own. "Yes, the Chronicles of Narnia, Sophie. Specifically the book The Last Battle. There's an instance in that book where a young man named Emeth, who sincerely believes in another religion--it could have been standing in for Islam--is quite astounded to find himself in Heaven after the end of the world...even though he had expected a very different god and even though Lewis was very clear that whatever formulation of God's character Emeth's religion had was not the same as the one Emeth had just learned was real. The two beings--'Aslan,' or God, and 'Tash'...something that was very much not Aslan--are portrayed as completely and absolutely separated."

"So if Emeth worshipped Tash, than how in hell did he get to Heaven?" Sophie winced. Ugh. Puns. And a very inappropriately timed one at that, during a very serious moment.

Then again, the way Alberto laughed, maybe a dash of humor was was was needed in such a gravely serious moment. Maybe if God existed, good humor was a pleasant little spice he'd added to life as some worldly consolation for its many pains. "The way Lewis formulated it, Emeth had been experiencing calls to act and speak in a way that Aslan approved of, even though Emeth would have put the name 'Tash' to it."

"But I thought you said 'Aslan' and 'Tash' were two very different beings."

Alberto smiled again. "They were. What it boils down to is that Emeth was hearing and acting on a call from Aslan, which he acted on according to the best of the knowledge his culture provided. Because it was a call for that which was inherently good, right, and just, that call had to have come from Aslan and no one else, and therefore Aslan was happy to accept Emeth's response, even though Emeth didn't know at the time it was Aslan."

"That is really confusing," Sophie remarked. "But it does seem fair, at least. It gets rid of the problem of people being condemned just because they were born in the wrong place or time."

"If Lewis is right, and Ren is right to think so too," Alberto said, "then it would mean Christians need to exercise some caution in who they assume will or won't be with them in the afterlife and should concern themselves first and foremost with the condition of their own souls and what they can do to positively influence those with whom they come into contact. I would point out that the Orthodox Church takes a similar line on it. Even the Catholic Church does...it's true Protestantism that doesn't take that stance so much, and that believes itself very certain about who will go to Hell."

Sophie considered. "Could that whole 'Emeth' thing be what's going on with Talos?" she whispered to where only Alberto could hear. "Is that why he seems so unworried right now about going back to his 'heretic Sithism' or whatever it is, even though it's different from what Ren believes?"

"It could be," Alberto whispered back. "Though I doubt he has a real, clear memory of that right now."

"So if we choose 'Something Else,' then it's still not a guarantee of something bad. So does it matter?"

"Sophie," intoned Alberto, "if what we're hearing about choice and free will is to be believed, our choices always matter. Even when we don't have all the choices in the world available to us, even when there are trade-offs, it still matters. We need to weigh all of the scenarios and all of the outcomes. Pascal was right to say that what rides on this is of extreme significance."

"I hate to ask this," Sophie said, "but what about Pascal's logic? Was he right to propose the Wager in the first place? And was Ren right to adopt it, even with some tweaking?"

Alberto sighed, jamming his hands into his coat pockets as if they'd gone cold. "There have been criticisms over the centuries," he disclosed. "Some of them are founded on the misconception that Pascal was offering a proof of the Christian God's existence the way Descartes and Kant attempted to. He wasn't. He was a bit closer to Kierkegaard in that respect. He was only offering a rational argument as to why a rational person should Take the Leap. A proof and an argument are two very different things, and we had better make certain we remain cognizant of that difference."

"I take it there were other criticisms," Sophie inferred.

"There were," Alberto acknowledged. "Ren's reformulation may ameliorate some of them, but perhaps not all."

"Do these criticisms mean it's not worth taking the Wager--Taking the Leap?"

"Not necessarily. If they were flaws in something purporting to be a proof--then certainly. But for an argument, aimed at likelihoods and possible outcomes, that doesn't make a final statement about the truth...that truth is ultimately going to be independent of whatever Pascal or Ren have to say. From everything I'm seeing here, they're both crystal clear about that. These are guidelines for making a rational conjecture. No more...and certainly no less."

Alberto thought long and hard before he continued. "Whether we feel certain these are the right guidelines--whether the two of them, even with any remaining criticisms, do in fact lead us to make the Kierkegaardian Leap...that's what I believe we need to discuss. Privately."

"Do both of us need to make the same decision?" Sophie asked. That was one stipulation she wanted to get clear right now, before they retreated for their final deliberation.

To that Alberto only replied, "I didn't hear anything like that."

Sophie released a long, shaky breath. "All right. Let's talk. Ren, if you'll excuse us?" she said to thin air. Ren probably already knew she needed to step aside, but it didn't hurt to make sure.

Meanwhile, Talos was reaching his own conclusion. He set his hands upon his knees as if to brace himself when he stood. True, his decision wasn't as big as the one Sophie and Alberto were facing, but it had still taken a great deal of consideration. Now, at least, he knew he'd arrived at something he felt assured he could truly live with.

For now, he would wait and keep his own counsel, while he waited for the two he'd been asked to help to reach their own resolution. Or resolutions, maybe--plural. He wouldn't dare spoil things at this delicate juncture by asking.

None of the trio could really say how much time had passed when finally, Sophie and Alberto stood as well to face Talos.

"Did you decide something? No--no--keep what you chose to yourselves at all costs," the Star Wars man quickly warned them. "But...you each know now what you're going to do?"

Alberto spoke for them both. "Yes. We've talked...and then we spent some time apart. We've both made our decisions."

"All right." Talos took a meditative breath, clearly feeling the weight of the moment just as Sophie and Alberto did. "Well. There is one final thing I'd like to offer both of you before either of you walk through a portal. You cannot stay here forever," he warned. "You must act on your choices. So must I. But...

"Ren did make a promise to give you comfort. And in some way, no matter what's on the other side, she wants to make good on it. So..." Talos Drellik laughed softly to himself. "I can only imagine how trite this will look in print to whoever comes behind. But would either of you like a hug before you go? I promise you, it's given quite freely."

Tears sprang to the corners of Sophie's eyes as Alberto stepped forward for a brief embrace. Brief, perhaps, since Talos still wanted to telegraph a message of faithfulness to his husband, but sincere nonetheless.

Once they had parted, Talos reached towards her, and she gladly accepted. The tears flowed freely now, and she sobbed into his autumnal red suit jacket as he gently rubbed one hand between her shoulder blades. She caught a faint aroma of 'Sith' incense again, just before her weeping blocked up her nose too much for her to smell. Talos stayed there, held her steady as she tucked her head against his chest, until she had cried herself out.

She felt a certain measure of calm now that the sea of emotions had finally had its time. With that, Talos released her.

"Goodbye, my friends."

A worried furrow passed over Sophie's brow. "Does saying that spoil your choice...whether or not to remember?"

Talos beamed. "Not in the slightest. The friendship we have shared is an absolute truth. It has happened. It happens now. And it has been committed to the printed word, no less. Nothing can make this moment cease to exist, even when all three of us act upon our choices. Are you ready?"

"Ready," said Alberto.

"Ready," seconded Sophie.

"Then go in peace."

And they did.

Talos watched for several moments more after the last portal shimmer faded. This, he could finally say, was an ending worthy of their dignity as thinking, feeling beings, inherently entitled to make their own choices.

Still smiling, he announced, "All right, Ren. I'm coming home."

With that, Talos Drellik enacted his own choice and returned to the reality in which he belonged.

Notes:

WHEW. Seriously, not one of the crazy coincidences in the vet and bookstore scene were of my own invention. Take from that what you will. Also, it should go without saying that I have full respect for each of you, my readers, and your individual choices, even though it should be obvious to you how I choose. I put this out here but as I have said, I would never bully or coerce any of you and I sincerely apologize if it at all came off that way.

Oh, and one other comment. No lightning bolt struck the bookstore. That is the honest to God truth.

Notes:

I don't know who else has read the book Sophie's World (released in 1994), which provides an outline of Western philosophy in the form of a novel, but I recently reread it for the first time in MANY years and felt like revisiting it. I actually did do a school assignment where I was asked to write another chapter to explain my own philosophy back in 10th grade, and after rereading it and getting even more outraged at Sophie and Alberto's situation than I did as a kid, I decided it was time to put things right--with a Star Wars twist, of course, since this is Star Wars Month. Yes, there's going to be an updated philosophy in Part 2 of 2, but I WILL do right by Sophie and Alberto by the end. :)

Talos Drellik is a character from Star Wars: The Old Republic, who is an archaeologist and, in the Greater ASoE-verse, the brother of heretic Light Sith Inquisitor Tarssus Kallig. Based on his prior role in my story "Projections," he seemed like the ideal choice for the role of interacting with Sophie and Alberto on my behalf--the most likely to be comfortable with and accepting of it.

(I expect Part 2 to be up VERY quickly, perhaps even tomorrow...I promise I am not detouring from Another Set of Eyes and the three prompt fics I received this year for Star Wars Month on DeviantArt!)