A Time to Be Young

Jill looked and saw the two visions jumping together naked into the lake and there in the water started kissing. "Ok, I don't want to see this anymore. If I'm the one controlling this then I want to look at something else."

"Like what?"

"How about Ursa. What ever happened to her?"

"How know you about Ursa?"

"The same way I know you defiled my rectum."

"Oh, this brings back memories. Look at this." the emperor said as the scene changed to a village. Village David was walking with a pregnant girl through a field of flowers.

"A bear?" the girl questioned as David gave her a gift.

"Yeah. Like it?"

"It's cute. But why a bear?"

"Because of your name. Ursa. On Earth it means bear."

"My name means flower."

"But on Earth it means bear."

"Not bear. It means flower. Have you not a word for flower?"

"Here it means flower. In Latin, on Earth, it means bear."

"We are not on Earth."

The Emperor laughed. "I remember that day. I argued with her about that many times. And when she was mad, she always threw that back at me. How could I say that here name was pretty if it meant bear? I just wanted her to understand that on Earth we had her name but just with a different meaning. I don't think she ever got it. So as a compromise we named our second daughter Bear."

"You have a daughter named Bear?"

"I had." he acknowledged.

"Oh." Jill said as some realization came over her. "How old are you here?"

"About five hundred, give or take."

"And your daughter wasn't immortal?"

"Nope. Just me."

"So long as you don't bleed to death from a dragon bite."

"How much of this have you watched already?"

"I saw you getting lucky and begging for a snake."

"Now I feel violated. Why would you look at my memories of that?"

"I can't exactly control this."

Even as she said that it seemed that she did have some kind of control because she pulled herself out of the memory vision and again she was on the bed looking down at him. He stirred and opened his eyes.

"Were you just now downloading my memories?"

"No, I was just watching. Streaming only, no downloading."

"Oh, ok. So that was real."

"Very much so. Except for the memories part, that was just watching."

The Emperor sat up and stretched. "So let me see if I remember correctly. No Anal and no ejaculation on your face."

"You got it."

"That's going to be really easy because you've already made the no sex rule."

"Wait. Not that I'm saying that's a bad idea, you know cause we're brother and sister, but I didn't say that."

"Yes you said. Be not worried, all the people believe us to be Targarians anyway."

"No, I did not."

"You want to check my memory?"

"Of a conversation we were having in your memory? How would that even work?"

"Since you're here, answer a question for me. At the cabin, from what you saw, think you that you were really in love with me or were you just using me for sex?"

"You were there, not me."

"Indulge me."

"From what I saw, I can see that you wanted me to really be in love with you."

"But you weren't."

"It was a little unclear with your monster cock up my ass. And just so you know, it figures that a guy who gets magical powers would then immediately use them to give himself a big dick."

"I never used any powers for that."

"Uh, hun. Poor Ursa, as a virgin, having to take that thing inside of her."

"With Ursa it was not just sex. I stayed. I could have left. No one was expecting me to survive that. They actually thought I was a zombie or something and they shunned me for a bit. But I stuck through it. I hunted for food and I defended the village. While we never had a wedding ceremony I was a good husband for Ursa and I never committed adultery no matter how many times they told me that having two or three wives was part of their traditions. I raised my two daughters. Dracona married a king founding a dynasty and Bear became the first woman leader of her tribe."

"Well, I'm sure the tribe had no choice with you as her daddy."

"I was just a guy back then. Nothing special."

"Says the man who got Ursa's mother to force her to fall in love with you by slaying a dragon."

"I remember it a bit different than that. Besides once you know how to kill dragons, slaying them becomes comically easy. I'm telling you this so you understand that ... I follow the rules. I fulfill my obligations. I always have."

"Like the rule about not fucking your sister?"

"That's not a rule now."

"Because you changed you it."

"I had to. It was unjust. Just like all the other unjust laws."

"How many women have you been with?"

"In twenty thousand years? I only took a wife once every three or four hundred years. Once I was emperor a lot of those wives were just political unions. Not that there was never love but it wasn't the same."

"You don't even know?"

"You expect me to remember that after twenty thousand years when Paul's wife couldn't even remember how many men she'd slept with in the last six months?"

"Whose wife?"

"Old man Paul. Oh, right. You haven't met him yet. I think we might have not survived without him."

"The old man?"

"He got us into the cabin. He got us organized. He doted on you because he'd just lost his daughter to the plague. I remember we had the conversation about what to do if you ever got pregnant and we decided to name our son Paul or our daughter Paula."

"Did I ever get pregnant?"

"No, you died, like I told you."

"And I'm going to die again this time, aren't I?"

"Unless I can find a way to make you immortal but I never discovered why I'm this way."

"Even after twenty thousand years?"

"I sort of started to just accept it and gave up on the research. But being normal isn't that bad either. This time you can live a normal life."

"I don't know how normal it's going to be with you as Emperor."

"What I mean is, you're not going to die young. You're going to have a normal lifespan because I won't let the plague have you this time. And you'll live longer than usual because I can keep you young. I don't know for exactly how long, maybe not forever long enough for you to have the most complete and full life anyone could ever ask for. And when you do grow old as far as I know I'll grow old with you. I should be able to die now."

"What makes you think that?"

"I don't know. This body is me before the plague, before the warp door, before dragon venom, before the nine spheres. I should be normal."

"David, I saw you reach out and pull rays of the Sun out of the air and use them to heal yourself. You're not normal."

"Well, then the best I can tell you is live your life. It's a long time but not forever. Live your life. Take every day. Take every moment. Live it. Never leave anything on the table. Never look back in regret. Move forward, survive, and keep living."

"Ok. And can I rely on you not to have me executed?"

"If I was going to execute you then you'd already be dead."

"But you understand why I'm a little scared out of my mind around you."

"And you understand that I would love to let you go wherever you wanted and do whatever you wanted but for more than one reason you need protection."

"Little brother, this is a lot to deal with. I'm having just a bit of trouble coping with all of this. Would you mind ever so much if I could, say, just use you for sex until I could work it out?"

David put his hand on Jill shoulder and held his breath for a moment. "So long as you're honest about it. And the moment you start to fall in love with me, let me know."

"Well, I mean, I love you as my brother. If we have sex again, can it be more on the fun side and less of the super over the top romantic that you were doing before. I know you want to tell me that you care about me and that I'm not just sex to you. And you won't be just sex for me either. We're siblings first, plus sex. How does that sound?"

"As you wish."

"But you have to promise not to compare me to the me from twenty thousand years ago. I have to be free to be my own way. Watching her, it was like, she looks like me and she sounds like me but I'm not her. We shouldn't manipulate each other."

"Manipulate? Where is that coming from?"

"I just want to say that I want to be real about the situation. It's hard for me to see you as my brother. To accept that you are this super uber powerful guy. To accept that you are in love with me and want to make love to me. So I have to learn to be your sister. And if I'm overwhelmed and don't know any other way to handle it then we can do a one off of sex as an isolated incident as many times as needed."

"Whatever makes you happy. I'm not asking you to make me happy. I want you with me so that I can make you happy. If making you happy means sex then ok. But also I should add because I know you're thinking about it, if you go back to North America and I stay here and we never see each other again then I'm going to have to be ok with that."

"I can't do that and you know it. I can't go back to a job where I'm a waitress. I can't walk down the street and just enjoy the trees. I can't go into a deli and order a sandwich without everyone running away terrified because I'm your sister."

David hugged her. "Adjusting will be hard but anytime someone wants to just ride out into the sunset inside the little bubble of tranquil safety that they have created for themselves, it always gets popped. So you always have to adjust. Nothing is permanent. Even if I had kept a low profile you were always going to have to adjust one way or the other to something and deal with it. It never ends for anyone. My word needs not even be taken for you to know that. Look at history. 30 years war. 100 years war. Back to back world wars. Would it really be so hard to adjust to being with me as I really am? I tell you that, yes, there is a certain way that I would like you to be but I also know you are whoever you really are. And I accept you no matter you being an idiot who let Simerata of all people into your apartment."

"I'm sorry."

"If you want to go you can go and I'll make sure nobody bothers you in a way where you won't feel like I'm in your way. If you need a job you can be the regional ruler over there and you can get orders from me by video call. Or FAX. How about that, huh? Max social distance. I'm not keeping you here if you don't want to be here. And you need not have sex with me so that you won't be in danger. I'm telling you that you are not in danger. If you stay with me it is because you want to. Ok. If you want to have sex with me, you can not absolve yourself of agency. I am giving you every opportunity to completely reject me. You already know how I feel so I have nothing more to prove."

"Ok. So then, I'm going to walk out of here and go home."

"No one will stop you."

Jill's body posture made it look like she was going to get up and leave but then she settled back onto the bed and put her hands to her head. "I want to stay."

"Great."

"And I also want to go."

"I can only give you options. You have to pick one. I can't make it so that you're in two places at the same time."

"But I am. There's dead me who fell in love with you and then there is this me and we're not the same person."

"My door is always open to you. Go now and come back if you want to."

"David, you making this so easy is really creepy and not making it easy for me at all."

"Just pick whatever you want to do and do it. You need not even tell me. Just do it."

"I want to go and I want to stay. I want to get as far away from you as possible and I want to always be with you. I want to know that my little brother is safe even from me and I want to be the one to keep you safe. Aside from anal and facials I'm tempted to find out for myself what all of that was about at the cabin in your memory but also it's just so sick and disgusting to have sex with my brother. I want to have sex with you and I also want you to never touch me or even think of me that way. I want to love you and I'm also scared to love you. David, if I love you and it goes bad then what happens to me? If you're angry with me, where can I go to escape you? I don't like authority figures over me. I hate it. With a passion and you know that. And now my brother who wants me to be his lover is you. Emperor. How do I even understand this? I don't know what to do. I can't make a choice. Tell me what to do?"

"Every choice is available to you. If you change your mind later then ..."

"David, stop. Ok. I don't want choices. I don't want open ended. Also I don't want rules that I have to follow on my own. I don't want commands. If you really want to make this easy for me, then not as Emperor, just as David, my little brother, tell me what you think I should do. Tell me what to do. Tell me what's best for me because you understand this situation far better than me. Be selfish and tell me what you want me to do. Take away my agency so I don't have to have responsibility. Rule me with love and I'll love you back."

"Alright, then I will."

"Ok. Great. What should I do? What is your plan for me? Tell me to stay or tell me to leave. You make the choice because, I want to make you happy. I choose to do what will make you happy. I can't go wrong doing that, can I?"

"What if I ask you to do something that you want not to do?"

"You're doing that now. You're asking me to make a choice and I don't want to make one. I want to be safe and I want you to be safe. You're telling me to do this and I'm telling you that I'm not going to do it. Tell me to do something else other than make a choice."

"Love me."

"I do."

"Love me more. And be not afraid of me. I won't hurt you. Trust me."

"As you wish."

"You can't have that. That's my line from my favorite movie."

"Hold up. My brother's favorite is 2001."

"I told you my favorite movie was 2001 because I wanted you to and everyone else to think that I had sophisticated taste in film. Actually, in twenty thousands years I have never yet even seen all of 2001 because it puts me to sleep. Because I was always doing well in school they let me have some DVDs in the home. I got some cartoon porn from Japan and I totally thought I would get busted with it but the staff thought that they needed not to check it because it was a cartoon. So for a while my favorite film was 'Vampire Hunter D'. But then when I was in college I read 'The Princess Bride' and I don't why I was so gullible but I actually thought the story in the book was real so I started to research, you know, where was Gilder and who was the historical Humperdink. I felt so foolish when I figured out that I was an idiot.

"So then when I was dating Gwen, you know the deaf girl you met, I dated her the other time before the plague. She wanted to rent and watch 'The Notebook' for like the fifth time. So even though I never wanted any one to find out about my relationship to the book I convinced her instead to go with me to watch a midnight showing of the film version of 'The Princess Bride' on cult classic night. We went and I was expecting to see the worst movie because it was a cult classic so of course it was going to be just as bad as "Rocky Horror Picture Show" and I would have to pretend to like it so I could continue to pretend to be smart. Only it wasn't bad. It was the single greatest film I had ever seen in my entire life. Sure, Gwen fell asleep but for days after that I wanted to be The Dread Pirate Roberts and I quoted Inigo Montoya over and over again. I wanted Gwen to love me the way Buttercup loved Wesley. I watched the DVD over and over again until I had it memorized every line and Gwen was getting pissed of at me for telling her 'as you wish' all the damn time."

"You really never liked 2001?"

"Hate it. Watching the monkeys at the zoo naturally behave is far more interesting then whatever in the hell was put in that movie."

"What about all of your talk about ..."

"The monolith is a movie screen and it's helping mankind evolve and how humanity is the real main character. I saw that on youtube and just started telling people that like it was my own idea because I was a huge fraud. That movie sucks."

"Why would you think that you needed to tell people that?"

"I was making straight As. I was going to be valedictorian and I knew all the way back when I was a freshman. I knew it because high school was so easy. But that had to mean I was smart so I became the smart kid. I had to have that persona. I couldn't let people figure out that it was just that I found it easy to remember what I read and teachers were lazy when they made tests. I was ashamed of that for a long time. I wasn't smart, I was an idiot with a good memory. I went from valedictorian to academic probation because college was kicking my ass when I couldn't think for myself. I was too ashamed to ask for help. I just knew that if I said anything then you'd be disappointed in me and Mrs. Helen would take over. But you know, fuck it. I can tell you now. I can be completely honest with you now. I hate 2001 and I will never pretend to like that film ever again."

"You were on academic probation?"

"Yeah. I sure was. When the pandemic hit I was this close to flunking out."

"Did you like that girl Gwen?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Did she like you?"

"I wanted her to but I was always in doubt a little bit."

"If you need a queen to rule with you then you know she's still out there."

"I know. I also know she hasn't broken up with her previous boyfriend yet so it's a nonstarter for me."

"I didn't think she had a boyfriend. She seemed like she really liked you."

"Yeah, I knew not about him when I first met her and she was cheating on him with me for a good while before she broke up with him and then I was officially her boyfriend and right as the plague hit the shit was hitting the fan with her because her old boyfriend got in touch with me to tell me off."

"Relationship drama. I hate it."

"Me too. So when the thing started up with you, maybe you can't understand this but part of why I loved being with you was you couldn't reject me. Yeah. Now that I say it out loud it's kind of dumb but it's true. I didn't need to walk on egg shells around you. I didn't need to constantly double think your meaning. I could just love you and accept your love back because you were my sister and you were supposed to love me anyway and you already knew most of the bad things about me and even if you found out more I knew you always had to still love me anyway no matter what. So if sex was involved or if it wasn't involved then either way you loved me. Then once sex was involved it made everything better. I could completely trust you and because of that I could completely open all my love to you. In my life I have loved again and found many different kinds of love but with you was the only time I was so completely unguarded. I held nothing back."

Jill heard his words while looking at his face. "Hi, little brother. Welcome back to Earth."

"That was quite the non sequitur."

"This is the first time when I'm talking to you that you seem like you and not some galaxy destroying alien. But just for my peace of mind tell me about the scar. And tell the real reason you have it not what we told the police. Our secret that only my brother would know."

"You still trust me not."

"You have to remember that I'm terrified of you. I saw you kill two people with a thought. A part of me wants to just be safe and play along because I definitely don't want to make you angry. But I love my brother. If you're really him then I want to love you. Tell me about the scar. You've had twenty thousand years to deal with it. Don't tell me that you're too emotional about it still."

The Emperor seemed a bit annoyed but then shrugged his shoulders. Very matter of fact he just told her how he'd really gotten the scar, the words so secret between them that no one else could ever know. With the worlds spoken Jill knew that no matter how different he may be that it was still him.