With a sense of urgency, but not undo haste that would border on rashness or lacking in decorum, I approached the mound of twisted meat and horror that remained of Fleshy. Or, perhaps for a more apt description, the terrible fate that had befallen three wondrous elves. No semblance of practical anatomy remained of their persons, for their flesh had been warped together, with limbs sticking out every which way, none of which were particularly useful. No stretch of the imagination, no creative interpretation of biology could call the form before me fit for life, and indeed, their health deteriorated rapidly.

Their collective form remained untenable, with no way to survive long-term, much less have any quality of life. They gasped and moaned, for their vocal cords and lungs were not aptly connected to their throat, such that they were slowly suffocating. Not even the best of healers could fix this, for while souls may be immutable, their spirits, the glue that binds souls to bodies, were so tangled around each other as to be inseparable. Despite the obvious trauma their condition would cause, their memories and senses would undoubtedly bleed into one another, which would be uncomfortable and unwelcome to say the least.

I have only one reliable method to save those claimants who would become my companions. A drop of my blood invested with my power could save them. It only works when such individuals are at death's door, but I hesitated. What fresh hell awaited them if their bodies were preserved much in their present state? I would not wish this upon them, for it would be a form of suffering that surpasses the peace of death. Additionally, how would I pick one from the others? In truth, Gambino and Bambina were a package deal, so it is not unprecedented to do more than one individual at a time, but they were rather unique in that they have always been an item. While these three knew each other, they were not so intimately close as to be inseparable, at least not before… present circumstances.

My various minds raced to find solutions, and nothing promising outweighed the "try and see what happens" approach to using my blood. With their lives fading faster than healers could arrive, and with them being beyond the meager means of what healing potions I had stored away in pocket dimensions, I yielded to the inevitable. With a drop of blood and my concentrated will within it, my remedial efforts found themselves exhausted. They were in the hands of the gods now.

The Void, her old stomping grounds, found itself as an ever familiar and equally changing nowhere. For brief moments, she had been free of her captor, and in those moments, found herself again. Then the other two merged with her, and what had been crowded with just two became a magnitude worse with three. For so long, she had yearned for freedom, to have her mind to her own, and only the cruelest of gods could find amusement in the irony that her wish found itself granted for but a heartbeat before her condition became worse than before.

The other two, for their own sake, were equally trapped, and so unaccustomed to sharing their headspace with another, were not adapting well. Their own representations of their inner selves found manifestation within The Void next to her, but they were currently ill-suited to their circumstances.

"First time?" she asked them as their disembodied selves hovered in nothingness.

Incoherent screams of horror, rage, and despair were all that greeted her in response, which to be fair, had been her reaction the first several months or so of real-world time that she found her body and mind as a puppet under the control of another.

"Well, I would put out some refreshments for you, but I don't get visitors very often, so pardon the mess."

The other two, seemingly unammused at her attempts of levity and humor, continued in vain efforts of employing sheer willpower to overcome their situation. Had such a method been viable, Serideth would have succeeded ages ago. Additionally, had it worked for them now, while she would have been grateful to be herself again, it would sting to know that she had been denied such an easy out.

Experienced with her mind not being entirely her own, she found some nuance, some change of flavor, in how such a predicament played out now. Before, the other mind in her head sought to control her, to subjugate her completely in mind, body, and spirit. It had intelligence and sapience, but no sentience. It did not experience feelings, desires, or humor. It only carried out its directive, leeching off her own experiences and memories to mimic acting in accordance with social norms and expectations.

These two were, most likely unwittingly, bombarding her with emotions, memories, and desires, all of which were jumbled and constantly shifting. While she didn't want to pry, there wasn't much else to do to distract her, and the sensations were far too vivid and visceral to ignore. Some fragments of memories were quite embarrassing and risque, and being that she had her own urges that she could only experience vicariously through tangential means, she did not find herself abashed to indulge.

It was impossibly difficult for her to remember a time before the other that had invaded her. Memories blurred with fiction or the experiences of others. Friends, family, lovers, ambitions, and whatever else had defined her had all been whitewashed in a facade of lies and twisted truths, such that she had no idea who she even was any more. Such a situation did not improve by having her headspace melding with two others.

"I entreat the gods for salvation or destruction, that we may find peace through one means or another."

She spoke her words out loud as much as one can speak in The Void. It really is more of an expression of intent than a physical action. Serideth found it prudent to at least formally ask for help, as now the gods could not claim ignorance of her plight.

Some indeterminate amount of time passed, for The Void can play tricks on the mind when it comes to perception of such things. Such lingering silence also found itself pierced by a rhythmic ticking sound, which itself helped her hone in her perception of cardinality with respect to events that transpired, which other than the ticking and screaming, wasn't much. Eventually the ticking became more refined, exactly like that of a clock. And where one clock ticked rhythmically, more joined into a chorus that outwardly appeared chaotic, but after experiencing it for a while, it ultimately had an unusually soothing harmony to it.

Inspired by the concept that something is better than nothing, Serideth remained vigilant that more would follow. Rewarded for her patience, not that she had much else to do, she witnessed a white doorway appear, or at least a rectangle. It could be very large and far away, or much smaller and fairly close, for it was made of white light, and the nothingness around her offered little to aid her depth perception.

"Alright ladies, let's get a move on."

With effort, she tried to move them along like a tugboat pulling a powerless vessel in its wake, but such a technique bore no fruit. With a whimsical and dramatic change in technique, she closed her proverbial eyes and willed the door closer. And to her utter surprise and delight, she found the doorway at arm's reach when she opened her eyes.

"Convenient."

As she reached out to enter the light, she observed herself leaving the doorway, with this version of herself appearing whole and restored. Surprised, she blinked her eyes and took a closer look, only to see it was actually Relarina who floated away into The Void.

Stolen story; please report.

"My not-eyes must be playing tricks on me," she exclaimed with consternation to her associates. "Did either of you two see that?"

Screams, these ones more coherent than before, with the semblance of whole words tantalizingly close to comprehensible speech, were all she heard in response, which she considered rapid improvement from earlier. With her attitude and disposition cheerful and more positive than it had been in decades, she entered the doorway.

The first thing she noticed was how the space around her contained a great number of clocks, hourglasses, sundials, and other timekeeping devices. Many were mounted on the floor, but some floated in the air above, each on their own trajectory. The distance held a backdrop of planets, moons, stars, and giant spheres of blackness that sucked in all light, the whole host of which were far too close and large for comfort. She quickly convinced herself that it served an aesthetic purpose, for while her knowledge of astronomy and gravitational forces was amateur at best, she knew that such celestial bodies could not exist in such close proximity without a collision of disastrous proportions.

As she advanced forward, the other two's souls tethered to her own, she came upon two men at a chair, both appearing to be the same person. Both were elves, and from her knowledge of gods, they probably appeared as such because elves preferred to think of gods as taking on their own mortal form. One sat reclined in a chair being shaved by the other. Most peculiarly, the one acting as the barber was growing a beard rather rapidly, with the rate of it synchronized such that, by the time she arrived, they had switched places and continued as if it were all normal.

"Ah, right on time," he declared as they approached. He laughed at what must have been his own joke, which caused the barber-him to nick his neck. Both shared the wound, which almost immediately healed itself as the blood disappeared.

"Greetings, divine one," Serideth announced as she tried her best to curtsey and demonstrate civilized manners, as per her upbringing. "We offer thanks for your acceptance of our petition."

"Oh, no need to go through the whole dog and pony show," the god declared as he waved us off. "I have already had this conversation before, and I will have it again soon enough. I know why you are here, what that Emperor wants, and I am of mind to offer assistance. I will remedy your situation, and in return, you three will occasionally pitch in to help my interests within the world. My ambitions are abstract, so don't worry about it; you won't have to do anything that disagrees with your sensibilities. Merely, I ask that you help ensure the world functions the way it was intended."

"Forgive my ignorance if I misinterpret what deal you make with us, but you want us to serve you, Echludoro, as your clergy?"

"Oh, nothing so devout," he replied as he wiped off his face with an offered towel and switched places with his other self once again. "More of a freelance operative that takes on a few jobs every now and then. You will pray to me first every Shrine Day. Maybe leave an offering or donation with my temples every now and then. You have just escaped being imprisoned and controlled; it is not my aim nor intent to bind you in such a damning contract. I already know that no other deity will give you a better offer, and I already know that you accept it and are quite satisfied with the results, so let's skip the hemming and hawing, shall we?"

Serideth found the terms to be extremely generous and straightforward in equal measure. As she had been told, the gods could not lie about such a deal, and furthermore, they tended to not employ loopholes and traps within their agreements. Such underhanded machinations tended to poorly affect recruitment of the faithful and laymen in the long run. Being a god of Time, Echludoro surely knew of the best route to take that would be advantageous to His interests.

'Woah, I am already thinking of Him with reverential pronouns. It certainly suggests that I do accept.'

She took a moment to mull it over, but she didn't see a better option, and quibbling over such simple terms would most likely result in new terms that would be less desirable than the initial offer. Serideth was not exactly timid, at least not without the other controlling her, but she was not so possessed of hubris that she wagered that she could outwit the god of Time.

"I accept this deal, and I trust that You will not abuse this bond between us."

"Oh, don't worry about that. It will not have even crossed my mind by the time we get to a junction where such an opportunity presents itself. Very good then, you may go now, as I have already fixed you and will fix you soon. I know you are eager to get out there and be your own person again, or to at least try to be such."

A hint of a smile and a knowing look suggested that she found herself at a disadvantage at understanding what fate had befallen her and what deal she had just made. With "any port in a storm" being an apt mindset right now, she bowed and departed with haste.

The door of light appeared again, and as she passed through, she witnessed herself from earlier trying to pass through. She blinked her eyes and looked again, and realized she had been looking at Blythnin pulling the trio into the room. She left them behind, for superstition or perhaps sound factual and prudent advice suggested that interacting overly much with a temporal version of yourself or others could lead to disastrous outcomes.

Back in The Void, she fully expected some amount of lounging before whatever happened and her return to reality, but for better or for worse, it happened rather instantly.

Their flesh disappeared in a flash of light as soon as my blood touched their bodies, and in its wake, only Serideth remained.

"Woah!" she exclaimed as she took a moment to collect her wits about her. "I think today has been the worst and best day of my life."

She accepted my offered hand and I yanked her into an upright position.

"Thanks," came a huskier and more mature voice. "It will take time to get used to this new normal."

Where Serideth had been just a moment before, Blythnin stood, her hands moving across her body to inspect her equipment. And yet, I felt as though she had always been Blythnin, which clashed unfavorably with my memory.

She moved away from me and twirled in place playfully with one leg raised up into the air.

"While it only lasted a short while, it was a terrible experience I would rather not repeat," came the voice of Relarina. I blinked my eyes just to make sure they were not malfunctioning, but indeed, Relarina herself, in what outfit she had been wearing last night, stood before me. But she had just been Blythnin a moment ago, or was it Serideth?

Some powerful fuckery of magic was afoot, but it did not seem to be nefarious. My blood had worked, and a bond existed between myself and the three elves. Already, that bond was working overtime to correct my perception of such a distortion of reality, and moments later, the truth became apparent.

They were forever bonded and forever separate. Each lived their own timeline, their own lives, in attempting to interact with the world. Collectively, they chose which one of them achieved the best outcome, and, for however many moments or longer a session lasted, they asserted that version of themselves upon reality. From the perception of an external observer, they shift instantly from one person to another, and while a person intellectually understands and remembers the shift happening, there is a feeling that the current person being observed has always been there.

It is a little disorienting to wrap the mind around, but a useful boon. They would get three attempts at a task, and they could choose which one they wanted to keep. As I understand it, they have to attempt to do the same general thing, so one cannot run away and hide while the other two stand and fight, for example. However, that does mean one would have to best all three of them in a fight, and worse yet, one would be completely unaware of how other timelines played out, which would leave one at a disadvantage for gathering information.

It would take experimentation to understand how their old Blessings would work together with their new one. With them now bonded to me, I knew fully and explicitly what their Blessings are. Relarina is a [Scion Spellsword - Arcanist]. That is to say, she is good at magic, but not as good as a dedicated [Mage], and she uses martial prowess to supplement her magical aptitude. Blythnin is a [Knight-Errant - Order of the Infinite Self], which explains her army of clones and how she has a better reputation than a mere [Sellsword] or [Mercenary]. It also suggests that her Blessing evolved at some point, perhaps when she hit Platinum. Serideth is an [Assassin - Cleaner, Pruner], which means she specializes in eliminating those who are deemed unfit to be part of society, all while leaving no trace and no body behind.

Collectively, they make for a terrifying combination. Each one has a rather unique set of Abilities and perspectives to solve a problem, and once they find harmony and unity in their approach to life, they will be formidable far beyond the sum of their collective. And with their new and collective Dual Blessing, they may well soon be unrivaled by all but the elite of the elite.

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