I went mad. I went insane. I went any and all words one could use to describe the absolute loss of sanity and my mind crumpled and crumbled and crumbled till it was no more.

Then I came back.

In front of me was a frowning old man. The Fisherman, eyes burning gold and furious.

"What's wrong with you?" He asked me.

Then he leaned forward and touched my forehead again.

"A lot of things, you're barely together as it is. You're not even really here. A soul is many things, but most of it stays out of the dreaming. Only the thinking self comes down, the face and ego. Yours for some reason is mostly mortal, it is too small to understand what's happening, too insignificant to know what it saw."

The man walked around me, scanning me up and down as he did so.

"Thief," he finally spoke.

"What?"

"You stole that," he replied.

"I didn't steal anything. I was forced into this soul and this mind."

"Not the soul," the Fisherman said with a shaking head. "The fate. You stole their fate, both of them."

"What?"

"Look at the river," he replied.

"But you said-"

"If you can see the Gate and live, you can look at the river."

I did as he said.

And there I saw something, everything, nothing, the cosmos and the chaos, the shimmering nature of existence.

And I almost went mad. Almost.

There were no words to describe it, no thoughts to be had, no ideas to encompass it. I couldn't see it. This part of me that was dragged in here was too mortal, too small. I couldn't comprehend it.

But I did feel it. I felt wonder and awe. I heard the song of existence and though I could not remember the melody or the lyrics, I could remember the feelings.

It was like a dream.

It was a dream.

It was one of those dreams where you would wake up with a sense of panic or joy. Where the emotion would linger but the memory would have long since passed.

It was the breeze of a summer's day, the cold of a winter's night. The light of a dying sun and the darkness of an empty world. It was life, death, creation, destruction, yin and yang, and everything in between.

This wasn't the whole song. It was just a moment and though I did not know what was happening, even I could hear the tension in their voices.

I wonder where it would go? I wondered how the song would end. I wanted to know. I wanted to listen and remember but I couldn't. Even now, I would be lucky to come back with a vague sense of worry. I knew this.

And all of this was just the surface of the river. I wasn't even hearing the full song as it was being played, only one instrument and only one voice.

I was in the song, I was singing it and even then I could not hear it whole. I could only hear those around me.

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Chin was here. The maidens were here. Nai, Cai, and even the beasts sang with us.

It was a horrid song. It was a beautiful song. It was the noise of the river and the river itself.

At that moment, I understood something about fate. It wasn't doomed to be. It wasn't destiny or control.

It wasn't something guaranteed to happen, but something that would.

Fate was a living thing. Anything without life acted as it should. It had no choice, no will, and thus no possibility. But life and the living chose, we acted and existence remembered our choices.

Fate was the thing between birth and death. It was every breath and every moment, every choice, every desire, every instant of impact. Dane had died and so had Bill, but from that death, I had been made. I was their impact. I was their remaining and active action.

"They gave it to me, I think."

"No," the Fisherman replied. "They died. They ended but you force them to remain. You make them live again."

"I didn't choose to exist," I replied, finally taking my eyes away from the river.

"No one does."

"So…" I looked around. "What's the point? Why am I here?"

The Fisherman ignored me and walked over to the river and sat down at its edge. I followed him and did the same. We both looked out to the river. I listened to a song and watched the reflection on the surface. I understood nothing, but felt everything, if only for an instant.

And he looked far deeper than I ever could.

"Do you know what lies ahead?" He asked me.

"I have guesses," I answered.

"An eternal war. One that will touch everything and leave its scar on existence."

"Sounds horrifying. I'm sure if I were fully aware I'd be panicking right now."

The Fisherman pulled back his rod. It was just a stick with a string on it. It had no reel or hook. But still he cast it and I watched as the string disappeared beneath the ripples.

A moment later, he caught something and yanked it out of the water. It was a small fish or a shrimp of some sort and it smelled like it had already died.

He held it in his hands and inspected it before moving his hand over to me.

"What is it?"

"Take it," he said, pushing his hands forward.

And I did, then I knew.

It was a memory, a shadow of a place once long gone. It was a world filled with history, a place of war and peace, life and death, and stories, oh so many stories. I remembered them, I remembered reading and listening and watching them so eagerly.

I remembered Earth.

I saw my parents. I saw my life, my job, my history, our history. I saw countries grow and die. I saw us crawl out of caves. I watched as the first ever wheel was made and I saw the first wolves who sat by our fires.

I heard languages that no one would remember. I saw gods that would be forgotten. Religion, culture, history, art, I saw it be birthed a million times and die a million more.

I saw China, I saw Britain, I saw the Aztecs, the Indians, the Japanese. I saw them come to be, in all their horror and glory. I watched the world age into steam and cars and kept watching it all the same. I saw space, I saw us traverse it. I saw us scatter, I saw us create. I saw us fall to stones and watched us come back all over again.

I saw and saw and saw and saw it all.

Then I watched it end. I witnessed the end of my universe, the end of my world.

No one knew us. Some remembered us as a dead realm, the Tome knew us as less than a footnote in existence. But no one felt for us. No one cried for us. No one remembered us, not really.

"Why?" I whispered.

"You are the last survivor of your people and of Dane. You are alive and yet you sit there and do nothing."

"I'm preparing-"

"To hide, to sit still and react."

I looked at him and for the first time, I saw emotion.

"That damn book knew I would do this," he breathed. "You disgust me. You have stumbled and fallen into greatness and yet you cower? You have been given a chance to do something, to persist and change the world as you so choose and you just hide?"

"I want to help others-"

"You want to help them hide and sit still as the world churns and breaks away? Do you think that saving a handful of mortals is peace? Do you think that one realm of billions is enough? When you could do so much more?"

"I can't change anything. I'm not an Imperium."

Then the Fisherman- no the dragon turned to me. And in that moment his blue and gold scales shined brighter than the river. His tail trailed over the river. His eyes looked at me with disdain and his whiskers dipped into the depths of fate.

"Neither was I," he spoke.

I saw fish. I saw them by the thousands racing up the eternal river. I saw them fight the currents and struggle. I saw them be doomed, be doomed to fail and fall back down and struggle anyways.

"I was nothing," he spoke. "Less than a mortal man, less than a qi beast. I was a mere carp with nothing but desire and still, I climbed. You want something and have the power of the twelfth rank. You came to be as a god and yet you refuse to act? You want to hide? What a waste."

And I saw him grow from a mere carp to a qi beast to a spirit beast to an immortal, a god, a God-King, and then I watched as the fish leaped over the Dragon's Gate.

"You are lazy, boy. You are a coward. Your insignificance is a thing you can change. If you have not the power then seek the power, but do not waste your time walking among mortals in a small moment of peace. Everything dies and your village, no matter how persistent, will fade as well. Choose to cultivate and fight now or spare yourself the suffering and die."

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