First person POV
Air, water, earth and fire...
Those are the four primordial and base elements that make up the reason humanity may thrive. Granted that isn't the scientific truth, but it is a fact none the less. While there are one hundred and eighteen on the periodic table, broken up into metals, non-metals, and inert gases. While I am not completely sure on this point, they all come from the earth or the air.
From the air, we breathe so that we may live, as the oxygen in it is necessary but it also fills out sails, spins the turbines for power, as well as an important component in the triangle that makes fire. Though it's benefit it is a scary thing. Wind can decimate just as easily as any other element.
Water is the source that life has sprung forth, and like air, something we must consume to survive, but it isn't the only purpose. It provides us with food, power, but it also hides our history within it's depths of the water, where we shall never find it.
The earth is what allows us to sustain life. It's plants grow to create the oxygen we breath, it's plants feed us and animals of which we hunt foor food. It's stone and ore we take to produce tools to make life easier. Yet if one is not cautious, or even just unlucky the stone will bury you alive. Whether it be in stone, debris, or even in molten rock and ash.
Last but not least is fire. Fire creates and destroys; a symbol of duality as a blazing flame can be an image showing power, anger, life, and death. Fire is something all things fear at a primal instinct much like the darkness that it keeps at bay, but it is not a thing of evil. Fire lets us shape the world to how we wish it. Fire weakens things so that we may be strong, and through its warmth it lets us survive where it is hard to.
I am a blacksmith. Through fire I shape metal into a more usable form. I have made knives, guns, swords, armor, nails, horse shoes and even furniture and cutlery.
Once upon a time a man of my skill set would be considered to be one of the most important of the common folk. When kings and queens reigned, the commoner who was closest to a noble were blacksmiths.
We made the swords and armor of war for the lords to settle squabbles, while also making the tools needed by common man to work the fields to produce food for the lords.
Alas, in this modern era we blacksmiths are no longer as needed. Since the advent of man and automation, what one man could do in half a year, a factory can push out in half a day or so. Not to mention fire arms have made swords and shields almost entierly obsolete.
Here I am, nearing my ninth decade of which I spent seven and a half in the forge pounding away at steel and iron, upon my decade and instead of thinking of my kin I reminice of the forge, and the way the world is.
Truly, I am an old man with a one track mind.
My mind...Least I still have that, despite my body now being to weak to lift the hammer. To weak to even walk on my own with out that damnded cage they call a walker.
I've seen many a friend and family member pass into the beyond, but with out there minds. Addled from age, they slowly descended into madness until they were taken away for the safety of there famillies and themselves.
It's not a thing most people care to think about when they imagine age. When your a child you imagine being an old man with decades of knowledge at your disposale as well as being a master at something, giving out your faveorite candies to your own grandkids and regailing them with tales of your childhood.
Yet as you grow older, more aware of the harsh realities of the world that we live in, you see that when you grow older you begin to forget that experiene. It begins with forgetting where you put the keys and then it slowly grows until you don't recognize the faces of your loved ones.
I took a shuddering breath. The cold winter air that came from my window was icy and colder then it had been for a while. It was like a knife into my lungs, but i loved the feeling as it still proved despite my useless and damnable body, I was still alive.
I turned my head to the group of people around me. I saw my kids, with graying hairs of there own as they looked like they were nearly crying. In fact my youngest, little emily, was infact crying in the arms of her wife.
Behind them were they're kids, of which some had children of there own. I was truly lucky. Not many old men got to see there great grandkids. The oldest of my great grandkids was only six and given how confused he looked didn't understand what would soon happen.
Another breath, and I felt my hand squeezed by my eldest son and the inheritor of my forge. Brendan was a massively built man, much like I used to be, with my hair and eyes he looked like my own father at his age; may god or who ever is up there bless his resting soul.
"Grampa...Thank you for all that you've done." He spoke, his voice was wet as tears fought tooth and nail to escape his eyes but he held them back. He always belived as the oldest he should be stronger then the rest, emotionally and physically, to support them when they needed it. To be there moor and guide admist the ever tempestuous sea that was life.
Seems I never beat the foolishness out of the boy. That was never his responsibility, but it's to late now.
"Don't...Thank me…" I wheezed as I forced my lungs to expel that sweet air in order to speak. "I...It was...a pleasure to have…this."
I went to speak more but he shook his head. "Don't speak...Save your strength." He pleaded but I gave as much of a glare as I could manage.
"I'm your...Father. Don't order me...around." I grouched before coughing. I looked at my family, heads of various colors of which blonde and brown were the predominate colors. I took a deep breath, as I felt the frozen air of winter enter my lungs, speeding the descent of the reapers scythe but I took that breath happily. I had more to say.
"All of you… Thank you for being here for this old man… I want… to tell you all I love you all dearly." I began as now tears readily fell even from brendan's face. "No matter what's next...Heaven, Hell, or even another life… I will never forget any of you." I said as I felt the world slowly fade to black, as even my hearing began to warp.
The last thing I heard, as I breathed my last was Brendan saying "Goodbye...Dad."
xXXx
Well...This is unexpected.
After my eyes closed and I, well died, I awoke in a empty star bucks of all things sitting across from a brown haired brown eyed woman who looked to be in her mid twenties. She wore a long sleeved black tweede jacket with a brown scarf wrapped around her neck and a black beret with a fuck load of buttons and pins in it as she watched me from across the table.
The worst part? She was drinking a Unicorn frappy-whats-it and slurping int he most annoying way possible.
SLUUUUUUURP
For the love of-
"Can you please stop that?" I asked politely of the hippster before me, as I knew no other way to describe her.
"Huh? Oh sure old man." She said as she snapped and the drink vanished. I am not ashamed to say I yelled as I fell backwards, the chair tipping over and I smashed my head into another chair, knocking that over and falling to the ground as I moved my hands to my head as the pai-
Wait….where is the pain?
I opened my eyes, as they closed when I struck the chair, and slowly got back to my feet, then stared at the hipster who now had an amused smirk.
"What's wrong? Never see a reaper send away a unicorn frappuccino?" She mocked and wait a damn second. Did she just say 'Reaper'?
As in the Grim Reaper, the taker of souls?
"Yep," She said making a popping noise with the p. "Well, one of many. The one your thinking of is the big man himself, Death."
I nodded slowly and chuckled. "Ah, I see. I assume this means I'm as dead as a door nail?" I asked and she paused for a moment then shrugged.
"Yeah, kind of. I'd have said something like 'No long among the living' rather then that but that is quiet accurate. The furneral was nice, lot's of folk showed up. Family, friends, even the family of friends who had died before ya." She told me and I couldn't help but smile.
"Did they use my anvil as my grave marker?" I asked her and she nodded.
"That they did. Polished up and engraved. Your little girl Emily put a large bouqute of flowers in the hardy hole of it." She nodded. "Anything else you'd like to know?"
"...No. I'm good." I said after a time. I decided I didn't need to ask anything else.
"Oh thank death, normally people spend hours askign questions about lost loved ones, old pets, friends, what have you." She said with a sigh of relief and I snorted.
She definetly sounded like a teenager.
"So, where am I off to? Helhelim, Heaven, Hell, Planes of Torment, Purgatory, The Asphodel Meadows?" I asked as I sat down and leaned forward with my elbows on the table. "Or is this Reincarnation? Could I be a Falcon?"
She smiled as I began listing various underworlds that I could possibly qualify for and soon she began laughing. "Close, you are being reincarnated. When someone dies in anyworld they are reincarnated in another one. The chance to be reincarnated in your previous world is one in a googolplex." She said and noticing my look of confusion she added. "That's a one with a hundred zeros at the end."
I whistled. "Damn...That's a big number." I stated and she nodded.
"Very." She lifted her hands, gloved in plaid fingerless gloves and she cracked her knuckles before a pen and a large bundle of pappers formed that she began flickign through. "Let's see here...Hmm, Your a blacksmith of no small measure apparently… That true?" I nodded and she continued. "Had four kids, Brendan, twins Tamra and Anthony, and finally Emily. Twins died, Tamra in a train wreck and Anthony due to a IED in Syria?" I nodded again. "Alright this looks accurate let's see…
Oh, your an old soul. Been in almost every world to revive into. Aparrently your soul is even older then mine, not a bad run grampa." She said as she went over it. "So...Next is… World 29457-R." She nodded. "Or as the people of that world call it, Remnant."
"Remnant?" I asked frowning. "That sounds ominus." The name made me a tad worried for the next world I would be in. Not that I'd remember it anyway so it's not like I should care.
"It is. The world is over run by a type of demon," She paused and squinted at something. "Scratch that; technically they are the creation of one of the two gods of that world so they are considered divine in nature but due to years of breaking every sort of sin they've became more demonic in nature."
What the fuck? Damn that is gonna suck. I pity future me. Hopefully he has the sense to be a blacksmith and not fuck with planes.
"Yeah hopefully. Mind reader remember?" She replied and gave me a amused smile before she went back to the papers.
"So….yeah. That's about it...Oh yeah, you won't have your memories wiped this time." She said and I blinked.
"What?"
"Just what I said. Aparrently your reincarnation into that world is on the list of names we gave a certain Planeswalker in order for a piece to be brokered. He kept taking souls and tossing them into other worlds and causing a mess cause he was bored." She informed.
"His specific requests were 'Retains memories', and 'given the fifth most bullshit power subset in the multi-verse.'" She paused and looked at the paper then quickly pulled out what looked like a smart phone.
"What was it…." She mumbled while I stared still trying to process all of this.
"Wha-"
"Aha! You'll be given a variation of the 'Gamer' catagory of powers." She stated and I frowned. "So what, this means I'm gonna be in some game like, Mario? Call of Duty? The Witcher?" I asked naming games that were popular from my child hood.
"Close. You'll be gifted with a number of gifts such as 'Universal magic energy', 'Augmented reality vision', 'Point System', 'Class System', 'Gamer's mind', 'Gamer's body', and so on. Of them, only the last two are skills." The Reaper explained.
"That's.. Scary. What's the Class system?" I asked curious. If I was being reborn with memories I may as well see what all this shit's about.
"Well the class comes with five base classes. Fighter, Mage, Rogue, Artisan, and Medic." She began. "All it does is give passive boosts to certain skills. Fighter's gain experience in martial skills faster then the other but lacks in magic based ones, while Mage is the reverse. Rogue is better with stealth then the others but lacks in defensive skills. Medic is best with healing skills but not with damaging ones, and Artisan works best with crafting skills with no detriments."
I whistled. "Artisan please." I said instantly and she laughed.
"Alright, wasn't gonna ask what you were gonna pick but I'll push the statement up the pipe line." She said with a smile. "That's about every thing so...Have fun."
When she spoke the world began to dissolve and I realized I never asked her name.
"It's Juliee, if you were wondering. See you in another ninety decades." She waved as it all went dark.
xXXx
Light bursted my eyes as I groaned in pain as light hit my face, and I went to cover my eyes but my arms wouldn't work, much to my major annoyance. Soon my eyes readjusted and I realized I was admist giants.
Wait...Giants….Oh fuck I was just born! That meas… Oh fuck I gotta go through puberty again don't I? God fucking damn it…
On this day, Jaune Julies Arc was born.
Sup? I decided to take my last first chapter...and toss it in the fire pit. I decided to scrap half of the original premise and remake it as well as add in a little fun blurb just because out of all the 'forms' that death takes… Who the hell expects it to be some chick drinking a unicorn frappe? I sure as hell don't.