AN: As some of you may have picked up on, I enjoy writing in many different genres of fanfiction, including but not limited to: Elves in Stories Where Elves Do Not Belong, Filk, Crack, Pepperjack, AU, and Crossover. One genre that I have not yet attempted, however, is a fic that includes a blatant author avatar.
Thus, I've decided that I'm going to write a self-insert fanfic. This will not be high art, and will be written with the sole purpose of making me happy. If that sounds cool to you, then welcome to the show!
Part 1: Lighthearted
Part 2: A Heart Full of LOVE
Part 3: Bleeding Heart
Part 4: You Ain't Gonna Break My Heart in Two
Part 1: Lighthearted
The first thing that Ash noticed was the water.
Probably because her lungs were halfway filled with it.
Spluttering and coughing, Ash Hughes kicked her way frantically to the surface of what seemed to be a river, and then tread water unsteadily as she proceeded to hack up a lung and a half.
She had no idea what was going on. Hadn't she just been driving home from Kendra's house? Was—was all this a dream? There was no way to know for sure—not unless she slept, woke again, and then made sure that she still remembered all of this.
No. No, wait, there had been something else. She'd been terrified of something—coming head-on, veering into her lane, and then—what? She couldn't remember. She must have fallen into a river somehow, but she hadn't been anywhere near one, so how in the heck...?
After dog paddling her way over to the shore, and dragging herself onto a rush-covered riverbank, Ash allowed herself to collapse backwards and stare at the sky in disbelief.
This couldn't be happening.
Ash wasn't left to stew in her own thoughts for long, however, as a commanding voice soon rang out from the distance.
"You there!"
Still panting from exertion, Ash managed to raise her head and answer. "Yeah?"
She stopped. Whoever this was, he wore white robes and had very pointy hair. Weird. She mentally added a tic mark to the possibility that this was all a dream.
He noticed her interest.
"What are you looking at?" he asked.
She shook her head to clear her thoughts. Even if this was just a hallucination, there was no point in being rude. "Nothing," she said. "just you're very, uh—" Ash stopped herself before she could say 'strange,' "—handsome," she substituted. He was, now that she thought about it, but that definitely hadn't been the first thing that she'd noticed.
He nodded, accepting the compliment with a self-satisfied smirk. "There are advantages to having a royal Ka."
Ash had mostly gotten her breath back, and managed to sit up. "You're a king?" she asked. That kind of made sense, in a dream-logic sort of way—that she would run into the most important person first. Might as well see what she could find out from him.
"Yes," he answered, grandly, "Pharaoh Atemakhem."
"Ah… sorry," said Ash, not sure whether an apology was strictly necessary, but deciding to play it safe, nonetheless. "Ramses the Second is the only Pharaoh that I've ever heard of."
He sighed in disappointment. "Even if you had studied my people extensively," he said, "you still probably wouldn't have heard of me. You see, after I died, my people tried to pretend that I'd never existed."
"Oh," said Ash. "Why would they do that?"
"Because," he answered, beginning to regain some of his former enthusiasm, "I was the Pharaoh who let power go to his head and decided that I was the only god that Egypt could legally worship. And that people should worship me through violent—and often deadly—versions of children's card games."
…okay, so even if this guy really was a king, he was probably also a lunatic. Best tread lightly here.
"You sound proud of yourself," said Ash, warily.
He polished his fingernails on his robe and then examined them. "That's because I am."
So, the jury was still out, but by this point Ash was putting her money solidly on 'dream.' It was possible that this was somehow all real, but, if that was the case, then there was no way she'd be the only one to notice the guy and his ridiculous getup, even if her surroundings did seem to be remarkably void of other people...
For now, she would play along, she supposed. That was what she usually did, in dreams.
"To each his own," said Ash. She took a look around. Nothing was familiar. She stood by a river, but there was also desert visible in the distance. "I don't suppose that you know where I am or how I got here, Pharaoh Atemata—" nope, she did not remember what his name was. "Pharaoh?" she shortened, falling back on titles.
"I also use Atem," he offered, taking pity on her apparent difficulty with Egyptian names.
"Pharaoh Atem?" asked Ash.
He nodded. "Well, to answer your question," he continued, with a beatific smile, "you are dead."
That… was a possibility which hadn't occurred to her. It wasn't at all implausible, considering—well, a lot of things—but it could still be a dream. She'd hold onto that for as long as she possibly could.
"So, what does this mean for me?" asked Ash.
"I shall take you to have your heart weighed," answered the Pharaoh, "and after that, hopefully, the afterlife."
"Heart weighed... wait, I think I may have ended up in the wrong place," said Ash, suddenly concerned. "I'm an agnostic."
He shrugged. "The afterlife is always the same. We were simply the only ones to get it right."
"We, Mr. 'Worship Me Through Card Games'?" said Ash.
He coughed. "My people in general, not the royal 'we.'"
"Is that why you're the one ferrying new souls around?" asked Ash. "This is some sort of community service, maybe?"
The Pharaoh flashed her a friendly smile that immediately made Ash suspicious. "...would you, perhaps, like to swim there yourself?" he asked.
"Nevermind, most benevolent and seaworthy of Pharaohs," Ash said, scrambling her way onto the boat before her guide could change his mind. "Excelsior!"
He stepped into the boat and retrieved the oar, using it to set the ship on its course, and to guide it as the current picked up in the middle of the river.
"Crocodile!" hissed Ash, as she spotted the reptile, her face fixed into a rictus of terror.
"I see it," the Pharaoh assured her.
"Hippo, Hippo, Hippo…!"
"Yes, it is. Good for you. You appear to know your animal names."
"Ngh," she said, teeth clenched, holding the sides of the boat in a death-grip. "What sort of rainbow bridge nonsense—why are there animals, if this is supposed to be the afterlife?!"
"Why shouldn't there be?" asked Atem, not bothered in the least.
In spite of Ash's unnecessary flailing about, however, they eventually reached their destination. Ash was waved into a passageway as the Pharaoh turned the boat around, presumably to head back and pick up more lost souls.
Facing the cavernous halls of Maybe-The-Afterlife, Ash took a breath, squared her shoulders… then gave up on trying to be brave, and crept quietly down the hallway, making every effort to step softly against the stone floor. The only sounds that she could make out were distant and muted, and Ash found herself reluctant to disturb the silence.
She, eventually, emerged into a chamber containing a number of giant animal-headed figures, that definitely pinged her instincts as 'Egyptian,' but none of whom she could have named to save her life.
One of them was a mummy, it looked like. He sat upon a throne, watching the proceedings.
Standing by the scales, there was also a guy with a bird head, and next to him what looked like a bird woman, maybe? She seemed to like feathers, at least, but her head was human. On her other side was a guy with a dog's head.
And also, on the floor next to them, was a monstrosity. It was at least part crocodile and part lion, but there were other animals mixed in there as well. The sight of that last one gave Ash a sinking feeling, for some reason which she couldn't quite put her finger on.
Another soul already stood before the scales, who paused, briefly, to meet her gaze as she entered the chamber. After a moment, he returned his attention to the judges, without so much as a break in his running commentary on events.
His voice reverberated in an obnoxious, self-assured tone that sounded male, even if the entity himself resembled nothing so much as a triangle in a top hat. He looked like he could have been a video game antagonist, so ridiculous was his character design. But, apparently, fashion aesthetic wasn't a requirement for the afterlife. For, when the bird-guy placed his 'heart' on the set of scales (it just looked like a smaller triangle to Ash, but, hey, who was she to judge?), the weighing pan containing the heart leveled perfectly with the other pan, which held a feather.
"His heart balances," announced feather lady.
"You may go," decreed the mummy-king, from his throne.
"All right!" crowed the triangle. "Take that, every psychologist that I ever spoke to!" He laughed maniacally, as a door opened up through which light streamed. The being floated lazily through with both arms outstretched, his hands forming victory signs.
The doorway closed after him with an ominous thud.
"Next!" said the guy with the bird head, as he spotted her lurking in the doorway.
"Clara Hart," he read from a scroll, as she approached.
Ash nodded in acknowledgment that that was her legal name, and he went on.
"Died at age twenty," he read, "Cause of death: blunt trauma and blood loss. Has her heart been retrieved?" this last was said to the guy with a dog head.
A jar was quickly handed over, and the bird man sighed.
"Barbarian cultures," he muttered, "always burying corpses with the organs still in them, making things difficult for everyone..."
The woman nudged his arm. "At least this one wasn't cremated."
All three of them shuddered.
"Well then," said the bird man, and Ash decided that he was probably their stenographer and/or secretary, "Let's see what we have."
Ash was pretty sure that she remembered, now, how things would work. She'd read a picture book on Ancient Egypt once, when she was a kid. It seemed like your heart was weighed, and if it was found heavier than the 'feather of truth' then you'd get fed to the crocodiles? Or, in this case, the crocodile-lion-thing, it looked like. Triangle Man had been just able to balance and sneak through by the skin of his teeth, but ideally, one's heart should be lighter than the feather of truth.
Unfortunately, Ash had no idea what exact kind of 'truth' they would be measuring. Did they use a karmic scale? Physical and/or spiritual purity? Fealty to the Egyptian Gods during life? If that last one was it, then she was most certainly screwed.
The record-keeper placed her heart on the weighing dish, and the woman leaned forward with a critical eye to read the results.
The scales stopped with Ash's heart resting a good inch or two above the level of the feather.
She was just about to smile in relief, when she noticed the woman frowning at the scales.
"Another one for Ammit, it looks like," she said, with clinical detachment, and the great beast stretched its jaws in a yawn.
"Wait," said Ash, panicking. "I thought that my heart being lighter was a good thing!" Her picture books had lied to her? Well, granted, they were for kids, and that kind of thing was often censored, but...
"Being balanced is a good thing," the feather woman answered. "It isn't balanced to be an evil person... nor is it balanced to be a good one."
Ash shuddered. "I would like to wake up now."
"This is not a dream," said the guy with the bird head.
Ash backed herself into a corner and looked around desperately for something, anything, that might help… and not finding anything useful. The crocodile monster was standing now, and stretching, even as she tried to come up with a plan...
Instead of moving to attack her, however, Ammit just curled up and went back to sleep.
"What?" said Ash, only to see the bird-man facepalming.
"I don't know why we even bother, anymore," he complained. "We need a new executioner."
"Uh," said Ash, who'd been expecting for this to turn full-out nightmare and then, hopefully wake up, "Am I still going to be eaten?"
The woman was shaking her head. "One day he just stopped devouring souls, and none of us could ever figure out why." She sighed. "We've... had to develop ways to get around it." They all looked to the mummy-king for wisdom.
"Your soul has been symbolically devoured," said the King, "you are denied the afterlife until such time as you re-balance your traits and values. Maat will give you your assignment."
The feather woman nodded and got up from her place, flexing her arms, like a typist trying to avoid carpal tunnel. "Come on."
Ash followed, now completely unsure of anything.
"If we can't get rid of you, we may as well use you," Maat was saying, as she guided Ash through a series of corridors. "The spirit of the law calls for balance. If we can bring your soul back into acceptable parameters, then the problem is solved and we can send you on through, no problem."
"Um, Ms. Matt?" asked Ash.
"Maat," the feathered woman corrected.
"Right, sorry. So, does that mean I'll get to go back to Earth?"
"Yes," answered the woman, "but not Earth as you know it."
"What do you mean?" asked Ash.
"We pair you with a polar opposite," Maat explained, "Someone whose heart was heavier than the feather of truth. You will be roommates, and, during sleep, your souls will be tethered back to your chambers, so that you may speak with each other, dimming the light of your own heart, and brightening your partner's darkness, respectively."
Ash blinked. "And when we're not asleep?"
"You'll be sent to relive each other's lives, each in the other's body," said Maat.
Ash's face twisted in disgust, but, before she could say anything else, they were outside a door.
"The universe in which your counterpart lives is one which you might know as a work of fiction," said Maat. "I suppose I should ask, have you ever heard of a woman named Rebecca Sugar?"
"The Adventure Time composer?" said Ash, in surprise. "Well, I can't say it's my favorite show or anything, but I'm at least passingly familiar with the characters."
"Guess again."
"Um... did she work on Hotel Transylvania? I watched that one three or four times, for no reason that I can adequately explain."
"No," said Maat. "Try Steven Universe."
Ash paused. "Sugar worked on that show?"
"She was its creator."
"... why did you have to pick Steven Universe?"
Maat was surprised. "You aren't familiar with the story?"
"I've seen maybe a few episodes?" said Ash, massaging her temples through the growing headache. "It's not like I'll be completely in the dark. But if I had known ahead of time that I'd be going there, I'd have done a whole lot more research, I can tell you that."
"Interesting," said Maat. "We try to pair together compatible personalities. Usually, when this happens, the souls in question are very familiar with the universes that they're visiting. It gives them great advantage in accomplishing their goals."
"Where's the fun in that?" asked Ash, honestly bewildered at the prospect. Sure, she might have liked spoilers, but that didn't mean that they were the end-all be-all of enjoying fiction.
Maat frowned. "This is not meant to be 'fun.'"
"What am I doing there, anyway?" Ash asked. "Is there some special task that I'm needed for?"
"Needed?" asked Maat, in disapproval, "Child, balance depends on no one person or act: it's a process. This world would get along fine without you, and it would also be just fine with you in it. You are being sent there because of what you need from that world, not something that world needs from you."
"Huh."
The goddess looked amused. "Surely, you weren't expecting to be the center of the universe?"
A surprised laugh escaped her. "Well, when you say it like that, no," Ash admitted. "But, after all the escapist fantasy I've read? I always thought that, if I ever did go to another world, I'd at least have some special reason for it."
"In any case, this is where I leave you." said Maat. The door opened, and another woman, this one with what looked like a pillar on her heard, emerged. Ash thought, for a moment, that this was her assigned partner until the woman turned to Maat and spoke.
"The other one has been briefed," the woman said, and Maat nodded. Then, she turned to Ash.
"You have ten minutes to get to know each other, then you will be sent off to begin re-forging your own destinies."
With that, the two of them were gone.
Ash sighed, took a deep breath, and knocked on the door.
There was a long pause, and she was just raising her hand to knock again, a bit more forcefully, when a voice from inside the room called out, "Come in!"
Ash slowly opened the door to reveal what looked a lot like a one room apartment.
Inside was a girl who looked close to Ash's age, but not at all human. She was built a good deal more solidly than Ash was—her fingers nearly half as thick as Ash's wrist—and the other girl had more than a foot of height to her advantage.
Her skin was a mottled mess of camouflage patterns comprising three different colors: silvery-white, black, and a greenish-brown that Ash decided could charitably be called 'hazel.' She had no hair, and her eyes were faceted, like those of an insect. Though larger than a human's eyes, they were lidded, and the individual segments were as camouflaged as the rest of her, each segment being one of the same three colors as her skin. The only reason that Ash didn't hesitate in calling her female was the fact that she wore no shirt and had what were quite clearly breasts. For legwear, she wore parachute pants covered in pockets. She wore no shoes whatsoever.
But the centerpiece of the outfit was something that made Ash break out into a smile. It was a cape. A great, billowing floor-length cape that any Sith Lord would have been proud of. Though it had a camouflage pattern like the rest of her, the cape shimmered as she moved, as though covered in glitter.
A cape. A sparkly cape. Something that was clearly meant to attract attention… had been slapped over with a camouflage pattern and called perfect. The girl reminded Ash somewhat of the beetle-headed Khepri from a China Miéville novel that she'd once read to impress a teacher, and also of a butterfly-themed superhero.
The no-shirt thing bothered Ash a bit, but she decided right then and there that this was probably going to be someone that she could get along with.
When she entered into the room, the other girl's eyes widened in surprise, as though Ash was the last person she'd ever expected to see. "Clara Hart?" the girl asked, sounding utterly bewildered.
Ash was startled. "Do I know you?" she asked. She was sure that she didn't.
"I mean," Ash continued, "I was going to introduce myself as 'Ash,' but how do you even know my legal name?" She was immediately suspicious. Ash was a writer, and a writer wasn't worth her salt if she couldn't spot patterns.
It came to her in a flash of understanding: Matt had said that compatible personalities in this situation were usually already familiar with the world that they would be going to.
"My world is fictional in your universe," said Ash, "isn't it?"
The other girl did a double take, realization lighting her eyes as well. "Are you saying that my world is fictional in yours?"
Ash nodded. "An American animated series called, 'Steven Universe.' At least, according to Matt."
"Maat."
"Yeah, her."
The girl tapped her cheek thoughtfully. It sounded like the clinking of champagne flutes. "That... makes some amount of sense," she admitted, gathering herself as best she was able. "On my world, you are from a webcomic entitled, 'Four Stories Short.'"
Ash frowned. Assuming that this wasn't a dream, that would mean that she truly was dead. And four was the exact number of drafts that she had hidden away in her desk, back home. "That story's not about me, I take it?"
The girl shook her head. "Not directly. A guy named Jordan Mose was the protagonist... he accidentally killed you while trying to kill himself. He spends the rest of the story trying to atone by finishing your stories and getting them published. I died before the series ended, but I was following the updates pretty religiously."
"Atonement?" Ash's eyes narrowed. "I'm a martyr? A character written in so that someone else can feel bad about killing me? That's... I'm not sure if insulting is even a strong enough word..."
"Yeah," agreed the girl. "I could never really sympathize with the protagonist—too much man-pain—but I liked the concept of one writer finishing another's stories. And... man, I still can't get over it—a children's cartoon? I can't think of a single place I'd fit into a children's cartoon, unless I was a villain. But I wouldn't exactly say that I was opposed to the Crystal Gems, per se, so why...?"
"Beats me," said Ash, with a shrug. "I only ever saw the show when I had to babysit. I didn't see more than half a dozen episodes, and those out of order. What's your name?"
The girl smiled, wryly. "Legally? It's Muscovite," she said, and Ash resisted the urge to snicker. The girl's slight Russian accent seemed a lot more relevant now. She was most likely a villain, and a pun-themed one at that. "But," the girl continued, "well... 'Ash Hughes.' If the webcomic was accurate, then that's your pen name, correct?"
"Right," Ash agreed.
"Let's use those," said the girl. "Names that you choose yourself always carry more meaning." She held out a hand. "Nice to meet you, Ash Hughes. I'm Saino Moore—Sai for short."
She was a writer, too? Ash smiled nervously and clasped the girl's hand. It was cool to the touch, but that didn't matter. In the midst of all this strangeness, she'd found a kindred spirit.
That was when the world went dark and Ash woke up in a body that wasn't hers.