The Wrong Kind of Immortality

“You’re being a bad influence!” Orestis said to Eleuthera.

Eirene could tell that only part of it was annoyance. There was some embarrassment, as well as some discomfort. Not altogether unexpected after that recent display.

“I’m being a wonderful influence,” Eleuthera said, popping it into her mouth. “Eirene is learning the value of observation.”

“More like the value of spectacle,” Orestis deadpanned.

“Says the subject of the spectacle.”

They continued like that—the familiar rhythm of two people who had known each other for a thousand years and had long since stopped pretending to be civil about it. Eleuthera prodded. Orestis deflected. Neither of them meant any of it, and both of them meant all of it.

Eirene watched them and said nothing.

Her mind was elsewhere.

She had heard everything. Every word of the exchange between Orestis and Maxim, from the first grab to the last accusation. The contents had been surprising—but not too much. She had already known about the regression—just not that it was a recurring thing. She had also known he was enormously powerful in his previous life. Just not that he’d been immortal.

So most of what she’d heard changed little. None of it was shocking—it only confirmed things she already suspected. Although, one revelation had hit harder than expected.

Orestis wanted to die.

She had known that too, in a sense. He had said it himself, months ago: ‘I have no interest in being in this world longer than I have to.’ She had filed those words and revisited them more than once, turning them over, trying to decide whether they were philosophical or literal.

Turns out, he was being quite literal.

Maxim had said it casually, as established fact—and Orestis hadn’t denied it. Instead, he had said ‘I can die in peace’ with the tone of someone describing a reasonable goal.

That settled in a place she hadn’t been prepared for.

She looked at him—arguing with a goddess about popcorn and bad influence, his expression carrying the particular exasperation he reserved for Eleuthera. He looked… fine. Normal. Like an insufferable divine companion was the biggest problem he faced in life.

But she had also watched Orestis stab a man in the throat, just to get him to stop talking. And she had watched the man pull the blade out and continue as if it had meant nothing. A curse, they had called it.

Maxim’s complaints had been crude and petty—but the underlying condition was not. No pain, but also no comfort. Touch registering as pressure without warmth. No physical pleasure. A body that functioned perfectly and felt like a prison.

Eirene tried to imagine it. She couldn’t. To have immortality without sensation, without fulfilment, without end—it would surely wear on a person. And Orestis had lived with that for a thousand years.

Except, he did not have that curse anymore.

The thought arrived with a quiet clarity. The curses had switched. Which meant Orestis could feel again—had been able to feel since the regression sent him back.

That gave new perspective to certain things. Like how much he seemed to enjoy food—especially pastries. She thought about his mother’s cooking, and how he always seemed to genuinely enjoy it. She had always assumed the quiet contentment was part of his personality.

Now, she realised it wasn’t personality; it was novelty. It was the behaviour of someone appreciating something they had been deprived of for a very long time.

That also raised the question of what else he’d been deprived of. Emotional connections, certainly. He didn’t care about people in general—she had noted that long ago. But the people inside his circle received something fierce and absolute. As if he was terrified of losing them.

It showed in how he responded against those he considered threats to their well-being. Most would agree that building and executing a plan to dismantle a temple—for something that he remembered from a thousand years in the past—was excessive.

There was also the other thing; Maxim had called him evil—someone who’d hold people hostage. And Orestis had leaned into that perception, using it as leverage. And yet, Eirene hadn’t failed to notice that when he raised his hand in warning, it had been directed almost exactly opposite from where she was standing.

Eirene regarded Maxim.

He was watching the exchange between Orestis and Eleuthera, his head tilted, his arms folded—the posture of someone trying to reconcile the screaming lunatic from five minutes ago with the man now arguing about snack food with a beautiful woman.

Orestis had called him a hero.

That Maxim was powerful, she had no doubt. Devoted to his goddess. And persistent, since he could continue to fight the same person for over three centuries. But, just based on his comment about spitting, he didn’t seem very bright. Which made his judgement insufficient, regardless of how long they’d known each other.

Whatever Orestis had been before, he had chosen differently this time. The regression didn’t just send his soul back—it gave him a second chance to be different. She might not have known him as long, but she had seen his actions. He protected his family. He helped Eirene because she asked. In his own deeply understated way, he was acting as someone his parents wouldn’t be ashamed of. That mattered.

Maxim noticed her gaze and turned towards her. He smiled.

It was a good smile. Practised, warm, and deployed with the timing of someone who had spent centuries calibrating its effect. He walked toward her with the easy confidence of a man who had rarely been turned away from anything.

“I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” he said. “I’m Maxim.”

“Eirene,” she said.

“That’s a beautiful name. Is it—”

“Thank you. It means peace.”

She did not elaborate. The response was pleasant, but final. Not cold; just complete. There was nowhere for the compliment to go.

Eirene had been dealing with men who thought charm was a substitute for substance ever since she was old enough to attend trade dinners. Maxim was admittedly better-looking than most of them, but the underlying dynamic was familiar.

She had also heard his complaints during the earlier argument. A habitual womaniser—she was completely unmoved.

Maxim blinked, but the smile didn’t falter in the least. “I understand. Mine was not the best first impression, was it?”

Then his gaze moved to Eleuthera. She and Orestis had both stopped bickering at this point. Orestis was watching with that flat, unimpressed expression of his. The goddess, on the other hand, had the appreciative amusement of someone who found mortals endlessly entertaining.

Eirene saw the shift in Maxim’s attention. The pivot from her to Eleuthera was seamless—no pause, no recovery time, no apparent awareness that immediately moving on to the next woman might reflect poorly on the sincerity of his interest.

“And who might you be?” he asked, turning the full weight of his smile on the goddess.

That was unexpected. It seemed that Maxim had apparently never met Eleuthera before. And since Eleuthera was actively suppressing her divinity at the moment, he probably thought of her as just another mortal woman.

Eleuthera’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “I’m a friend of Eirene’s.”

“A friend with excellent taste in snacks,” Maxim replied.

“And excellent taste in entertainment.”

“A woman of standards. I respect that.”

Eleuthera looked like she was enjoying herself immensely. Eirene could tell that the goddess was allowing the situation to develop because the eventual payoff would be spectacularly amusing for her.

However, Eirene had a feeling that the goddess was about to be disappointed. She glanced at Orestis. He was watching the exchange with the look of someone who had seen enough stupidity for one day.

Sure enough, Orestis intervened. “That’s Eleuthera you’re flirting with.”

Maxim’s smile finally slipped. But only for a moment. Then it returned, smoother than before. “My Goddess always spoke well of you. Now I see why.”

“You’re no fun,” Eleuthera sighed, giving Orestis a look of dissatisfaction. “I wanted to see how far he’d go before Lyse started smiting him.”

Orestis paused to consider that. “Actually, that would have been amusing to watch.”

Eleuthera raised a finger, putting on an exaggeratedly sage expression. “Let this be a lesson to you: things are always more interesting when you go along with me.”

Orestis rolled his eyes. “Regardless, we have things to do.” He turned to go, then paused and glanced back at Maxim. “You can go back to whatever you were doing.”

Maxim ignored that. Instead, he fell into step beside them, uninvited. “You know, this is somewhat awkward for me too. Why don’t you just kill yourself again so we can start over?”

Orestis looked at him sideways. “How would me dying help you, exactly? You wouldn’t remember anything. You’d just make the same mistakes all over again.”

Maxim waved it off. “That won’t be a problem. I also get dragged back every time you regress.”

Orestis stopped walking.

Eirene watched his expression shift—subtle, but unmistakable. It was the look of someone revising old assumptions and fitting the pieces into a new, more coherent picture.

“The curses didn’t just switch,” he said slowly. “They’re also connected.”

“That seems to be the case,” Maxim said. “Although, I’m not sure why I get dragged back in time physically.”

Orestis did not answer. He was staring at nothing, his thoughts visibly turning inward. Eirene could see the implications cascading behind his eyes—each one spawning three more.

If the curses were linked, then the regression wasn’t just Orestis’s problem. Every time he died, Maxim was dragged back too—physically, to whatever point the regression was set to. Two people, bound together across timelines by curses from identical shrines on different continents.

The implications of that were staggering.

“Actually,” Maxim added, “while you’re at it, why don’t you die twice? Make it a nice, even number.”

Orestis looked up from his ruminations. “What are you talking about?”

“Well, since we switched curses, you’ve died two hundred and ninety-eight times. Two more and it’s a clean three hundred. Much tidier number.”

Orestis frowned slightly, as if checking the figure against memory.

“… Two hundred and ninety-eight,” he repeated.

Eirene felt something tighten in her chest. She knew, without needing to be told, that those deaths had not been accidents or the result of battle.

He had killed himself that many times? She couldn’t even begin to comprehend what could drive someone to go that far.

Orestis then said, “That seems low. Did I miss something?”

Eirene stared at him.

Low. He thought that number was low.

That was when Eleuthera leaned in, suddenly interested. “You were testing out different methods? Did you ever try feeding yourself to a kraken?”

“Yes,” Orestis said, as if confirming a trivial detail.

“Jumping into a spatial rift?” the goddess asked.

“Obviously. That was one of the first things I tried.”

And then, Maxim also felt the need to chip in. “What about being crushed by a mountain?”

“Tried that, too.”

Eirene listened with a sense of alienation. The conversation was absurd—darkly, horribly absurd. The three of them were discussing methods of suicide with the casual familiarity of people comparing travel experiences.

These were not hypothetical scenarios; they were actual memories. Each one represented a moment where Orestis had been desperate enough to try, cursed to revive, and stubborn enough to try again.

Then Orestis said, “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m not killing myself again. I’d lose too much.”

Eirene stilled. Those words changed the context. Completely.

Orestis had just admitted—even if only indirectly—that there was something in this life that he valued enough not to die for.

Maxim nodded. “Yeah. I know what you mean. Some things are almost impossible to replicate, no matter how perfectly you try to repeat things.”

Orestis resumed walking, already moving past the moment, likely not realising what his words truly meant—as always. To him, it was just a practical calculation; loss versus gain—the arithmetic of dying.

Eirene thought about what that really meant—what Orestis would be unable to get back.

There was nothing material that he’d regret losing. No wealth. No possessions. His family business, the Consortium affiliation, the artefacts—all of those were replaceable. He’d built them once; he could build them again.

So what did he have to lose? The connections he’d built up with people? His relationship with his parents would survive regression—they would always be his parents, and he would always protect them.

But what about their friendship?

Eirene thought about how it started. While the initial meeting had been arranged by her father, the actual friendship had developed from a chance discovery—notes in the margins of a book in his library.

Would she notice them again? Would Orestis make the same corrections, leave the same notes, say the same things? Would she even visit the library? Would her father bring her to the Stathis house on the right day?

So many of the moments that built their friendship had been coincidence. If any one of those coincidences changed, the entire chain would break.

And that was just their relationship. Who else would he miss?

Eirene looked at Eleuthera. Perhaps the goddess was a stretch. At most, he tolerated her presence—but there were times they seemed to get along.

There was also an archivist that Orestis talked to occasionally, but she wouldn’t really call them friends. None of the people he worked with were truly close to him either.

Actually, now that she thought about it, he didn’t have anyone else that he truly valued. His circle consisted of only his parents—and her.

Which meant that—at least for now—the only thing he had no guarantee of replicating was his friendship with her. It left her with a quiet warmth, knowing that he’d regret losing it.

She glanced over at Orestis. He and Maxim were engaged in another discussion.

Orestis might have said that he wanted to die. But there was a part of him that was starting to find reasons not to.

Eirene smiled.

She would help him find more reasons. And she was going to make certain he lived a long and meaningful life.

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