Demon Lord Shapeshifting System

Harker had experienced something quite similar to having a fever dream. Or if he had experienced taking drugs, he would have more accurately compared it to a bad trip.

Time moved in a weird and nonlinear manner. And it's not just hopping from one memory to the next. It scattered everywhere, these small moments, and they could happen all at once, or not at all.

The events that did make an impression on him enough to remember even after he woke up all shared a common factor. They were the moments with Edmund, and the moments right after his passing.

"Would you look at that, my love? Orion's belt. The Christians sometimes call it the Three Kings. The Chinese call it Shen, a western mansion of the White Tiger. In other European mythologies it could be a god's sword or distaff." Edmund said.

They were on the deck of the ship, probably Edmund's ship. It was anchored to the port, and they were simply stargazing and basking in the moonlight alone there.

He had his arms around Joan, who chuckled softly. "You know a lot about the myths behind these stars, I thought you seafarers simply use Orion's belt as a guide for direction. Did you learn all that in your travels?"

Edmund shook his head. "Haha, no. I am too focused on the local flora and fauna to pay attention to beliefs and legends. I learned all of this from Henry."

"Ah, no wonder. That Henry is an intelligent man. It is a wonder how he became a private ship's quartermaster rather than work with the Queen's navy though."

"Hah, I wouldn't know. Henry has his own reasoning for things ever since we were a child that people may not agree on. It's a part of him that I'm used to, his secretive nature." Edmund told her. "Anyway, isn't it fascinating how a group of three stars could have so many names, so many identities…. while we humans are often restricted to one?"

"You want to change your identity?" She asked.

"Haha, no. I just fancied that thought of a world that can reconcile with someone having multiple all at once. For example, I am an English gentleman. Certainly, for my father is." He said softly. "But I am also a negro in their eyes. And yes, I am a negro. My mother is African, and so I too, am African. Both are in my veins, black and white."

Edmund sighed. "I suppose what I am conveying with this ramble is that…. It is so hard for people to understand that humans can be one thing, and it doesn't necessarily mean that they are not the other. That we may exist in between, be in shades of gray."

Joan agreed. Though she hasn't experienced it herself, being in between…. She could certainly agree with the fact that people do have a hard time seeing nuances in things. They would rather forcefully group everything into neat little boxes than acknowledge those that don't fit.

"A double life is truly difficult. One foot in heaven, one foot in hell." Joan said. "That's how people see it for me, but what they believe as 'heaven' and 'hell' are often switched up. They believe that my travels to help the sick was 'hell', while staying at home and fattening up in muffins all day was my 'heaven'."

Edmund chuckled. "Are you saying that you are in heaven when you are with me, then?"

"More than heaven. Possibly the only place that I want to be in, that I want to exist. By your side." She said, kissing his neck.

The memories flashed of their walks together, their fights with one another, their times making love, the laughter, the tears.... It was making Harker's vision swim. Not just because everything was showing up so fast…..

But because he can't disconnect himself from the image of the man embracing Joan.

On their last day together, the day Edmund went for that trip, Joan clung on tightly to him. Not wanting to let go.

Edmund hugged her back, whispering softly a quote of some sort. Harker doesn't know where it was from, but he will remember it forever.

"The Guide and I entered the hidden road, returning to the bright world. " He said.

Joan answered back, tears in her eyes. "Till we lay witness to the beauty Heaven doth bear, coming forth to rebehold the stars."

Edmund caressed her cheek with his own. "Do not think of the Far North as hell, my fair Lady. And even if it was, I will return. My Beatrice."

"Hell is here, without your presence." She answered back, inconsolable.

The hesitation in Edmund's eyes was evident. He wasn't sure whether to stay or go, but in the end, he parted with his beloved…

And never returned, breaking his promise.

After that, Joan felt like she was traveling an endless, dark road. There was no destination, no way out. Only phases of various torments that never end. There was her own death, there was her almost death, and there was the present.

Where she poisons herself day by day with drugs and alcohol. But she still never reached the end of that road.

At the end of that road, Edmund could be waiting for her. But at the same time, there could be nothing. She would become nothing. But she had long already felt that way, so that kind of end doesn't faze her.

If only she had a Guide to that end…..

And there he was. Harker saw himself, the actual him. A memory that was clearer and more vivid than the rest.

Seeing himself in Joan's eyes was more than strange. But it was also something ineffable, something that cannot be explained yet has left an impression on him like how this dream had, and the dreams he had before that made a mark on his heart.

Why is it that in his dreams, everything felt more palpable, more vivid, more…. real?

He was so devastated about waking up that he felt a hot tear on his cheek. But he wiped it away, and had to welcome the new morning.

But Joan was no longer by his side.

All that was left was the impression of her, like a dream that haunts you, wishing that you can have it back.