nexus_crossings | A Strange Afterlife

A Strange Afterlife

It had to be impossible. He could feel his skin. A pulse beat under his neck. He stood in front of a store window and regarded his reflection in the glass. Same black leather outfit. Same brown trench-coat. The fabric weight down on him and he rubbed his arms as he tried to figure out what was going on. A wandering spirit had doors to enter and exit when it came to the world of the living, but he'd never achieved something like this. It was alien and wrong and he had no idea where anyone was.

Mantis sighed, marveling quietly at the way his chest rose and fell with his breathing. It didn't matter. He'd keep moving and hope for the best. If this was some punishment for a misstep, he knew exactly who to take it up with.

"Sorrow!" Even his voice carried an echo. Mantis pointed himself into a new direction and began to walk. "What did I do this time, old man?"

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"Into the future? Reliably so?" the Prince asks, leaning closer now, even if Mantis had died before.

That's not certain, anyway.

"Not completely, but what I do see is pretty telling at times. I don't have a way of really controlling what part of the future I'll see outside of broad strokes, so what I see might not make sense to either of us."

"Hmm. I'll think on that. Until we meet again, perhaps. As this place seems small enough that we probably shall meet again," Lotor replies, after a moment.

"I'm learning this place gets all types. No one where I come from looks quite the way you do." That said, he's becoming very curious about the non-human residents of this strange place.

"And where do you come from?" the prince asks. "With the mask, it's a bit hard to tell, you must admit."

"I'm from Earth. Never so much as set foot off the planet." A thought crosses his mind and he makes a thoughtful kind of noise. "What do you call your species?"

"I see, like the Paladins of Voltron," Lotor replies.

"I'm an Altean."

"From the planet Altea? It must have been something unique to make your face look the way it does."

Half and half, but his Altean half seen as something not to speak about much, or not to speak at all about if he was to listen to his father, and maybe that was one of the reasons that over the centuries he came to cherish the Altean heritage - because he definitely didn't want to be like his father, but rather like his mother, from what he knew of her and her people - this was one of the first time Lotor's introduced himself to a non-Altean stranger as an Altean.

Somehow, he liked it. It was true, as much as if he introduced himself as a Galra, but it was a unique experience to him. And perhaps it was more honest, because, truly, he sometimes hated the Galra Empire, his tyrannical father's Empire, but he cherished all the information he could find on Altea.

He nods.

"Yes. My mother was from Altea."

"Did you arrive here in Nexus alone? Strangely, it seems as if most people did. I'm glad it wasn't the case for me."

Mantis can't be quite that proud of his species. If anything, he's been consistently disappointed in humans as a whole. It's only rare exceptions that made life bearable while his heart was still beating.

"I don't even remember how I ended up wandering into this place. I was lingering with the other dead people."

Lotor suddenly can't help but wonder, and ask-

"Where do the dead ones linger?"

The Galra have their beliefs as to the afterlife, and so did the Alteans, but he's never sure how much credence can there be, if any.

Mantis has to pause physically and mentally to process that question and how to explain his situation.

"It's like...people linger just to one side of the living world. People like The Sorrow could see from the living to the other side and now that he is on the other side, he's stronger than ever. Not everyone lingers and not everyone lingers forever. You get tired or move on completely right away."

"Is lingering beneficial or harmful?"

There's... some raw honesty that's palpable, all of a sudden, in the question.

Whatever else, Lotor truly wishes to know this, or wished to, for sure.

"Depends? Some linger because they cannot understand that they have died. Some seek revenge for a great pain that led to their demise. I wanted to watch the man who killed me die. Everyone who lingers has a reason, even if they don't know what it is."

Even with a petty revenge being wrought, Mantis himself is far too aware in death for a simple act like that to be enough.

He just listens intently, then finally replies,

"I wonder why I haven't met anyone like you a few hundred years ago."

"Nevermind, that's fine. Your answer's much appreciated."

"The dead are hard to hear and to see when you're still alive. Even when you're dead, it's hard to find others like you unless you have someone guiding you like a medium."

He's got his arms crossed, but he can't help but wonder what brought up such a specific kind of thought.

The prince nods. Somehow, it makes sense it'd be difficult. That's disappointing, but somehow, not too surprising.

"I hope," he adds, more polite and affably official sounding than a moment ago, "that I did not bring about any unpleasant memories. Such is not my intention."

Even with all the shields around Lotor's mind, it's surely almost obvious that Lotor's thoughts are mostly elsewhere than with such concerns.

"Hardly. I've been dead for over ten years. I've had enough time to get used to it. There's rarely anything else to do." Mantis shakes his head. "Save apologies for where they're needed."

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A Strange Afterlife

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