The Immortal Ox Rider - part 5 (final part)

The young man had always been a young man. Though he had lived longer than any being, he would forever be a young man. The cycles of the world were his own invention, so they could not affect him as they did all else. He may step in and out of the cycles as he willed, or walk alone outside of them completely.

Other ancient beings had often mocked his vision, refusing to see sense in the constant recycling of materials when they were all powerful enough to make things new. None saw his method as correct, but all were powerless against it.

The first time the young man met someone who truly understood his views, he made them his friend. His friend had shared bread with him, and loved to discuss the cycles of the world, though he did not know they were the young man’s own invention. Before stepping away from that particular cycle, the young man promised to give his friend all he ever asked for. His friend had asked offhandedly to “live a long life” but the young man took this oath seriously, and removed his friend from the cycle of life, so it would become a straight onward line instead.

His friend was never any good at asking for things, though. He had been a knight, and of excellent temper, born with all he wished for and the will to get anything he wanted with his power alone. It was entirely possible that his friend did not take the young man’s offer seriously.

The next time his friend asked for something it was after he had grown into a very old man, and he requested that his body not age any more, lest he lose his eyesight.

The request was granted.

It was another long time before there was another request, which had been for the help of an ox to pull a cart filled with the dead.

Easily granted.

The young man would wonder over and over why the old man never asked for help when he dug hundreds of graves for plague victims, but if his friend wanted to do these things for himself then the young man did not want to impose.

The old man asked for fire, so the young man used lightning to set a straw hut ablaze.

The young man felt pleasure in granting these things, and was glad that over all these years his friend had lived, he remained so happy. But the young man was also troubled. Why did his friend never ask to see him? Did he not remember him?

The young man had put himself back into the cycles to assist his friend close up, becoming a great ox, and spending months with his friend cleaning a town of corpses.

After giving his friend the fire, his friend had called out to him as an ox. The young ox was not asked to give heat to his friend, but being so close by and seeing how hard his friend had worked with such a frail body, he was stubborn and laid next to his friend, even pulling a blanket from his back to drape over that old man.

And then his friend made another request. A request to travel. The young man hesitated slightly. When they first met, both young men at the time, they had often spoken of an urge to travel together. The young man at last accepted, though granting this request felt more like a selfish indulgence to travel with his friend at long last.

Two more requests made at the very start of their journey, for the ox to stay young as long as it lived, and to live until their journey ended, were perfectly in line with the young man's own wishes. Though the old man had complained about the state of his own aged body, and boasted about how he looked as a young man, he never asked to be young again.

The young man could only conclude that his friend enjoyed being an old man, and so he would not interfere with this.

His old friend had been an apt storyteller when they first met, and so began telling a story to the ox as they walked to their first destination. Surprisingly, it was the story of how the friends had first met. An ox did not have the same capacity for expressions that a human did, and so the young man managed to conceal his delight. His friend truly did remember him! Not only that, he remembered every word they spoke to each other, though this was over 200 years ago. This was the perfect memory of an excellent storyteller. The young man felt pride on his friends behalf.

Still, even after speaking about him, and visiting the spot where they had first met, his friend did not ask for him. Was his fate to be remembered but not missed? He was not as free spirited as his friend, who could brush aside all worries with “no matter” and remain positive. Young men are passionate, and the line between love and obsession can easily be blurred through passion.

As the two travelled together and the young man heard all the stories of the old man’s other friends, his ache and obsession only grew. His friend never asked to see any of the others either. Did friendship really mean so little to him? That it could be forgotten after death? That you could say “no matter” this and “no matter” that and enjoy yourself even without those friends in your life?

To care for someone like this was painful, but the young man endured it. He would endure anything for his friend, even if it was a thankless endeavour.

Besides, living as an ox, he was blessed again with the friendship of that old man. And this time it was much longer than the brief years they spent as young men, for this journey spanned a millennium.

The young man was more than happy to continue for another millennium, but his friend had decided to return home at long last. On the way back they once more walked through the place where the two had first met, and the old man didn't seem to bat an eye.

When they reached the point that marked the end of their journey, which had changed at the last moment because the original spot no longer existed, the ox fulfilled his request and died.

The young man stepped back out of the cycles and into his true form, watching what his old friend would do now. What he saw was truly confusing.

Had the young man not granted all his friend ever asked? Why, then, did the old man fall to his knees and sob, begging for bread, looking like a truly broken and wretched soul. Bread was handed to him by some young girl, so the young man did not need to grant this request. But the old man only sobbed harder, spitting out the bread and disgracing his face in the dirt on the road. Lost in his despair, the old man cried out the name of the young man, and had said the words “come back to me now”.

The young man could not watch any longer. He called out to his friend in the way he had for a thousand years. A thousand years as an ox. Who could not speak. This meant three quick scratches on the ground with the back foot.

The old man froze, recognising the address but not yet turning to look. The young man realised he was no longer an ox, and could at last speak the name aloud, the name he held in his heart all this time.

At that, the old man finally turned fully, and saw the young man. “Ah…” he said, recognising the man instantly of course. Though the old man recognised his friend, he was mostly lost to the throws of delirium after losing the one companion he had for so long, and was fairly convinced he was just seeing things. “You will still give me all that I ask for?”

“Of course,” the young man said, elated that his friend had at last asked to see him.

“Then kill me.”

The young man froze. From elated to enraged in an instant. They were still in a fairly public space, so the young man grabbed his old friend and cycled them together to a time when this place was deserted. The old man looked around. “Is this death?”

“Of course not,” the young man spat, anger and anguish fighting for dominance within him. “Never. Never that. Not you. You can never die.”

“But why?” the old man pleaded, his sanity returning somewhat as his own sadness shifted to a form of anger. “The cycles of the world are absolute! All my friends are part of this, they have all died and been reborn uncountable times, yet I alone cannot. All I ask is to be with them once more!”

“Be with them?”

“Yes!”

“You think dying would accomplish that?”

“Wouldn't it? Surely my friends have looked for me, but until I join them in the cycles I won't be able to meet them.”

“I see. You believe you would remember your friends in the next life?”

“Of course! My memory knows no equal. I could never forget my friends.”

“You forgot me.”

“What? I never forgot you! Did I not remember you instantly?”

“You remembered this form. But simply cycling into the form of an ox made me invisible to you. I, who was the only one by your side for a thousand years, was still forgotten. How do you hope to recognise the reincarnation of a friend?”

The old man had no words. The storyteller had no words. The ox was…? All this time?

“With your memory as good as it is, even you do not remember what you were before this. You only remember that before you were an old man you were a young man, and before you were a young man you were a child. But what of the life before that? And before that?”

“... Before that… ?”

“For one so devoted a believer of my cycles, did you truly believe this life to be your first?”

“So then… did you know me in my other lives?”

“Of course not. And I'm thankful I didn't. To be befriend in one life and forgotten in the next – what Hell would that be to me, the only one who can remember? Your other lives are not truly you. To be reborn is to be changed. It comes, it grows, it goes… and it comes back different. Have you not seen the world by now? The town in which you once lived is gone, and while there is life near this spot, it is not the life you knew. Those who are dead stay dead. While life continues, it is not the same life.”

The old man lowered his eyes and shook his head, trying to make sense of this revelation. Did it not… make perfect sense? How could he have missed something so obvious? For one so old, he had grown no wiser. Still, at heart, an optimistic knight who would befriend an opposing warrior on the battlefield, and ask for nothing. Really, truly, at heart, still just a young man who had seen a friend he thought gone long ago. When anger and confusion and sadness faded, wasn't he in fact the happiest he had ever been? Even his ox… the one he valued most in all his life, had been his lost friend all along.

“I see…” the old man spoke at last, letting the young man catch his breath and wipe his frustrated eyes. “Say, old friend. You would not grant what I asked, so why not let me grant you something instead? What would you like?”

The young man’s eyes widened. His friend was truly a bit stupid, to still need to ask. After thinking it over, the young man decided to put a twist on the words his friend had spoken to him a long time ago, back when he was an ox. “I would like to travel. Even if you have objections, please accompany me. I can't say how long it will take, but I promise to treat you well. You must stay by my side.”

The old man felt his throat tighten, and he used his shaking hands to try and tidy his appearance a little. “Travelling may be difficult without the ox…” the old man mumbled in some humour.

The young man furrowed his brow. “I let you ride my back for a thousand years and never spoke a word, so now… Now won't you let me talk to you for a thousand more?”

And so their journey began anew.