The Art of the Small (III)

"… You know what? Fuck it. I agree to your terms. Let's do it."

The Web moved suddenly, two windows coming to the fore and rushing forward to pass over him, the world they projected between their threads covering him like thin film. Both painted in his mind a vivid image of a downed spaceship in America, Missouri. Then he fell in.

In one that repeated countless and countless times with various variations, the shipwreck was salvageable and J'Son of Spartax had a brief, torrid fling with Meredith Quill before erasing the memory of his time together and leaving. In all of them, Peter wound up as a space outlaw eventually. Peter Quill. Star-Lord. Every last one of those timelines was a life relived. And in almost all of them, he and his father became bitter enemies.

In the second web gap that only varied once, J'Son of Spartax crash-landed and did not have a fixable wreck left behind. The situation proved so upsetting as to drastically affect the extent to which he bonds with Meredith. Or rather doesn't, in the beginning. The extent and also the timing – the time and place of their first coupling is delayed by a month and a day. Different time. Different seed. Different ovum. Different child gets born. Meredith the younger is begotten instead of the boy. No age-old history. No reincarnation. No old soul.

Fast forward several decades and a year, Ego descends from on high to lay with the man's daughter. He leaves her with kind lies and a mortal illness. And so is finally born the boy into the world.

Peter Jason Quill relived all of the lives he ever lived, from the first all the way to the last. The same way he'd tripped his way into doing before. Except not on the whole. The fast-forward of his re-experience decelerated abruptly just as Ego drove his arms and his feelers straight into his body and… and… and he didn't touch his soul at all, now did he?

Star-Lord crashed up through his eight-year-old body and then lashed awake, lunging from flat to sitting abruptly. His mother and father jumped to their feet at the sight, made aborted attempts to close in and speak, then they froze at the sight of him. Whatever it was they could see in him. On him. Of him. He sat half-covered in woollen quilts and sheets of linen, but his body felt bottomless and his eyes were skies and full of stars.

Two worlds and moments melded around him, his bedroom at the Overlook interposed by the hall where he'd been shown the All, way back on Ego's world. He could see it overlaying everything around him. He could see even Ego now, his arms and tendrils stabbing through him but not really. Not here. Not now. Not again.

Yet.

He could almost see what Ego saw too, of space and substance and motion and change that always left everything behind other than him. Could almost remember it. Was on the verge to. Would soon do. Ego didn't have eyes that could see small enough. Peter did. Ego hadn't read Alice in Wonderland either, to know that a smaller head meant smaller eyes and better seeing the smaller things in life you'd otherwise miss out on. Peter hadn't read Alice in Wonderland either, but he had a mother who'd done it for him. His issue had never been a lack of perspective, unlike his father in this life.

Yao portaled into the room, but Star-Lord didn't pay him mind. Not yet. Instead he looked at his mother and then his grandfather. He thought about the two of them. He thought about how his mama always talked about Ego like he was a gift from God himself. He remembered that grandpa was more likely to believe he was the devil incarnate instead.

He looked between his grandfather and the Ancient One then. "I've been thinking," he said. The three reacted inconsistently. Somewhat. Maybe it was Peter's voice. Even to his ears it seemed strangely resonant. "I've thought about how we all wound up in the same place. About everything you've done since then. Everything you told me. Taught me. Decided about me. Decided for me."

All the while he never even thought to say no.

His mother tensed and clasped her hands over her chest, disturbed and frightened.

His grandfather, on the other hand, suddenly relaxed entirely.

Because of course he wouldn't be worried about repercussions for that from him. Why would he? It wasn't these people he was rebelling against. It was Ego. And Yondu. And everything else that was wrong in his life. That was the whole point wasn't it?

Until one becomes conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.

Funny thing, though, was that people did a lot of stuff subconsciously too.

Fuck Yondu and Ego and every other piece of shit in his life, seriously. If there was anything he kept out of this DMT experience, it was that, of everyone who'd ever claimed a paternal role in his existence, his grandfather was the only one among them worthy. It was something he'd only intuited before, when he latched onto the new status quo built on that truth and never looked back.

He looked back now, and he found that his resolve was the same.

But he had some extra clarity now too, and there were other truths that wanted out as well. "You wish to use me."

"Yes," grandpa said. "But I've no plans to." It was true. He was not planning to do any such thing regardless of how much he wanted to. Because he remembered his past lives too and was long past being that person.

"No," Yao said, almost at the same time. "But I might agree to." It was also true. As true as him having no qualms about striking some sort of deal with him, depending on where he rose to. Or, failing that, aiming him at something.

Star-Lord continued to behold them. Unblinking. "You want me to become your trump card."

"Yes," Yao said.

"No," Grandpa said.

Peter blinked and focused on him, surprised.

"I want you to be a wild card, son," the man said frankly. "Isn't that what you've always wanted?"

Were they finally asking him? What he wanted? "… I want to be free."

"Then you need ultimate power."

The overlay of his other life wavered. The afterimage of Ego almost shattered like glass. A field of stars looked upon him from behind the eyes of the Ancient One before him. And Peter Quill almost fell out of the dual trance in his surprise. He stared at the grim but settled face of his grandfather. His father no matter what else he was in this life. "What?"

"From the boy, man. From manhood, duty. From duty, honor. From honor, glory. From glory, influence. From influence, authority. From authority, responsibility. From none, worthlessness. From some, dependence. From all, devotion, valour, reverence! But only from strength does freedom spring." That… that was a creed, wasn't it? Or maybe Dad had just made it up on the spot. He actually was that kind of person. And he looked at him then, intense and full of conviction like he'd never seen him. "From the boy grows the man, son. And man must grow mighty."

Whoa. That was deep.

He turned to look at his mother expectantly.

Meredith Quill looked like a deer that had just miraculously survived being run over by a truck. "Er… Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind?"

Peter blinked. He rather felt like he'd tumbled down in a bewilderment.

"Well it's all a bit out of nowhere, don't you think?" His mother said defensively. Or fairly sniffled, to be fair. "Until just a minute ago I thought you were dying!"

Maybe Ego wasn't the only one with no idea what he was doing.

"Boy…" The Ancient One finally addressed him, looking him over with eyes beyond the flesh. This was the part where he would demand to know what he had done and dealt with and agreed to do and sold his future for- "What are you waiting for?"

Or maybe he should really stop making assumptions and articulate whatever idea had popped into his head. "I don't know…"

"Peter Jason Quill," the sorcerer called, forcing him to refocus in the now. "What is on your mind? Use short words. Simple ones."

Okay? Unfortunately, you only wondered when you didn't know what you were getting at. Or how to get at it. Or both, which was certainly the case here. "I'm wondering about life, power and time."

Mom and Dad looked even more lost than he was, for once.

Yao, though, looked thoughtful. "There is a stream of consciousness that comes to mind. With your permission, I shall articulate it."

He suddenly wanted his permission? Well, okay. "Go on then."

"Whether through death, ascension or whatever else, a soul eventually awakens on its own plane of the Astral. When it does so, it often finds it difficult to realize that it is not alive in the flesh, and often much time is required before it realizes its true condition. Then it begins to manifest an interest in its surroundings, and pays many visits on its own and other planes, renewing old acquaintances and relationships and manifesting the activities quite natural for a human being under such circumstances. Other souls, however, while attached to material things, nevertheless have had ideals during their life. Things for which they had hoped, and dreamt, prayed and longed. The higher on the planar scale, the more advanced the nature of the ideals. But the principle is the same. And for the lowest to the highest of these ideal degrees, the Astral Life contains that peculiar and wonderful condition or state known as the 'Idealistic State.'"

That… that sounded strangely familiar even though he'd never heard about such a thing in any of his many lives.

"In this Idealistic State is the real Astral Life of the soul, into which it enters after it has tired of the conditions it finds at first on the Astral Plane. It is composed of a condition or state, or series of such conditions or states, in which it lives out in vivid imagination, or realistic dream-like states, all of its unrealized personal ideals, hopes, expectations, desires, ambitions, aspirations, longings, and inclinations of its nature."

… Star-Lord felt a very particular sort of interest ignite in his chest.

"It may be objected that this is but a state of illusion or delusion, and not a reality," the Sorcerer said, nodding meaningfully in Dad's direction. "But it must be remembered that even on the Material Plane 'Dreams are true while they last.' On the Astral Plane, in the Idealistic State, these dreams exceed in vividness and reality anything that the embodied mortal ever experiences – itself just a series of mental states in the end. So far as the soul is concerned, the experiences through which it lives in the Idealistic State are just as real as anything that it ever experienced in physical life. Every element of reality is there. And there is a reality about it that all advanced occultists recognize."

"… I'm starting to think you're about to offer something we could have desperately used the moment we first met," Dad grumbled.

"In this Idealistic State, the dreaming soul lives out countless lives, of infinite variety," The Ancient One said, not commenting on the sentiment. "Provided one trusts me enough to let me handle and influence their very souls and self-awareness, I should be able to emulate the conditions or process for you. Any of you. Or all."

The sheer scope of what had just been said… it was enough to blow Peter's mind.

"It will only be for one lifetime, particularly if I am to impose certain parameters of nature and its scale." The old Sorcerer looked pointedly between Peter and Jason Quill as he said it. "But even one lifetime can count for much."

Peter looked at his father, thinking about what an understatement that was. But anything he wanted to ask or say to the man would have to wait because there was something more relevant to address before it. "It won't work for me," Peter told their host. "Not like that. Not like this." Not while he was brain-deep in seeing the universe like a god had made him see in a former future.

"Doublethink is the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them," Yao countered with words he'd heard so very recently but also long ago.

In the end, Star-Lord accepted. And because he agreed, his mother also agreed. For her, grandma (mom?) agreed too, once she was fetched from where she was having an early lie-in. His father was the only one who agreed as much for his own sake as his, though Peter didn't entirely grasp the depth of his feelings until the end.

The end of the dream that wasn't dream, that is. That's how it all went, ultimately. They all lied down in the same place and let Yao do the rest. They didn't even see him cast a spell.

"The physical side of this is almost irrelevant. Learn well, however, and you too might one day learn how to shape moments in Eternity!"

Privately Star-Lord thought he was farther along than Yao thought. He though he understood now, what the man-shaped star field was that he could see through his eyes like the man could see Ego through his.

It wasn't the man himself.