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From what he’d been able to learn--both from archived sources and from his passenger directly--each incarnation was a distinct entity. They all had their own views and personalities that set them apart from those that came before--perhaps even because of those that had come before.

Because Avar was the throughline that connected each new incarnation. According to him, he remembered all of his previous lives and therefore possessed their accumulated wisdom.

Wisdom which he was offering to share with Jackson.

The only problem being that Jackson, as he currently knew himself, would disappear into a newly merged entity. A new incarnation.

How, exactly, Avar had managed to get into his head in the first place, Jackson was still not entirely sure.

This voice speaking to him was certainly a new development, but truthfully, Jackson was beginning to wonder if Avar might not have been quite as “new” of a passenger as he’d first thought.

He wondered if, in fact, Avar might have been with him, silently, for a very long time already.

Perhaps since even before he’d met Hyozen and become a servant.

Because what had prompted Avar’s sudden arrival? The emergence at Jesbol? Why would that have done it? What sense did that make?

Not that things were making much sense, these days.

At the very least, it seemed clear that the emergence had been what brought this voice on. And these... memories. Ones that didn’t belong to him. Those hadn’t been there before, either.

It was to the point, even, where Jackson wasn’t always sure of what he was saying. Like only moments ago, when he told the voice that everything he’d been given had come with a price.

What price? What had he been given?

He felt like he knew the answers to those questions, and yet... he couldn’t quite put his finger on them. It was like he’d forgotten something but that it was also just on the tip of his tongue. If he could only remember.

Frustrating.

Meditation helped, though. He’d been neglecting that practice for years--decades, even--but he was suddenly finding it quite helpful again.

Calming. Relieving. Giving him a bit of the peace he was in such dire need of. If only for a little while.

Yes.

Yes, perhaps Avar had been with him for a very long time, indeed.

Because for as long as he could remember, Jackson had always felt a kind of second presence in his mind. Not a voice, of course, until now. Never anything so clear as that. Or so unsettling, either.