Edmonton was livid. 2,000 years of living, and infinite more to come, and that thorn in his side — whose name made him wince to even think — still roamed free. 

Maybe millions of minor inconveniences that his arch-nemesis had formulated simply to make his eternity of living constantly, ever-so-mildly annoying had instilled in Edmonton a rage so deep that it would only die if his enemy were to perish as well. 

What he wouldn’t give to go back in time — that cursed resource of which he had infinite, so much that each second became more and more worthless as they came — and stop his younger self from making that one decision that would keep him young forever. A timeless oracle promising immortality to a young alchemist in pursuit of that panacea. Why wouldn’t he have taken it? The promise of his pursuit of that elixir of youth finally ending, for him to clutch that holy prize? 

“All on one condition,” she said. “All your days will be slightly dampened by a creature who is like a pebble in a shoe that will never come off, like a thorn in your side that will never be plucked free.” On top of it all: “The only way for this creature to yield and cease his torment is for true love’s kiss to grace your lips.”

You’d think he’d have chosen a different name for himself at this point, being given opportunity after opportunity to remake himself as ages came and went, as empires rose and fell. But no — he held onto Edmonton. Perhaps it was a means of retaining some of his core identity, a blanket taken from home to ameliorate his homesickness that would never leave. 

Despite the constant trickery and annoyances of his slick, silver-tongued nemesis, there were many joys to be discovered in the millennia he’d stalked through as a shadow who came and went, a ghost who materialized and immaterialized as he saw fit. 

Despite how heavily he craved liberation from that troll, that poltergeist, that fucking cretin who lurked behind every corner, he more greatly feared the inevitable sorrow that awaited him if he fulfilled the oracle’s requirement: to watch his love die, and for him to live on, alone. 

He suffered the minor torment, rather than that colossal agony he knew would befall him otherwise.