The Last of Norrin

“I could mourn for myself, of course,” they chuckled, “but for what would I mourn? I, of all beings on this planet, have lost the least. If life is a competition of duration, I have unabashedly, uncontested, won. Until you arrived, Sampaa, I was the sole survivor of an entire planet. I’ve scanned the seas, surveyed the lands. Of multicellular beings, this world has very few — and of those who can survive for longer than a day, there are none. The world is being restored to its primordial glory; the circle is closing. Perhaps the multicellular denizens of the tidal pools will learn to adapt to this... ah, I cannot judge this world. We drove it to this. Carelessly feuding for the centuries we did. We did not respect our planet. Our ancestors drew out his blood for a thousand years, when they had the suns, the stars, the moons’ gentle pulls, the tides. The world had given us what we needed to galvanise our machines, and yet we insatiable creatures... ah.

“You would think knowing our history would make of me a cynic. That I would feel worth this position. Last person on the planet. I’ve survived every pet, people, pushover, prick... everyone I can relate to instinctively, gone. The mono-cells laugh at me. ‘We were supreme, in the end!’ None could contest that. It was they who drove us to all sorts of madnesses. And, of course, there were those of us who never believed in the potency of bacteria, of viruses. We thought ourselves better than those small, invisible creatures. Foolishness, to ignore the power of our predecessors. They can haunt us more thoroughly than we’d ever know.”

“We were always taught to revere our ancestors, for they’ve learned many lessons we may never have to, and thus have endless subjects to teach.”

They nodded. “Your people seem wise, Sampaa. But a people who sing with the cosmos would be a wiser people than those wilfully deaf to it. It wasn’t until you arrived that I remembered how quiet the world is. Every time we pause for a breath, I’m reminded of how loud my ears find your voice, mystandard having become this windless place. No storms; the heat is too even, everyplace. I can scarcely remember what a proper rain felt like, sounded like. The things we take for granted. Beaches cannot exist without the sea. We filled them with waste, radioactive and immortal. When the planet’s blood spilled into the oceans, we were told it would dissipate. As all things do. Eventually. Never got to exploring the when, the timeline of things. Fast and now, fast and now was everything.

“And now the remnant is me. You told me you have a twin sister, Sampaa? Identical or fraternal?”

“Identical.”

“Something we’ve in common, then, hm? People like us used to get killed pretty routinely here.”

I’d heard of similar malice amongst those who travelled the stars to live alongside us, at home. I never met one who harboured hatred towards those refusing an antiquated and meaningless binary, but it was in their history. The Dancers who explained all the histories of all the peoples of that world made sure to explain the animosities of their lineages, just as we had to explain those of ours.

“Those who sing with the cosmos feel nothing of that kind of hatred, hm?” they asked me with a wink.

I shook my head. “A person is as a person is. Forcing someone to change or not change is a disservice to literally everyone in existence, since we'd no longer have that person, just a warped version of them.”

“I wish you could have explained that to my grandmother. She burnt her cigarette into my forehead for years, hoping to ‘burn out the devil which took root in my tortured soul.’ Foul woman. Hatred brought on by a lack of understanding. Another honour, I suppose, of being the last person on the planet. There’s no one to take your crown. You don’t intend to take my crown, do you, Sampaa?”

I shook my head again, smiling this time. “I’ve never enjoyed the idea of all that responsibility.”

“Responsibility?” They erupted into laughter, throwing their head back and revealing their rotting teeth, their wisps of hair clinging to a dehydrated and mostly barren scalp. “Ah, Sampaa... oh... do tell, responsibility over what, exactly? The sand?”

“You’ve called yourself the Last King of Norrin,” I pointed out. “You’re responsible for a whole planet.”

They finished their laughter and pulled the hood of their makeshift cloak over their face. “The first person I see in years is funnier than me... I understand now what my uncle meant when he called people his whetstone. They keep you sharp. Mhmm. Mhmm. Ah... I am the Last King of Norrin. Such a sad kingdom, not even the spriest competition desires it! Ha! Oh, me... You are a welcome sight, Sampaa. Ghost, hallucination, whatever you are. You’re too beautiful to be a person from Norrin. Your teeth are perfect. Your eyes aren’t crusted with hate nor bile. Your hair is silken. If I were younger, I would rub one out to the memory of you. But my hands feel like sandpaper now, and my forearms aren’t what they used to be. Will you stay, Sampaa? Stay until the end with me?”

I didn’t have it in me to tell them that I hadn’t a choice as to when I’d leave. Instead, I vowed to “stay as long as I can, your Majesty.”

“That is too long,” they chuckled. They hoisted themselves to their feet, joints screaming in agony, crackling as the self-proclaimed regal stretched towards the crimson skies overhead. “Come, Sampaa. Walk me home. I’ve been walking across this planet to return to it before this ticker gives out. All that hatred and anger hurled at me, all the bullying and exiling and fists and cigarettes and knives thrown my way, all the heartbreak buried there beneath the sand. Why do I want to be there? Why do I regard that place as my castle?

“Maybe it’s vain revenge. Last one alive, survived all these years, all those people who called me slurs and spit at me. I can walk on their bones. I can do a jig. I can’t – you’ve seen my joints – but you get me. Victory eternal. I, me, I’m the Last King of Norrin. Who are they? Only I know. They can only be remembered by me. And I’ll be remembered by a gorgeous man who’s just as... what did she call me... ‘fairy confused’ as I am! Ha! My mam always wanted a daughter, blamed me on why she had only stillborns afterwards. ‘You cursed my womb, you greedy shit,’ she would tell me. I was only seven at the time, already knew I was a man. Told her such. ‘You can at least gimme that,’ she screamed. First time her knuckles broke skin. Had to go downstairs right after and pretend I ran into my dresser. That’s the last time I had a birthday at home. Maybe that’s why I’m so keen to get there, huh? Celebrate my last birthday where I haven’t in forever. And don’t worry about getting me a present, hot stuff; every day’s my birthday. Best gift you can give me is a pair of working eyes.

“Last King of Norrin. I’ve seen everything now, whole world. Maybe I missed a glance here, a step there, but. Last thing I want to see is the sunset there, with the prettiest hallucination I’ve seen this week. Don’t take it personal, Sampaa — two weeks ago I saw my old girlfriend, Felipe. She was gorgeous, Sampaa; hadn’t seen her in decades! She’s wandering before me, naked, hands outstretched, teasing me. ‘You’re gettin’ old, hubby!’ That’s what she always called me, from the first time we met to when we married to when we separated to when we reunited in Taleshk’ to when we renewed our vows to when she was torn in half by Ragers. Last words she ever said, “You better get fuckin’ ancient, you hear me, hubby?” Saddest day of my life, losing her. Long hair, touched her ass more than my hands did only because it stayed that long her whole life. Said she had her hair cut one time, when she was a baby. ‘Couldn’t stand it then, will never stand it again.’ She was funny like that, perfect memory. Could remember the smell of her momma’s womb. Could never remember to lock the front door. ‘You’re gettin’ old, hubby!’ she says. Not ancient yet, honey, with my eyes fallin’ out and my teeth all dry and cracked, with my scraggles of hair... and still, though I’m not the looker I was, still the best lookin’ man on the planet. Believe me, hallucination, honey — I’ve checked!

“Ah ah ah, oh me... Parents said I would die first. Their god would smite all us sinners. I’m sure they sent the Ragers after us themselves, crotchety ghasts. And that’s when they were livin’! Maybe that’s why they hated me so much. Always been a bit too vivacious, you know? Living. My parents always looked dead. Worshipped death. ‘You’ll get to Paradais when you die, if you suffer your whole life. Eat shit, get to the Best Place.’ They didn’t really say that, of course; too... soap-mouthed. I try sometimes – you ever try to imagine your parents saying something? just to see if you can? – to see my parents cursing. Saying anything explicitly malicious. Nah, not their style. It’s like seeing a mountain these days: impossible. All the fun’s been ground out of them. I know I should forgive them; they probably were raised as neighbours in a convent or something. First word in that one: con. It’s a fraud. Organised religion’s a facade. It’s the gods you worship at home that matter. I worshipped happiness, selfhood. My parents were more the stick and stupor type. Drug your kid so they stay a daughter instead of themselves. Medicate the demons out. Maybe I’m going home to thank them for giving me all that drug resistance. Water was the first thing to go when the Ragers attacked. They’d been poisoning the water for weeks. Happy drugs, sleepy drugs. All the shit my parents had given me when I was little. All the stuff that never affected me after. Poisoned me into perfect immunity. Maybe the combinations they gave me made my organs pump out preservatives. Keeps my insides fresh, my outsides fall apart. No doctors to ask, though. You a doctor, Sampaa?”

“Just a Sage,” I answered, pausing in my steps so they could take a moment to stretch their spine, reset their strained joints.

“Of course, of course.” They chuckled, snapping their shoulder back into place before nodding towards the short distance. “We’re almost there. You going anytime soon?”

“Only with you. Your neck doing okay?”

“It’ll keep my head for now,” they answered, whitening eyes holding a gaze with mine. I saw a quiet desperation there; they weren’t concretely sure their determination would be enough to get them to their destination.

They’re barely anything but bone at their joints, Noora reminded me. Their Highness is likely so used to the pain they can’t feel it any more, but... if I resonate with them to help, I don’t think either of us can take it. This world is dead, except for them.

Long live the king, I murmured, smiling at the Last King of Norrin. They smiled at me, and we continued.

“You know, Sampaa, you know why I call myself the Last King of Norrin? I was always reading and learning things when I was younger, saving all my good looks for Felipe apparently, and I read about the history of kings. And I realised that being a king was always better for you if you looked out for your people. Not the people who called themselves your people, but the people who you had guardianship over. The people who pledged themselves to you because you earned that shit. Princes inheriting the throne always got killed off, but the person who reigned first, those were the ones who did great things, the ones who lived longest. And I realised, applying that philosophy to the people I knew, you’ve gotta be kind,  you know? Considerate. Compassionate. You’ll get a lot of shit for it, of course! People will try to take advantage. Of course! But if you let that fear of betrayal wash over you, you keep your eyes open and your ears listening, but you keep your heart soft and kind, you don’t let the scars on your skin show on your spleen...” They clapped for emphasis. “Proper king, supported and cherished. Never overthrown. So I’ve always been a king of Norrin, you know? A worldly king. And the world has sustained me. Kept me going. You can’t rule by fear, and you can’t let fear rule you. That’s how people like my parents win, people who see demons everywhere, not recognising that they’re just seeing themselves. And here I am, last person on a dead planet. Out of all species, of all people on this planet, I was honoured with both its final keeping and its final guest. Assuming you’re not fully a hallucination. I don’t mind if you are, Sampaa; at least you’re a kind one. Beautiful. I don’t mean that just with looks. Felipe’s niece, she told me once – at ten, mind you, wiseass – that ‘Beauty’s inside, Uncle!’ That’s what she called me, Uncle. ‘Beauty’s inside!’ Girl never said more than five words at a time. Every time she spoke, you better fucking listen, though, else you’ll miss a lesson any god would wish they were wise enough to teach you. Amazing little girl. Died from that fucking water.

“But it’s an honour, you know? Being the last one. Witness of the end. What good’s an ending if no one’s there to see it? Might as well never’ve happened, you know? And that’s what the world gave me. The opportunity to watch its end. And to share it with someone who can witness mine. Ah... here we go, Sampaa. Look there, you see? You see that part of the sky? I’ve been doing some maths, you see? That was a test – if you’d said yes, I’d know you’re a hallucination. Of course, you might be from that smart part of my brain, the piece that’s not goop. You can hear the sloshing around there when I wave it, can’t you? Ah ah ah, oh me... I’ve been calculating. Saw that asteroid when it entered our atmosphere. Looked a little small then, but I was from maybe... six weeks ago? There’s no night any more; I can’t tell, I just felt it. Final place for the Last King of Norrin.

“You know what’s beautiful about you, Sampaa? I’m just projecting now – same thing applies to me. We’re alchemists, you know? Neither one of us was born the way we are. We became. We took those fragments of a self that our parents gave us, we took the identities the world threw at us, and we plucked the parts that fit and burned the rest. We purified ourselves from the tarnished chunks provided. If that’s not what life’s all about, if that’s not what makes us beautiful, Sampaa, I don’t know what does. I don’t know what does. I’ve been places – we all have to explore, you know? You’ve been places. I can tell. You’ve been a lot of places. Maybe more than me. We have to see the world. Purify ourselves by conflict and union, through breaking and joining, seeing which parts of ourselves survive the wearing down that life gives us. I’m not saying we need to start wars and arguments and all that shit for no reason; I’m saying we need to see what’s different out there. Learn about it, you know? You know. Meet the Other. Then you learn there is no Other. It’s just parallels, all going to the same place.

“To this.” They waved their hand along the horizon, indicating the increasingly darkening planet. There was scarcely any atmosphere to slow the meteor hurtling towards us. The distance was a chilling blue. “Out of all the people on this planet, the world chose meto see it last. And you, to see me last.”

I staved off the spell pulling me from Norrin, ground my heels into the sand as the planet’s final king clung to my arm, supporting themselves as they sat, holding my hand as they reclined. They sighed, their form settling into the sand.

They released my hand, lay it upon their belly. They smiled. They had no fear, no apprehension. As if sensing the question, they answered,

“What is hate in the face of wonder? What is fear in the face of love?”