Microstory 1109: Dardan Lusha

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Horace Reaver was a salmon, born with the pattern of going back to his younger body, and living every day a second time. At first, he didn’t realize other people weren’t like him. He called the first time he experienced a day the practice, and assumed everyone around him went through the same thing. One day, he accidentally killed his friend, Dardan Lusha on the playground. This didn’t bother him much, because he knew he would be able to prevent it from happening after the day reset to its beginning, as it always had. This was when he first learned normal people were not like him at all, and did not perceive time the same way. Dardan lived through that day, totally unawares of what had happened before, and went on to continue living long after that, but his relationship with his only friend was forever changed. While the trauma was completely erased from Dardan’s memories, Horace could remember vividly, and could not get past the fact that he was alone. Dardan would always remind him of that, and he just couldn’t have it, so he purposefully cut ties with him. Though Reaver would go on to become quite the prolific killer, there was no reason to suspect he felt any animosity towards Dardan. In all likelihood, he had all but completely forgotten about the incident. Still, Reaver’s daughter, Meliora didn’t want to take any chances. When Dardan was a young adult, she took him off Earth, and made him the first tenant of Sanctuary, which she built on a planet that would eventually come to be known as Dardius. Then the timeline changed. A traveler went back, and altered history enough to create a new reality, and a new Dardan. She came to realize that this would never stop happening. She couldn’t just rescue people who had been negatively affected by time, then leave their alternates to their own devices. Some people, in these new realities, will have escaped their terrible fates, and that was fine, but someone at constant risk, like Dardan, would have to be saved no matter what. Over the years, she continued to save him from the potential of her father’s wrath. Every once in awhile, a new Dardan will take up residence on the planet named for him. The most recent one was elected Agriculture Administrator, and was responsible for feeding billions of people, including the world’s enemies. And no one beyond Meliora knew why he had been saved, not even Dardan himself.