Joe Bowers asks a very reasonable question in the comments to my previous entry:

I happened across your post; you have some interesting tales. Have you “ran across” others of your kind?

The short answer is “no”.

I need to clarify a number of issues:

My early life is a mystery to me as I came to consciousness in the lodge of Gtochk after having been taken as loot in a raid on a band of wanderers. Many had chided Gtochk for carrying away an obviously dead girl, no matter how comely, but I recovered from the terrible head wound and became his prized possession. That is the beginning for me, and most of that itself is lost to the mists of ignorance. I had no inkling of my nature for several hundred years. This might seem absurd, but I was not terribly intelligent then and I seemed to have a natural talent for relocation every fifteen or twenty years. Perhaps an innate understanding that to remain in any one location for too long would be ill advised?

Enough on that.

When I realized that I remained as others withered and passed, that my life spanned the rise and fall of Kings and Empires, I assumed I was some sort of lesser god. Mythologies are rife with the offspring of the dalliances between the Gods and mortals- it was not an unreasonable deduction. I became an acolyte and minor priestess to more than one odd deity before I came to understand that whatever validity (or lack thereof) might adhere to any cult, none of them had anything to do with me.

Most of my life I spent in bondage of one kind or another- I seem to have a knack for catching the fancy of powerful men. I can read others in a way that those who know of my nature swear is nearly telepathic. In reality it is just a manifestation of millennia of experience in dealing with mankind. I am terrible at prognostication in regards to those I have never met, but let me speak with you in person for ten minutes and I can predict you with relative ease. It is simply experience; there is nothing mystical or supernatural about it. It serves me well and I leverage it for my own comfort, and lately to build my own wealth.

I began to actively seek evidence of others such as myself some sixteen centuries ago. I have encountered more than one trail of evidence, but never anything that gave me any realistic hope. In a way, it makes perfect sense. Immortality is a dead end for any species. It brings the evolutionary engine to a halt. I am sterile (trust me on this) therefore if my condition is due to mutation the genetic defect is absolutely detrimental- no reproduction, no benefit of genetic replication.

So, that constitutes the long answer. I suspect I am alone. Perhaps this very unusual activity of mine, placing my thoughts and words in a forum for all to see is merely a final attempt to settle the very question Joe raised: am I alone?

Posted on May 30th, 2003 by Zsallia
Filed under: Immortality