Jonathan Merrick is not, by anyone's standards, your average husky. It could be his cold demeanor, it could be his strange social habits, but as Gordon finds out, these pale in comparison to his greatest attribute...
Jonathan is an immortal. Incapable of death, he has walked the lands of Voldis for nigh on 13,000 years. He's fought wars, found treasure, saved whole civilizations, and helped bring them to their knees. And now, Gordon is going to hear all of it.

So, here it is! The Perpetual Soul, a new story I'm working on about Jonathan, the immortal fantasy offshoot of my 'sona. It's set in a sort of steampunk/fantasy universe, with his stories being told from about 700 years ago back all the way to his origin into the world.
From an upload point of view, due to the size of the chapters, I'll be uploading them in parts. Part 2 of this one should be done by Thursday, fingers crossed, but beyond that I'm not sure about how often I'll be able to get back to it, between everything.

As always, enjoy, and comments are always appreciated!

It was quarter to six in the evening, and while the rest of Cranberg was winding down after a long and arduous day, be it the hard labours of the factory workers, the mental toils of the scientists in the College, or the political stresses of the Parliament, the Rusted Bolt was just waking up.
The Rusted Bolt was once a small, cosy little establishment, sitting just outside the Cranberg city walls, though over its 700 years sitting sentinel outside the walls it had grown, extension after extension transforming it into rather a sprawling mess. 3 storeys high, it was an old timber-frame building, painted in warm browns and crisp whites. It earned its name from the legend of an old airship captain whose ship was brought down by a rusted bolt coming free from its housing, causing the balloon to come free and the ship to plummet to the ground. Hanging outside the door under the sign, as the tale would have it, was the very bolt responsible, protected from the weather by a coating of clear glass.
The Bolt catered for a wide range of clients, brought together by a shared oddness and a love of good company. Approaching the pub that particular evening, walking along the short, winding path just off the main road was a hawk, by the name of Gordon Terpwee. He wore the signature white coat of the College, trimmed in a regal blue denoting his status as a physicist, and carried at his side an aged leather briefcase, sealed with two rather clunky locks. Upon his head was a pair of bronze goggles, protection against the blinding light emitted from tetherium crystals, the focus of his work. He made the ten minute trek from the College to the pub every evening, in equal parts for a pint of the house cider and the conversation that flowed forth once everyone had had a glass or three.
Gordon noticed on that particular evening that anchored behind the Bolt was an all-seas ship, its sails furled and its tetherium engines tucked into their alcoves. It sat upon an unusual landing gear, which projected out from the hull and appeared, from Gordon’s best estimate, to seal flush into it when not in use. This particular all-seas was relatively small, and had a pair of two-man biplanes in place of escape boats giving it away as more suited to the air than the ocean. It was painted in warm browns, edged with copper and brass, and was apparently called the Bloody Nora. Indeed, its figurehead depicted a rather busty rat, a sword in her left hand and an axe in her left, both glazed with red.
Taking note of the ship, Gordon entered the pub, and immediately felt more relaxed than he had before. He had had a rather disappointing day, his experimental tetherium array – meant to be powerful enough to lift and propel an all-seas without the assistance of sails or a propeller – having impaled one of his colleagues, and naturally he’d been rather tense. But here, in the comfort of the Bolt, Gordon felt as close to ‘at home’ as he did anywhere else. Already there were a few people in, who greeted him with a smile and a wave. He walked up to the bar, ordering a pint of the cider.
“Good day Gordon?” Cal, a rather rotund black bear who worked the bar, inquired drawing him a pint from the tap.
“Not really,” Gordon said, dropping down a few small brass coins on the bar. “Tetherium engine impaled Francis and put him into the Medicae ward. He should be fine, but I feel really guilty.”
“Oh, don’t fret,” Cal said, taking the coins in a large, meaty paw. “The boys down at the College will fix him up fine, don’t you worry. Got shot in the gut once by this drunk old orca from the docks, claimed I was watering down my drinks. Those Medicae boys fixed me up in two days, I was back behind the bar the day after that. He’ll be fine, trust me.”
“I suppose,” Gordon said, taking the cider in his long avian feather-fingers. “I’ve got to ask though – whose is the all-seas out back? Don’t think I’ve seen it around before.”
“Belongs to Jonathan Merrick, that does,” Cal said. “He’s the husky over in the corner, one with the nasty scar on his face. Owns half the pub, he does. Drops in every now and then to make sure it’s all going well. Why the interest?”
“I was just curious,” Gordon said, taking a swig from his glass. “Well, thanks Cal.”
“Any time Gordon,” the bear said.
Turning on his scaly feet, Gordon scanned the bar for the owner of the all-seas. He quickly found him, but despite his utter lack of preconceptions or expectations, the husky in the corner, sitting with a glass of whisky, was not what the hawk had expected. He must have been no older than 30, but he had the demeanour of a man many decades his senior. He sat hunched, wrapped in an old leather duster, looking around with eyes colder than the northern wastes. Cal hadn’t been wrong about the scar though – it ran from just above his right eyebrow down through his eye, which somehow seemed intact, and ended just below his hard, angular cheek. Perplexed by this strange juxtaposition of appearances, Gordon’s scientific curiosity got the better of him, and taking another swig of the strong, apple-heavy cider, he made his way over to the corner table, taking a seat opposite the husky.
There were a few moments of silence before Gordon spoke up.
“I’m told the ship outside’s yours,” he said, his tone cordial and friendly. “Quite a craft you’ve got yourself.”
“I’m glad you think so,” the husky said, looking up from his drink. Gordon hadn’t known what to expect from the strange dog, but the sheer normality of his voice was not one of the possibilities. It was soft like silk, underlain with dark hints of gravel, and conveyed a spectacular amount of feeling for the three words spoken, but it was still, for lack of a more average word, normal.
“How old is she?” Gordon asked, taking a sip from his own drink.
“She’ll be two hundred and ninety four in three months. She was one of the first all-seas, and hasn’t failed me once.”
“How long have you had her then?”
“Nearly two hundred and ninety four years.”
Gordon was taken rather aback by this comment, but reasoned that the dog must have misheard him, and decided to rephrase the question.
“No,” he said, speaking slightly slower, like one might speak to a child, “I mean, how long have you owned the ship?”
“Two hundred and ninety four years,” the husky replied, speaking in an equally patronising manor. “I commissioned her as one of the first all-seas, and she hasn’t failed me once in all that time.”
“How?” Gordon asked, incredulous. “You’re only, what, 25, 26?”
“I look it, yes,” Jonathan said, taking a sip from the whisky, “but I’m far from it.”
“But how?” Gordon repeated.
“You’re a scientist,” the dog said, a tad condescendingly. “How do you think?”
Gordon sat there for a few moments, the wheels of his mind spinning, before finally, with a flash of realisation, it clicked.
“You’re an immortal?”
“Bingo,” Jonathan said, taking another sip from his drink.
“Bingo?” Gordon asked the word utterly alien to him.
“Different world, don’t worry,” the husky said, shaking his head. “It means you’re right.”
“That’s incredible!” the hawk exclaimed. “How long have you been alive? How did you find out? Can you die?” The scientist in Gordon began taking over, compelling him to ask the husky question after question.
“Slow down there, birdie,” Jonathan said, clamping the hawk’s beak closed between his index finger and thumb. “One question at a time, and not so loud.”
“Um, ok,” Gordon said, thinking. “Ok, how long have you been alive?”
“In this world, about thirteen thousand years, give or take a few. In total though, I’d have to say something approaching sixteen million.”
Gordon was silent, the numbers utterly astounding him. He knew that creatures like the Ohdmeri could live for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years, but a lifetime in the millions of years? It was a concept that boggled his mind, but what the husky had said before that caught in his mind and demanded questioning.
“What do you mean, ‘in this world’?” Gordon said, quizzical.
“I mean, I’ve spent thirteen thousand years in this world, and one hundred and three thousand in the one before, and only seven hundred years in the one before that, and all of the worlds before and before total up to about sixteen million, when I first discovered I was immortal.”
“I don’t understand. How do you jump from world to world?”
“It depends on the world. Some I choose to leave, some I’m forced to, some I just slip out of by complete accident. It’s all different depending on the world, and the method’s different every time.”
“Ok... Can you die?”
“For my kind, death is physically impossible. Whatever injury befalls us, from the smallest of scratch to being burnt to ash, we regenerate, the injury happening to us in reverse until we’re back as we were before.”
“We? You mean there are more of you?”
“Of course. We come into existence at random points, and only rarely cross paths, but last time I checked there are about three hundred and fifty or so of us, spread out over the trillions of worlds that exist. You honestly thought I would be the only one?”
“No, I guess not. When did you find out?”
“It was a gang hit. I was framed for outing the leader of a major drug cartel, and so his second-in-command tied me down, got a sledgehammer, and smashed my head in until there was nothing but pulp. I healed, and, well... no, that’s really a different story.”
For the next half an hour, Gordon kept asking Jonathan questions on the nature on his immortality – the ways people had tried to kill him, what the rules were, how he remembered all of these details. Eventually, however, he ran out of steam, and cider. Excusing himself, he got up to get another pint, before coming back and sitting down. Suddenly, a question struck him.
“If you’re immortal, and you heal no matter what happens, how come you’ve got that scar?” Gordon asked, eyeing it curiously.
“This?” Jonathan replied, tapping it with a claw. “Something I’d rather not get into, happened long before this time. Anything else, or have you finally run dry?”
Gordon sat quietly for a moment, before asking another question.
“So, you own half the pub?” he asked.
“Indeed I do,” the husky said. “Laurence and I set it up about seven hundred years ago; I pop in every now and again to make sure it’s how he would have wanted it.”
“Laurence?” Gordon asked, thinking quickly. “As in Laurence Claude, the famous airship captain and Explorator?”
“That’s the one,” Jonathan said. “We used the money from the wreck of the Thermadora to set this place up. I’ve still got some of the navigation equipment on the bridge of the Bloody Nora, actually. She was a good craft, the Thermadora. Very reliable – well, except for the whole crash incident.”
“How did that happen?” Gordon asked, his voice filled with curiosity.
“The crash?” Jonathan said. “Now that’s a story. You see, we were flying back from an expedition to the Sondola plains, and there was a storm moving in...”