Samantha Winters was sitting on the edge of the dock, her bare feet dangling over the edge. Her pale skin glittered with water droplets as the sun slowly dried her off. Her mentor, Amira El Din, was leaning against a wooden support nearby. Sammi shook her head, freeing her wavy red hair from the water barely clinging to it.
“Ah!” yelped Amira as water splashed against her. “Hey, Sammi! Be careful with that, you little gremlin!”
Sammi tilted her head back to look at Amira, a big grin on her face. “Sorry, sorry!” She looked back out at the ocean, swinging her feet back and forth.
After a few minutes Amira opened her mouth, ready to suggest they head back to the estate, when a sigh from Sammi cut her off.
“Hey, Amira?” Her voice was more subdued than before. “What’s it like?” She lay down on her back, staring up at Amira. “You know… being immortal?”
Amira was caught off guard. Not by the question. She’d been asked it before and would be asked it again. It was the timing that surprised her. Sammi seemed to be such a carefree girl that Amira didn’t realize she’d been concerned about this new change in her life.
“Hmm… that’s a complicated question, dear.” She ran her hand through her dark, curly hair while thinking of how to start. “Here,” she said, reaching a hand down to Sammi, “let’s head inside and I’ll tell you about my many lives.”
Sammi took the proffered hand, letting Amira help her to her feet. The two women headed back along the dock, moving towards the large estate sitting 100 feet above the beach. Far down the beach was an old lighthouse, still in use to this very day.
“Let’s start with my first life,” she began, still holding Sammi’s hand as they made their way up the stairs set into the cliffside. “I was born in what was then Phoenicia, sometime around 2500 BCE. I was the daughter of a moderately successful mercantile family. My father owned a small handful of ships. My earliest memories are of travelling with him. It gave me a love of the ocean that has lasted through the ages. When I was older, I helped him and eventually captained one of his ships. He said I had the soul of a sailor in me. It took some time before I realized I was different from everyone else. My first hint came when I had a large crate fall on me. It should have killed me. Instead, I walked away unscathed. Everyone considered it to be a miracle from the gods.”
“The next hint was as I aged. It was a slow hint. People just assumed that I was aging gracefully. Eventually, it got too strange for people to accept. A nephew of mine warned me, allowing me to slip away on a ship that very night. I would later find out people thought I had made a deal with something evil and were looking to kill me.” She laughed at that. “Unfortunately, I don’t have to imagine how they would have reacted. Anyways, I started a new life in a different part of Phoenicia. It was easy enough to do. I quickly figured out that I would need to do so every 20 years or so. Just slip away in the night to a town or village far enough away and you could start a new life.”
“Was it difficult back then, as a woman?”
“Some parts of the world at certain times were more accepting or less so, depending on social mores and what I was trying to do. I had to pick up many different skills to fit in. Eventually, I had to learn new languages as well.”
The two had entered the estate, heading towards the bedrooms of the large house. When they got to Sammi’s room, Amira laid down on her bed while Sammi dried off and changed out of her swimsuit.”
“Let’s see… I suppose the next most interesting life I lived was in Egypt. It would have been around 900 BCE. I had been travelling between Phoenicia and Egypt for over a thousand years by that point. I’d eventually gotten into working as a priestess for a small temple. The job was a nice change of pace for me. I was able to meet many interesting people from all walks of life. There was a nice benefit as well. I was able to spend longer at each temple I worked at, because I could claim my continued youthfulness was thanks to the power or will of the gods. I couldn’t do it forever, of course, but it allowed me to stay for an extra 20-40 years before I had to start over in a new place. Smaller towns were easier to do this in than the larger cities. That’s still true today I should add,” she said, looking over at Sammi.
“So, you mean it’s safer for an immortal in a rural place than the big city?” Sammi asked as she slipped into a t-shirt.
“Exactly.”
“That’s a bit disappointing to hear.”
“Don’t worry, sweetie,” said Amira. “It doesn’t mean you can’t ever live in a big city, but it is true that it’s getting harder to stay under the radar. There’s a reason my estate is so isolated.”
Now that Sammi was decent again, the two women headed out to the living room.
“I believe it was in the 600s CE that I moved further inland, towards what is now Iran. I spent most of my time working as a servant for various wealthy individuals. Typically, I served a mistress or wife rather than the man. Although, there was this one man in particular that I was fond of. I no longer remember his name, but I remember so much else about him. He kept several mistresses, but it was all for show. I didn’t serve them, though. I worked directly for the man. Somehow, I had managed to gain his trust when I came to him looking for work.”
“I’m guessing that was an oddity?” Sammi asked as she flopped down on the large, cushy sofa. “How’d you do that?”
“I have no idea,” Amira laughed. “He did, though. It turns out that he was gay, but that wasn’t really a time period he could be open about it. His partner was a lovely man as well but tended to spend much of the year abroad with his small merchant empire. The man I worked for was a soft man in private, something I was honored to be witness to. He could put up a tough front when in public, though.”
Amira leaned back into the sofa, her eyes closed, as she let out a pleased sound. There was silence between the two women for several peaceful minutes.
“So… where did you go next?” Sammi asked.
“Hmm… I went many places over the centuries. I eventually moved into Europe, landing in France in the early 1500s. That was a time of great discovery for the Western world. I had learned by then that there was always something more to discover, so I kept up with the discoveries as well as I could. My fascination with new knowledge never waned. From that point until around 1895 I traveled around most of Europe and bits of Russia and North Africa. I did all kinds of menial work, religious work, whatever I could find that would give me shelter, clothing, and food. It was in the late 1880s that I encountered another person like myself. I had thought for the last several thousand years that I alone was going to have this fate thrust upon me.”
“He was the first immortal I knew of. There had been others I had suspected throughout the millennia, but it always led to a dead end. I know now that some of them were just excellent at covering their tracks, though others were likely exaggerated stories. Still, to know I wasn’t alone in my fate was liberating. I had long avoided getting too deep into most relationships, since I would inevitably end in despair. To find someone that I could be with for far longer than a mortal lifespan was something I had long given up on. In 1895 the two of us decided to move to the United States. It sounded like an interesting place to be.”
“Was it?”
“Absolutely. Since being here, I’ve done many jobs. Everything from working in a small New York diner to running my own business. I was finally able to build up a stable system of wealth, thanks in part to several other immortals the two of us connected with over the last century plus. I’ll be honest with you; the wealth helps immensely. The ultra-wealthy live in a different world and while I’m not personally part of that, our little collective of immortals is. It gives us freedoms and protections we wouldn’t have otherwise. The modern world makes things more complicated for us, yet easier as well.”
“Is that why you brought me into the fold?”
“Of course, Sammi,” Amira said, looking over at her with as much tenderness as she could. “There aren’t many of us, as far as we can tell. The world is hostile enough to people for everything from their skin color to their sexual orientation and beyond. I don’t imagine they would take well to a group of immortal people who can’t even be hurt. We need to look after one another until the world is ready for us or humanity dies out.”
“That’s… a morbid thought,” she said, a sour expression on her face.
Amira let out a gentle laugh and put her hand on Sammi’s arm. “It’s not so bad, Sammi. We now have a small global community of our kind. We have the means to protect ourselves, to invent new identities as we need to, and to be with others who are like us. You asked me what it’s like to be immortal. It’s many things. Seeing the world constantly changing around you. Living many different lives to keep your secret. In the past, it meant constantly moving, constantly changing jobs. Nowadays, we can slow down a little. The modern world offers us this.”
Amira put her arm around Sammi’s shoulders. “You don’t have to worry about any of this yet, though. You’re still young.”
“I feel like that’s something you could say to me forever.”
Amira burst out laughing. “You aren’t exactly wrong, though eventually our age difference will be moot. But that’s not what I meant. You’re a mere 28 years old. That’s young by any standard. You can likely keep your current identity for another 20 years. Longer, if you are careful with your relationships outside of our collective. For you, there is still plenty of time to feel normal before you need to start adapting to your fate.”
There was silence between the two for a few minutes, before Amira stood up. “Alright, that’s enough serious talk, Sammi. Why don’t we get something good to eat?” Amira held out her hand.
Sammi grinned as she took her hand. The two of them headed towards the kitchen, the mood brightening once again.