Chapter 9: The Void
I blanched. "The... Horizon?" My eyes shone rapturously. I will admit that the concept I found rather enticing. I wondered what could be elsewhere, now that I had affixed the edge of my world into a boundless plane.
Was this why he had changed my thinking from a globe to an infinite plane? So that imagination could fill the edges beyond with strange, unfathomable fashion unlike anything I have ever known in life or in slumber?
Something new! Something exotic, perhaps incongruous with all that I've ever known! I suddenly craved nothing more than this. My world was about to expand.
"Well! We aren't going to find out here, are we?" he interjected, standing with sudden resolve over myself as I sat there, still absorbed in the grandeur of these implications; pondering the scale of his ambitions, and dazed by the depth of his machinations.
"The way I figure it, every world has a border, and every idea has a margin."
Then, extending the crook of his arm toward myself, "Let's go see how far your imagination extends."
My eyes would not look up to him until I caught glimpse of his arm in my peripheral vision. An invitation I could not refuse, for my curiosity knows no bounds when it comes to exploring. Before opening my mouth, I reach my wingtip to grasp his muscular arm and pull myself up. I hadn't noticed before, but the difference in height between the two of us is vast. He towers over me like an intricate, polished statue of one of the great and fearsome gods. "My curiosity is my sole motivation. Let us go, straightaway!"
His bicep felt large under my touch. I pulled myself up to the fullness of my height, and grinned up approvingly. So, we set off.
Considering how much more rapid his travel was throughout the shadows—almost instantaneous, it seemed!—I had assumed that his wings were simply ornamental. Therefore, it was with much grace and wonder that I saw him rise into the air before me.
It seemed unreal. So casual an action it was for him; he barely had to flap at all to climb to heights I had scrambled to attain, only days before! Fortunately, that was no longer the case.
I manifested a warming draft beneath me, to carry me up to his stature, casually. Then, in a burst of impassioned delirium, we accelerated toward what I innately remember as the direction of the setting sun; though all intents and purposes strip such cardinal directions of all meaning in an infinite expanse.
The towers zipped past with exceeding haste; their repeating textures blending together into a sea of gray, darkened roiling beneath us like an ocean of earth in lieu of waves.
Eventually, their frequency grew more and more sparse. The space between pillars grew, and the patchwork of the ground grew less detailed. Texture, depth, and then the very color themselves leeched from the formerly meticulous expanse of interlocking masonry. Soon, there was nothing but a sordid plain of white, sporadically interspersed with one or two scattered towers in the distance; though even these began to lose their key attributes, with stature, composition and form giving way to a smaller, more homogeneous appearance.
Before long, this too, passed into memory. All we were left with was an endless continuity of white. Even the sky itself had long faded into stark blankness as the last vestiges of my control left behind us.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Today, Xantheaa noticed something peculiar in the land around us. I mean, I have noticed gradual changes in the chroma of the landscape around us; a shade of gray here, a texture there, and a slight change in the thickness of the air; simple things that most would be loathe to observe. Up until now, I had brushed them off as imperfections in her abilities; a degradation of her talent in proportion to the distance from herself at the moment of deletion. One can only expect but so much from lesser beings, I remember musing thus. Yet, today made it wholly apparent that this was not to be the case. We stumbled upon a stone doorjamb inscribed with a protective spell of an ancient tongue. Same as always, she was completely and infuriatingly unable to interact with it other than through mere physical manipulation. I tremble with rage as I recall the hours wasted attempting to teach the pitiful spawn of a nymph named Electra the art of transmutation; to no effect. She called me over to examine it myself.
Imagine my surprise when the stone lit up upon my approach, and the words burned in the air like a scar across space itself. I gasped in realization.
"Xantheaa, do you know these words?" I asked. Her confusion was apparent.
"Good." I remarked, "I would expect so. These words could not have been conjured by you, since they are not from your world. These are my spells, these are my majicks, these are my paradigms. Look around, Xantheaa! We are crossing into my half of the dream!"
She could only imagine what that item was. It had never been seen before, in the islands she called home. The symbols carved within the item were absolutely foreign to her. Her only hope remained that her majestic counterpart knew what powers the item possessed; and fortunately, I did. In fact, I was quite ecstatic to find it, for it was the one thing that would lead me back to a new, and strange world. "Your... half of the dream?" She repeated, and blinked, amazed at the way the process is translated both through from her dream and into mine. She could only dare to imagine what my dreams consisted of, and she was about to find out.
"So, if we're transitioning into my paradigm, then I should be able to ..." and as I trailed off, I focused my mind on the shape of the object in front of me, and right before my eyes, it was transformed into a towering likeness of my true physical form. A terrible sight to quicken the hearts of mortal souls, and physically impossible on the carnal plane. The sight alone would be enough to drive men mad. All those impossible fathoms of space within spaces, and non-euclidean geometry employed when matter must interact with the orders of the innately abstract. It was somewhat enigmatic—intimidating, yet approachable; looming, yet compact; incredibly strong, but somehow exuding delicate grace; holding ground at the intersection of a thousand dimensions like a wrinkle in the fabric of the cosmos. If I didn't know better, It would appear like a fragile, old warlock. It takes a marginal amount of focus to contemplate the entirety of an immortal soul.
"Huh." I mused, "So, that's what I look like."
All of a sudden, the figure collapsed in on itself, and vanished. It must not be very stable here in the crossroads.
I remarked, "Well, that answers that!"
Then to Xantheaa, "We need to keep going."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I stared at the mysterious item, blinking at its foreign, glowing markings. Although, I must admit, I was highly intrigued by the thing, until it started bubbling and morphing—eventually transforming into some large, powerful, intense beast that towered over us both like a fearsome titan, bearing down in any given direction.
Its gaze alone seemed enough to doom all in its path to complete obliteration. My eyes widen and a gasp escapes me as my feathers ruffle before the mighty black beast.
'So, that's what I look like.'
"B-beg your pardon?!" I stuttered in my thoughts. This mighty monster, this deviant looking thing is my traveling companion's true form?! Ghastly! Incredible..! He beckons me to follow along, and with a nod, I followed behind Thrall into a world unknown.
For hours, what seemed like days, we were traveling. For a while I didn't even think we were really going anywhere at all. At first it didn't seem too bad, but hours passed and passed... I honestly wasn't sure I could stay asleep much longer. For the longest time I had noticed neither Thrall nor myself had said anything.
Turning my head, I spoke to him. "Why does it seem like we are traveling through this massive waste of a blank canvas?" but he said nothing. He didn't even flinch in my direction.
"How can you be sure that we are not traveling in circles?" Nothing.
"Thrall? Why are you ignoring me?" I became furious.
This time I shouted, again and again until I noticed... I couldn't even hear myself. Had... I gone deaf?
Had he?
It was only then, that I managed to catch a glimpse of a small speck zip past us at the speed of light. I blinked furiously, wondering what could have shot at us. Was there an invisible enemy, shooting lightning fast darts at us—
Zip zip!
Two more. And more, and more still. I looked forward to find the specks were coming toward us in increasing numbers. What could be happening?! Why are things flying at us? Could this be a test?!
As more came, I noticed that they weren't striking us... No, they passed right through us. It was at that time I realized. Nothing was fired at us—we were traveling faster.
Faster and faster into a distant void, and the specks were little balls of multicolored space brightness, like sprites, transitioning us from one paradigm to another. We had finally reached the breaking point.
From there, it was an uneasy transition into the other plane. In fact, the next sign that we were even moving in the right direction didn't occur until three hours later.
For a long while, I had thought that we had lost our way...
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone