What the...

[donotmail]

| characters | Arj and anyone!

| date/time | Wednesday afternoon, just after the crystals shatter

| location | 1st floor of the tree

| rating | PGish?

| summary | Arj gets a sudden welcome when the new floors open up!



Arj is outside when he hears the commotion. He'd slunk off into the outdoors some time earlier, in search of a quiet place to hide. Outside, he'd been overwhelmed by the vast forest in front of him. Did greenmount trees really get this big?

Of course none of it matters, because this is a hallucination, and he is going to be calm about it and not get into trouble. So he's found himself a nice hollow in one of the great tree's roots, and is how hiding behind a curtain of illusionary moss. He's curled up in a tight little ball, ears turning this way and that. He can hear things outside, people talking, but he is going to be sensible about this. There is no point whatsoever in talking to anyone who doesn't exist.

Until the crystalline sound of shattering pierces the air, and he startles, the 'moss' vanishing into nothing. Against his better judgement, he half runs, half slinks over the massive roots to the hollowed out trunk.

"What on Ryll was THAT?"

Comments

not at all!

[donotmail]

Arj skitters to a halt as someone stops him right in his tracks, barely avoiding a collision with the stranger. He stops as she shouts out her explanation, amidst the glittering shards that litter the chamber's floor.

He stares, back and forth, between the newcomer and the blade within the light. "That thing," he says, waving a paw in its direction, "shattered... up there?" He looks up, seeing the floors above lit golden in the stream's light. "Well, that... that makes perfect sense, I'm sure."

[celena]

"It makes sense once you understand the logic of this place." Celena panted. The scare and dash, though short, had sent enough adrenaline through her that her heart was pattering. She drew a deep breath and continued. "I've been here for two Moons now and have had to forget much of what I believed true in my real life."

"You're new." That's a statement rather than a fact; if this Cat-man had arrived some time ago, she'd have heard about him, she's sure. "You'll learn that soon enough, but it may be a difficult journey. If you need help, I can offer you my aid."

[donotmail]

"Journey? What journey is this? I don't know if you're aware, but I already have a journey." He turns to go, kicking aside a shard of crystal as he does, and then stops.

Two moons? The wording is a little confusing to Arj (Ryll has two moons itself) but the intent is clear. "Are you saying I'm stuck here?"

[celena]

She straightens up in order to address his questions with the solemn seriousness they deserve.

"Yes, you are trapped like all of us. This Tree God has chosen you to come and serve it, though why any of us have been chosen is unknown." She lets that sink in for a second and then points.

"That glow is the God's life force. That sword was fetched at the God's demand in order to give it the strength to shatter the crystals that blocked its life force. I hope and I pray to this god and my own that once its trunk if completely clear that it will show mercy on us and send us home."

[donotmail]

Arj knows gods, but the only gods he knows are the Archetype Spirits. "I'd ask i this is the Glade of Light," he says, "but I think your answer will be no. Quite strange. We are in a glade, and there is, indeed, light."

He turns away from Celena and takes a few tentative steps toward the stream. The first time he'd seen it, he'd taken it as the ultimate proof that he must have been hallucinating. Nothing felt like it did. This time, he's doing so with the intention of testing that. He slinks, almost on his stomach, toward the light.

He still can't resist purring, and he hopes she didn't overhear.

The stream feels just as it did before, warm with golden light, and reaching inside his head like a rough tongue licking at his thoughts to calm them. Maybe it's the way he interprets it, maybe it's what he wants to feel, but he can't help thinking that the tree is proud of him.

He looks back to Celena, standing taller this time. "Well," he says, "if that is what it wishes, that is what I will have to do."

[celena]

So many people she's met here cursed the god who'd taken them or outright shrank back from her explanation for the phenomenon they'd been captured by. For her, the fact that this cat-man accepts not only her word but his fate speaks highly of his personal character in her eyes.

She inclines her head when he comes back from the light, having noted and approved of his purring. For all that she hates being captured, she respects the power of this god's soul.

"When you have mastered flying, I can show you the mirror where this god leaves us its riddles and commands." She offers. Then, since no matter how unhuman he is, he's still a sentient being who deserves politeness, she introduces herself.

"My name is Lady Celena Schezar, and I came from the Kingdom of Asturia on the planet Gaia. Where have you come from?"

[donotmail]

If only it were acceptance. Arj would rather be anywhere than here, but if the tree wants something of him, then he'll take on any task imaginable. Whether or not he's any good at it.

"My name is Arj," he says, "and I am from Clan Aauron in the Heshroun Basin." There it is again, that word that sounds like Ryll in his head, as if his home was only one of many and not all that is. "From Ryll. The Ryll."

But what was that she'd said earlier? "Flying?" He takes note of the translucent butterfly wings on Celena's back. "I don't think I can-"

He stops. It didn't occur to him that the butterfly wings weren't a natural part of her body, any more than... "One moment." He digs through the leaf saddlebags on his back, and takes out the gem he found earlier, the dark blue one. He knows he's found it as soon as a pair of moth wings appear on his shoulders, folded neatly on his back. He keeps the stone in one paw so that he's standing on three legs. "These things work?"

[celena]

"It's an honour to make your acquaintance, Arj." She curtsied using the ends of her blouse in place of a skirt, then pulled a chain from under her collar, making her wings vanish as she revealed her day gem.

"Yes, they work, and they feel as natural to use as if we were born with them." She tucked her chain back into her shirt again and her wings reappeared. "Don't think of how to fly any more than you think about how to bend your knees when you walk. Just leap with the wish to fly and you'll fly!"

[donotmail]

Arj stares as the human's wings vanish and reappear, just as his own did. He places the gem on the ground and removes his paw, and feels the emptiness at his back as they disappear. A paw on the gem... and they appear yet again.

"Don't think?" he says. Once, long ago, he'd watched the clear desert skies as a tiny clan of Air kiarr passed overhead, little winged shapes in the blue. It was the only time he'd ever seen the sky-going species, and sometimes he'd wondered what it was like to fly too. Now that the prospect was actually in reach, though, all he could think of was how hard the floor suddenly seemed to be.

She's watching you! a part of his mind hissed at him. Do something!

He spreads the wings and looks back over his shoulder. They don't look like they could support his weight, yet Celena didn't have any difficulty. So he gives them an experimental flutter. Leap with the wish? What am I here?

And yet, he finds himself airborne. It's a clumsy first flight, and he bounces and veers like a cub trying to learn to use their legs, but he's most definitely off the ground! He's aware of that for about a second before the wings suddenly lock up with surprise and he plummets. Thankfully it's not far, but enough to make him feel very sore when he picks himself up.

"Maybe I should have wished a little more?