∗ ∗ ∗
…Okay so if we're being serious here that's, genuinely, the only direction. Nowhere else makes any sense. I'm assuming that's North, given that the sun is behind–
The actual capital S Sun is behind me – so cool!
North's always the direction adventures start, so it's North to the coffee tree, set up camp.
"Where there is coffee, so there, too, is bah-nah-nah." He smiled and abruptly forced a frown.
Musa acuminata…Banano Criollo is my target
Aoi's toes, now at the very edge.
Almost certainly not grinning, he placed his left hand, clenched in a fist, on the center of his sternum. Slowly he began to open his fist.
I am weightless, a petal in the wind.
I am unbound, shackles round my ankles fall.
With birds I soar. I am weightless.
Aoi was bathed in light, the array forming, looping, whirling, compounding circles upon glyphs mystique, brilliant gold right beneath his now open palm, flat against his chest, tracing in perfect rhythm to Aoi's own. His feet now a jump's distance above the cliff's edge gave no signal needing to return.
Major.
Aoi willed himself off the cliff, still smiling despite himself, dragging his hands, sluggishly through the damp silk strands of cloud cover, undulating his fingers, hypnotic.
I love magic.
He descended beneath the silken barrier, gathering beads of dew, rain to the desert that was his skin. As he drifted on the now, tranquil winds, an edenic silence opened up the space around him. He had only brightness and white above him, the endless viridian tide below– stark interrupting stark– jagged slate, and bisected by a rush of sparkling sapphire.
A…water…fall..in…the...sky..
He could've kept his gaze for hours. The crashing of the rushing water kicking up spray conjured a fine veil of scintillating mist. Each droplet refracting the full spectrum of light to the next.
An enormous shadow ascended, ominous, against the now smoke colored clouds. The glittering veil, gone.
Time froze for Aoi.
Listen…feel..project…consciousness. Find...target.
I am Feeling, attuned to the rhythm of this world and its inhabitants. I am Transmission, mighty Wind which spreads seed; my silent messenger. I am the cosmic tapestry pulsing beneath the earth. Divine eyes blind, I see all.
Sense.
∗ ∗ ∗
This thing's…a bird?
The second Aoi's mana detection reached the ominous shadow, a harsh, visceral, stabbing tingle flooded the air. Malignant pressure, pure hunger, bloodlust. Aoi was being hunted.
By what?
Wait why just now, I only just took off.. yiiikes! ooononono..
NO! I don't need to, I can think of something else.
There is nothing else. It's enormous and is going to disembowel me. Damn it.
"Oh damn it, damn it, dammit."
Once again, Aoi fell.
Before his mind could clock it, his body felt relief, a full release, as the toxic, steel spike quality of his surroundings began to fade. He was lulled. He was tired, hungry. And he was hungry.
Is a banana really all that much to ask for?
What was that thing?
Ready to eat me!
I'm falling again..
…FRIGG!
Aoi saw dark hard earth from his view in the clouds. Trees were in the vicinity, they were just…much more sparse than he had previously anticipated. The trees, it seemed, had deigned themselves queen, each of a single jagged mountain top. Though these trees, actually, seemed much more like cacti.
Wait, this is going to suck.
"...ume.." just a trailing whisper. The voice, full of husk, and loss, an indelible echo.
Aoi's body grew hot. He felt a tantalizing surge run through his veins. As if commanded competent. He closed his eyes, dug deep within himself and allowed the throaty whisper to consume his every thought.
…ume…come to me
Just as he imagined, a beautiful powerful tree grew out of the valley below. Racing toward him as he descended at top speeds. Faster and faster, as he fell he had but one thought.
FRIGG!
A flash of light. Misshapen scales of blue appeared between himself and the ever reaching branches.
The air around himself, the palms of his savior's hands. It whispered jasmine and spring as it released a flurry of gorgeous dancing crystals, blossoms falling like rain showers. The crude "hexagonal" scales of light, now gorgeous fractals of broken glass reflecting the fluttering botanicals.
"FRIGGG!!!"
Aoi somehow managed to land way too close to his huevos, as B would say. Luckily for him though, missing them and landing directly on his tailbone.
PAIN.
A stinging, ringing, blinding pain, stole what little was left of his breath, already shallow from the high, thin air.
Aoi drifted in and out of consciousness.
ZING!
That all too familiar sharp splitting pain weaving through the inside of his skull. Threatening to sever. Eviscerate anything in its path.
I see a baby…me..bright light and confetti…glitter, not glitter, petals…smells…earth, ash..hey, you…
∗ ∗ ∗
"My dear sweet boy, what do they call yeh"
The loud accusatory command, so severe, while the warm, firm, gentle caress around him felt the least out of place thing in this moment. He didn't really care who it was as long as it was a nice old lady. Face hot, steaming, breathing exaggerated, his mind was already in knots.
She was blonde everywhere she wasn't grey. She must have been, at some point, a Princess but somewhere along the line became this kind battle proven warrior. A kink to her hair, unkempt. She smelled of forest fire and earth. Strong, intimidating, beautiful; striking even. She had all the presence of a bear and would be just as terrifying, usually, but somehow, she was quite endearing. Somehow she was delicate and pious.
"..uh.."
He shrugged his shoulders, trying to fight back tears, which only served to run red from the blood with which he was covered, his own.
"Well fucks sake, ain't yeh got a name boy!?"
She softened as she watched the fragile dirty boy tremble in her arms. Her calm discerning glance wavered just the once when she happened upon the flesh-filled trenches that were his arms.
He had just escaped, running the span of the continent, no, entire world, from that devil. He couldn't imagine looking back, not even for a moment, not even for this tiny mountain of a lady. Fuck a name! How could he care about something so frivolous! He began to struggle.
She gripped him tighter still and smiled so intensely into him that it burned away any remaining desire to resist. The gravity of both the pain she held of his, and the weight of the love she now so clearly held for him, promising a most tempting future.
"Ume." She said, as she touched the blood rusted shackle around his throat.
Light bathed him, overwhelmed him. Saturating all, illuminating the abyss within his fragile desecrated frame. Bruises too deep to be seen, glowing. A soul that has wept and has bled now at rest.
"OO-MAY That's what we'll call yeh."
The weight of his cold iron shackle, gone, in its absence; the warmth of spring, and precious things. They were humming, tickling his battle torn neck and small withered face. Shockingly, he erupted in a smile the biggest and, probably the first of his life.
"Ume...my Ume."
The purest of flower petals honored his neck. Just the faintest hint of dawn lightly highlighting their now skyward bound path. His insides ringing with a warmth he could only attribute to Divinity. The monsters of his past-life, mere figments of another's horrific campfire story. His frenzy calmed.
Ume huh?…I love magic.
He fell asleep right there in her arms, in the middle of a dirt road, in the middle of nowhere.
∗ ∗ ∗
"Hhh-hhheyy..?"
PAIN.
Aoi was on the ground, again.
Can't see..
Aoi lifted his hands to cover his eyes from the onslaught of blinding light.
Ah man, I'm pretty banged up. This hurts.
"Yeeeesshhh.."
The only sound, high in register, one that doesn't fully bleed into the background but also doesn't take center stage. Constant and just enough to–
Driving me crazy, what is that…bugs. Are those…insects? That many…nothing like the pollinators in the greenh-
"NOT…AGAIN!"
He held himself, so tightly his face began to flush. He bit down on his lip, hard. He jolted his head side to side.
Inhale..one, two, three, four, five, six seconds.. hold. four, three, two, one exhale six, five, four, three, two, one..Okay.
"Okay."
Aoi, feeling much more like himself now, tilted his head and just pondered, briefly.
Was that woman my….yeah no I think it's time to assess the situation – where are you even?
Where am I even? Really.
In the sky, deep purple now, massive bites missing, the jagged terrain victorious in that exchange. Mountains all around him. The clouds above him, racing across the indigo plateau, as if in fear of something. Large ancient, wrong looking…flowers? A silver rose that grew to be the size of a shack.
"Stew–"
He bit down on his lip, harder this time and continued scanning the area around him.
Better stick to more conventional means here, that "Bird" clearly was following me the moment my feet left the ground. No magic is better, I feel….eyes on me.
Without skipping a beat, Aoi continued his assessment.
All these plants look angry or something. Spiked and weird. Angry almost. EXCEPT THIS!
Azórela compacta
"Oh hello you!" Aoi addressed the patch of green at his feet. "You. Are. A. Cushion plant. I know you! We grow you everywhere in the meadow, the best pillo…"
His voice trailed off, lost in the cacophony of the screeching and clicking and buzzing of bugs.
PAIN.
He bit his lip even harder, in an attempt to focus his nervous system responses purely on the real physical pain in his now bleeding lip.
It works.
He looked at the plant, with a sad longing. The moment lasted.
"Okay, no other options. You're coming with me."
Aoi grabbed the closest jagged stone he could find, expending less than minimal effort, as they were more numerous than pulses. He tenderly started to wedge the rock shard into the crevice between earth and plant. Gently rocking the butt of the rock as he guided it around its circumference. Expert detail, tender motions. Care. The plant was uprooted as if it were just sitting atop the ground with no roots or connection all along.
Aoi reached up his left arm, placed his left hand on its trunk, dead center, and felt the mighty tree he had conjured. Aoi leaned his weight into his reliable friend, white petals falling as he did, a delicate stain of amber at the base of each petal. He forced a half smile, looked down at his newest companion. And grinned despite himself.
A pillow at least…
∗ ∗ ∗
How will I even find where I am going? These demon cactus, cacti, and venomous looking orchids are all nearly identically alien and…twist. The sun just set…no, well it is night now. And these eyes, everywhere. Kinda freeeaky..
The night air was silent but not vacuous, as it had been at the peak. No gust of winds, or menacing wingbeat; no sound of bugs either. The air though was hollow. A strange yearning stalked the air; a hunger, a thirst, or rather appetite itself.
The ground so far had been mostly sparse of vegetation, and anything really except for stone, which was deceptively light. The air began to have an acrid quality to it. Sickly sweet, pushing fermentation. He suddenly became very aware of his clothes, the extra moisture in the air weighing them down.
This shirt's ripped…AW! It's filthy too–
Click, click.
Snip!
Aoi, responding with reflex, screwed his eyes shut.
A flash! Brilliant, glowing celeste tore through the darkness, illuminating his surroundings. Eyes, hundreds of them; red, yellow, green, appearing and reappearing almost, mechanical. The perfectly formed shield constructed of fifty or so tessellated hexagons, no seam nor gap, was radiating and powerful. A beacon.
FRIGG okay take advantage of my mistake…umm what do I see, do I see a monster, well no just these…demon flowers..eskifo!
Aoi released his technique, the light faded and was gone. He scanned the images burned into his eyes. He was indeed still en route to the coffee tree to the North of his current location. His pace quickened.
No, it would be stranger than fiction, it was just some after image, no way that's what that was…I'm tired and hungry. And tired..
He marched onward through the darkness. The air, no longer flavored by avarice, slowly but surely, began to smell less acrid, more alive. Aoi couldn't help letting himself arrive at the possibility.
Maybe some ancient and wise jungle hermit…it was definitely a house.
Aoi's focus on the ground before him began to dwindle.
She's leading me here, this was her plan all along. Some kind and wise Granny is going to take me in, feed me, oh god, maybe she has a bath–
Aoi plunged. The ground beneath him gave way somehow.
"FRIGG!"
The terrain had taken on a boglike quality. The once dark, hard, mountain landscape was now wet, and brown with masses and clumps of root and moss. He put his newly found pillow down.
I'm up to my knees! What is this, feels like the ground is pulling back against me. Am I stuck right now? Like this!?
"Frigg."
∗ ∗ ∗
"Hello?"
Nothing.
"Is there anyone else here? I won't hurt you! I'm a nice g—
Stupid.
"I'm a nice guy when I want to be. You'll be safe if you just show yourself."
Nothing.
After hours fumbling around in the darkness Aoi had finally reached his destination, though not much had changed really. There was no one around, no one to talk to, no one who could answer back. Just the same as it had been since the attack— as it had been since he began this ludicrous journey descending to hell. But at least he made it to the coffee tree.
The glorious tree, exponentially larger than what he had been expecting, was decorated, dressed really, with withered board and worn broom held together by a cast of ancient mud. A marvel really, constructed with such crude materials worked into a genuine PERFECT sphere. The empty, expertly fashioned, spherical, wood and straw hut protruding from its trunk was just that; an empty, expertly fashioned, spherical, wood and straw hut. No bananas, no kind, old granny, hermit, or anyone. Just the bones of some long lost life, vacant, abandoned, impressive.
Yup, that tracks.
∗ ∗ ∗