the stars incline, they do not compel; PHASE I

[Trekk]

It is a strange feeling, to be pulled from the only world you’ve ever known, and he isn’t sure if he likes it or not. Time and space and energy and gravity pulls at his flesh all at once, pushing him away from places he has been and across places he has never been and through portals he will never return from. This is the first step – he might come away from this, or he might not – but the first step is something that will change his life (for better or for worse, much like a marriage vow and the commitment is much the same).

He blinks and in a flash the feeling appears and disappears, leaving behind the past effects of where he was, the aftereffects of the traveling, and the present effects of where he is. For a millisecond he struggles to breathe, caught in the sharp motion of magic traveling. The cold is what drives him away from shock (a cold that dives deep into the fibers of his bone marrow; a cold that seeps into his skin and leaks into the lines of his innards; a cold that is unrelenting and fierce and empty) and his wings begin to move feebly as his eyes open. He instantly knows where he is, however, despite being so far away from home and his heart.

Space is a place he has only ever dreamed about (a place he wondered if he would survive, a place he wondered if he could fly to, a place he wondered if he could die at) and the startling reality that he is finally here shakes his mind’s core. The stars are close – closer than they have ever been, close enough that he finds he might be able to touch them – and their brightness both burns at his eyes with a living fire and offers no freedom from the harsh cold. His feet struggle to move atop nothing, but when he pushes his wings out, he finds they are more useful than his legs.

The absence of air and wind and motion and life is another foreign thing to add to the ever-growing list. Instantly he knows that space is a place no one could ever live – it is too empty, too unforgiving, too lifeless – and survival is not meant for anyone here. But the intention of their arrival here (her, her, her – Gail, Gail, Gail) echoes in his mind with the voice of the one who has brought them here. Instinctively, he seeks out the rain child. Although the mission is to find her, when the rain boy appeared the hopeless lover knew he had to keep a careful watch on her child. And so he does. While the boy spins in a frozen state of mind (or body; maybe both), the boy’s sudden protector awkwardly works his wings to reach him.

The motion of flapping his wings like a bird flying nowhere is tiring, but he is relentless in reaching the boy. And once he has him (in a tight grasp between his chin and his deep red and white chest, holding him close lest they float away), he begins to continue the mission of searching for her (and now, this warmth as well). Her, warmth, her, warmth, her, warmth, space and stars and cold.

But a prey animal’s mind is finely attuned to seeking out the very things it needs for survival. The hopeless lover closes his eyes, tuning out the sights of others floating aimlessly in a world consisting of darkness and cold and stars, and instead focusing on the sensation of warmth. He brings the feeling to his suicidal mind (the look in his lover’s eyes as she gazes at her children, the shared body heat between the lovers under the Desert’s nighttime sky, the feeling he gets in his chest whenever he looks at the spring goddess) and translates it into the world around him, focusing all his body’s senses and emotions and connections on the simple feeling.

Warmth, warmth, warmth.

And through the energy-sapping motion of his wings carrying them through space, through the cold that seeps into his entire being until he feels he will be frozen forever, through the flashes of memories and words and emotions in his mind, he moves toward that feeling of warmth.

There is another feeling similar to the one at the beginning of his quest (a sucking feeling, a pulling of his flesh, a loud and sudden roar of time and space and sound) and when he opens his eyes he is someplace else entirely.

trekk.
he fell apart with
his broken heart.