09-03-2016, 04:53 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-03-2016, 10:32 PM by Strangelet.
Edit Reason: because tenses...-_-
)
The changing of the world was not so frightening. Not in and of itself, at least. We have walked so many worlds, felt them all change beneath our feet, that when this one quakes, it meant little to either of us. At least initially.
We followed urging of the fairies through the collapsing world, all the way to the newly forming Mountain. Still, we thought nothing of it. Another catastrophe, another shattering and reshaping of another world, another day alive, though alive has always been fairly arbitrary too.
Truly, it was not until the thinness of the air became too much for our lungs to bear and we were forced to make the rather treacherous climb back down the mountainside that the full impact of what had happened became clear.
The voices left first. The quiet little whispers and the screams that have echoed almost unfiltered through our head since I patched poor Chistery’s brain and somehow unlocked my own latent telepathy. Suddenly, they were gone. Suddenly there was silence, just me and my Noctem.
Oh, and then.
For the first time in my life, the world looked solid and real, uninfluenced by flashes of light, flickering shadows, bright colors and flowing energy and wandering spirits. I felt no phantom pains from walking through someone long-dead and their wounds echoing through my body. I could breathe, and my skin felt...felt real. It felt significant and relevant and actually there, instead of the strange half-presence it had always felt before.
Oh, Noctem! I cried, overjoyed that for once I could finally understand what the others experienced, could finally fit in my skin.
But my twin did not answer me. No matter how I begged and pleaded and screamed, he did not reply. I tried to turn back, to climb back up the mountain and cross the divide that stole him from me, but I could not, try though I did. Until I was exhausted, until I ran out of tears and collapsed in a heap on the ground.
I lay there for...for a very long time. I don’t know how long. I used to be able to watch it flow, to dip into the river of past-present-future and feel the currents, and without that all I had was the rising and falling of the sun.
Eventually I made my way down the mountain, torn in two by the conflict raging in my chest. I could not help but revel in the experience of a mind unfettered by other people’s thoughts, and a firm anchor to...to a body that was suddenly only mine instead of ours. And at the same time...I was so very, very alone. I could not feel my Noctem, nor reach out beyond myself to any of our family. Not even to random strangers I encountered in passing. Whatever had allowed me to reach out and touch them before was gone, as though it had never been.
Desolate elation. I did not even know that was possible until today.
Now? Now I wander through the meadow on restless feet, my head hanging low, my forelock spilling down over my face, blocking a bit of my view and hiding me just a little from a world I have never been prepared to face alone. Once I would have followed a quiet pull to anywhere, to someone significant or to a situation that needed a nudge or to someone who needed to speak with the dead, any number of little fingers beckoning me forward. Now there is no quiet beckoning. Now I am lost.
I look around the meadow, blue eyes scanning strange faces and strange bodies. And I walk closer to the nearest, rather than weaving through to the one who most needed me. There is no longer anything to need of me, and I am no longer able to give it.
I feel oddly blind as I look at the buckskin stallion, trying to see all the wisps and tangles and colors that should be floating around him, tying him to others. I feel deaf, swiveling my ears to catch sounds that should be hissing in hushed little whispers. Nothing. Not a glimpse, not a hint, not a single clue who he iss, aside from the very solid physical presence of his body in front of me. “Hello,” I murmur quietly, and my voice is a little rough from disuse. “My name is Strange. Who are you?”
We followed urging of the fairies through the collapsing world, all the way to the newly forming Mountain. Still, we thought nothing of it. Another catastrophe, another shattering and reshaping of another world, another day alive, though alive has always been fairly arbitrary too.
Truly, it was not until the thinness of the air became too much for our lungs to bear and we were forced to make the rather treacherous climb back down the mountainside that the full impact of what had happened became clear.
The voices left first. The quiet little whispers and the screams that have echoed almost unfiltered through our head since I patched poor Chistery’s brain and somehow unlocked my own latent telepathy. Suddenly, they were gone. Suddenly there was silence, just me and my Noctem.
Oh, and then.
For the first time in my life, the world looked solid and real, uninfluenced by flashes of light, flickering shadows, bright colors and flowing energy and wandering spirits. I felt no phantom pains from walking through someone long-dead and their wounds echoing through my body. I could breathe, and my skin felt...felt real. It felt significant and relevant and actually there, instead of the strange half-presence it had always felt before.
Oh, Noctem! I cried, overjoyed that for once I could finally understand what the others experienced, could finally fit in my skin.
But my twin did not answer me. No matter how I begged and pleaded and screamed, he did not reply. I tried to turn back, to climb back up the mountain and cross the divide that stole him from me, but I could not, try though I did. Until I was exhausted, until I ran out of tears and collapsed in a heap on the ground.
I lay there for...for a very long time. I don’t know how long. I used to be able to watch it flow, to dip into the river of past-present-future and feel the currents, and without that all I had was the rising and falling of the sun.
Eventually I made my way down the mountain, torn in two by the conflict raging in my chest. I could not help but revel in the experience of a mind unfettered by other people’s thoughts, and a firm anchor to...to a body that was suddenly only mine instead of ours. And at the same time...I was so very, very alone. I could not feel my Noctem, nor reach out beyond myself to any of our family. Not even to random strangers I encountered in passing. Whatever had allowed me to reach out and touch them before was gone, as though it had never been.
Desolate elation. I did not even know that was possible until today.
Now? Now I wander through the meadow on restless feet, my head hanging low, my forelock spilling down over my face, blocking a bit of my view and hiding me just a little from a world I have never been prepared to face alone. Once I would have followed a quiet pull to anywhere, to someone significant or to a situation that needed a nudge or to someone who needed to speak with the dead, any number of little fingers beckoning me forward. Now there is no quiet beckoning. Now I am lost.
I look around the meadow, blue eyes scanning strange faces and strange bodies. And I walk closer to the nearest, rather than weaving through to the one who most needed me. There is no longer anything to need of me, and I am no longer able to give it.
I feel oddly blind as I look at the buckskin stallion, trying to see all the wisps and tangles and colors that should be floating around him, tying him to others. I feel deaf, swiveling my ears to catch sounds that should be hissing in hushed little whispers. Nothing. Not a glimpse, not a hint, not a single clue who he iss, aside from the very solid physical presence of his body in front of me. “Hello,” I murmur quietly, and my voice is a little rough from disuse. “My name is Strange. Who are you?”
@[magnus] - sorry this is so long. :| The next one will be shorter.