412. T.I, 4

(Rose)

One of the giant crows caught me by the shoulders like a caught prey, and flew away, carrying me back to my friends. I was held strongly by the shoulders and arms, but still. Seeing the ground far below me, feeling my weight, it’s a little spooky.

And being carried away by a predatory animal as if it was going to eat me later, it’s also a little unsettling.

But the giant crow only brought me close to the flying ship in the distance, beyond the floating islands.

It dropped me almost right as my feet touched the ground, and gave a last stronger push to its wings, to land by itself a little further.

My friends were a little surprised.

Z - Is that your friend?

R - No, but one of its children, possibly. Created or adopted.

The giant bird didn’t care for our company that much, and just left right away. This one is more wild than others were. I miss Ana.

I explain my friends the price to pay if they want to meet my friend.

Z - No, I’d rather not.

M - Me neither.

R - She could really help you if you one day are in dire need of help more magical than usual.

Z - I still would rather not.

M - We’re good staying on the human side of things. We won’t try to use magic as much as we can.

R - You used my flying ship though. There is contemporary science behind.

Z - That’s true. I could argue it’s human technology, but... I’d still feel uncomfortable making a pact with a demon. I’ll stay here.

Myls is hesitating a little though.

R - You give what you want and just meet, nothing more.

M - Ah... I want to learn I must say. Though I think it’s a risky thing here.

Zeslinry chuckles.

Z - You should go Myls. If it’s with Rose, I’m sure you’ll be fine.

M - What an odd thing to say.

They laugh. I pout.

Since we’re going to go on our separate ways right after this, I hug Zeslinry goodbye already.

R - Goodbye my friend.

Z - See you in a few years Mary.

Very few people called me that. It’s bittersweet for me.

Zes is truly a good friend.

We will try to meet again around here, one or two years from now.

I head back to the city with Myls.

~

I see her juggling with her handgun. She likes to do that. It’s funny.

M - Rose... How many have you killed?

R - Of what? Monsters?

M - Hm yes... And humans...

R - Oh... Well...

I’ve lost my smile as I begun counting. I wonder if I should include myself at the end.

R - About three humans directly, two or three indirectly as well. At least ten monsters, including what all the humans became after death. Sorry, it’s not accurate but it’s hard to tell sometimes. I don’t really know.

M - I’ve killed three humans.

R - Oh...

I can see the shadow of guilt around her. She’s not comfortable with what she had to do to survive. She’s haunted.

What can I say to help?

R - I know you a little... I can guess, there was no other choice to make?

M - ... I had to. But I didn’t meant to. I didn’t realise what they were until it was nearly over.

R - I’m sorry you suffered that... That kind of thing happened to me as well, though it was surely different for you.

M - How long until that murk feeling leaves me?

R - Oh... Bleue and I talked a lot about this kind of things... It never will vanish, and it’s a part of you that you will have to accept. Don’t hide it, don’t let it eat you.

I don’t think my advices are worth a penny.

She surely thinks the same.

R - You had to, to survive?

M - In a way...

R - Then you were right to do it.

I can feel that my words pain her, but also release some of that murk out of her.

She’s not smiling, but I hope some weight is lifted.

R - You’re a good person Myls. And a brave one too.

She once fought head on a terrifying demon to help me, not so long ago.

If that’s not bravery, I don’t know what is.

~

We met Nightmare in the city.

Myls overcame her instincts and fears, and gave her a few drops of her blood.

The droplets vanished in Nightmare’s translucent hand. She seemed okay with that very little amount.

N - I think I’ve heard about you before.

M - W... Really? From whom?

N - From Rose, earlier today.

I chuckle. Myls doesn’t get it. That was a joke.

N - Should we talk about T.I. then, or does this little one has a request to make as well?

M - I don’t have any request. I was only curious.

N - Rose...

R - Yes?

N - I don’t want to kill her anymore.

R - Oh wow. Thank you.

M - What?

R - It’s... close to the highest form of acknowledgement or compliment you could hope for, from a first encounter with a being-like-her.

N - I still want her out of here.

My friend Nightmare is still a little shy in her own way.

~

Myls and I say goodbye to each other. She then leaves. I watch her walking back along the path on which we came.

As I look at her go, I suddenly realise where I now stand, next to the shades of my friend.

I’m now standing closer to the beings-like-her than the humans I once was amongst.

Between humanity and the daiûas, I’ve crossed the frontier over time.

I now stand closer to them, than to my human friends.

It’s a little shocking for me to realise it, but not really a complete surprise though.

I’ve been exploring that side of reality with eagerness. I’ve always been running ahead in this world, unlike them.

I’ve embraced the world happily.

T.I. is the essence of dreams I’ve always longed for in the old days. I’ve dreamt like my father of one day, once upon a time, meeting a daiûa. No matter what I believed, where my faith and rationality lied, I tasted the sweetness of these fantasies, and they lingered for ever in me.

And the wish I and he, would have made, would surely have been the same. That one.

To open us doors to a new world, with magic inside.

To give us a vial of T.I. and to open with it the doors to another world unbeknownst to humans before.

~

The doors to a different world, where T.I. is a significant force of nature and physical interactions that structure matter and time.

A world where T.I. is an elementary particle, a boson crashing like a rock into the fabric of the standard model known before.

In the history of the world, that door was opened worldwide some years ago, by a huge metaphorical rock.

And the place where that door was shattered seems to be tangible I hear. It didn’t just appear everywhere at once, it had a localised starting point, a source.

The source of invisible water Blume would say. The source of ichor that feeds the gods, I hear it now lies in the north west of Russia now. And... That’s it. As if no one but me cared about that fact since it happened, many years ago.

N - You won’t be the first one to reach it. Far from it. Either everyone dies there, or there’s nothing interesting left to see.

R - You’re not curious?

N - I was more focused on my growth and survival here, when that thing drifted over the continents. But I felt the presence of humans and gods reaching it at times, and following it to eventually reach it at other times.

R - And they all disappeared from your detection after reaching it. Always.

N - Yes.

R - It really is an odd story, this flying ship. People trying to reach it. People reaching it... And... Nothing happening.

I can’t believe there could be a godly power or artefact left out-there, and no one and nothing claimed it for itself all these years. Something able to change the world that nothing would recover is uncanny in its own way.

Unless out there, are simply more doors.

Doors to a real other world.

And everyone vanished behind?

N - I Don’t think it matters anymore. It’s probably just empty ruins, so nothing can happen anymore because there’s nothing left.

R - What if it’s not the case?

N - You said it yourself. Nothing happened. It has been years. Nothing new appeared, nothing exploded. It remained quiet all this time.

R - Didn’t you too mention hearing the legend about a new god that would rise in the north?

N - That’s how I understood a wave of thought that reached me once. The kind of patterns in the ocean you think are calls.

R - So someone out there believed that.

N - That idea was floating somewhere at some point yes, and not that far from here. But it was years ago and you shouldn’t take it too seriously. Drifting thoughts are common and don’t mean there’s will behind.

R - I’m just really curious about that thing that changed the world. Furthermore as it appeared to move and settle elsewhere by now. I thought it would be an event far beyond my grasp. But I have a chance to learn more about what it really was, for real.

N - I understand.

She’s so detached from this mystery, it bugs me. Doesn’t she wants to know?

R - You don’t want to know what brought T.I. into the world? What made you able to be?

N - I already have my ideas about it.

R - So what was it? Is it something human made that brought T.I.? A technology?

N - No. It’s not human responsibility.

R - Alien then, from outer space? From another planet?

N - No. I don’t think any alien was involved in this either.

R - Then what created this shift in physics?

N - I think it’s always been on Earth. I believe T.I. always existed, and was only slowly gathering on that one spot of Earth for millions of years. And then one day, it reached critical mass, and erupted. It released in an instant the accumulated energy of millennia all over the world and possibly space. I don’t believe anyone meant for the white day to happen.

R - In your mind, it was like a natural volcano?

N - A star ignition I would have said. But yes, the volcanic analogy sounds good.

A volcano erupting suddenly, changing the climate drastically and abruptly. A new kind of radiation spectrum suddenly released all around. Energy levels rising suddenly.

Not the creation of anyone or anything, but a natural cataclysm. An exotic kind, maybe never witnessed before.

I kind of recall Blume having similar thoughts about what she described as a flood.

Some ideas and knowledge might be shared quietly around the world by the beings-like-her that think about these things.

Mushio neither believed it to be caused by human nor alien technology, though he didn’t know much more about what could have caused the big world changing event.

N - You’re not the first you know.

R - First what?

N - I can feel your curiosity, hooked by that drifting mirage of a ship, since you learnt of its existence. It has the same smell as the curiosity from the people who went after it while it was floating away, in the first year after the event.

R - Well, if you consider the event as a volcanic eruption, what is that ship you mention?

N - A ruin of its caldera. Something like my flying pots really. There’s probably nothing special there.

R - But can you be sure about it?

It offends her I can tell. That I could doubt what she believes is right.

Again, I shouldn’t forget what she is. She has strong beliefs and they’re hard to shake.

She is a self-proclaimed god after all. If she can like curiosity in people, it’s another challenge to doubt and put back in question her own ideas and opinions.

I don’t want to offend her but I’ve been a little careless.

R - Let me put it another way. I want to see it for myself. I want to see the volcano with my own eyes. Even if there is nothing left to erupt as it’s beside the point. I need to go there, to learn by myself what is.

N - I understand Rose, though I don’t share that desire.

R - You only want to play with life, right?

N - Exactly. History has little interest to me. Only life has. How it moves and structures itself.

R - Could you show me on a map where the remnants of the volcano have drifted?

N - Not really... But if you want to go there, there may be an easier way you could try.

~