Refraction (like reflection but a little jenky)

Cyan led us through a different part of the building than last time.

This area was a lot quieter and filled with Heralds dressed almost exclusively in their respective ‘on the job’ uniforms and gear; it was almost intimidating to see and wholly motivating to pay attention with the knowledge that they might be me someday– or sometime, I still wasn’t sure if Oeuvre had days or not.

“Um, while I’m thinking about it…”

Cyan twirled around and flew backwards so she could look at me as she led us to the appropriate place, wings shimmering as she turned with an inquisitive hum that lilted high towards the end to intone it was finished with a question mark.

“Does Oeuvre have days or does the sun–well, I guess Oeuvre doesn’t really have a sun– but if it did would it… set?”

She snickered and I sighed, knowing that I should have thought my question through before I tried to ask it. With Cyan still giggling at me, I tried again, taking a small page out of Jun’s book with my phrasing.

“What kind of metric does Oeuvre use to measure time?”

Her eyes sparkled as if she had caught my previous thought and I was half convinced it was a Fairy thing or maybe it was the light that made her irises do that; it’d happened more than once now so it was definitely a thing.

“Hm, those words sort of sound like someone we know…”

She teased, crimson eyes doing that thing again which I was quickly growing to resent; she dropped the ribbing quickly and moved on to actually answer my question which I was pleasantly surprised at. My retort would have probably sounded something like ‘Jun doesn’t own words’ or ‘hey, I can sound well read when I want to’.

“Well, I suppose you could still measure time in your human hours, minutes, seconds, etc. A lot of seasoned Heralds have no problem mentally converting on the spot but our communication devices automatically convert it when we need to talk to someone who doesn’t speak the same language or dialect as us. Just use whatever’s natural for you and you shouldn't have any problems!”

I nodded, wondering absently if I should Manifest myself a watch; it’d probably do me well if only to keep track of when I should be sleeping or eating.

“-oh! But to answer your question, I guess Oeuvre doesn’t really have its own personal metric for measuring time, and the ‘days’ as you would call them don’t really exist since the sky is perpetually…”

She gesticulated vaguely and I nodded again. I got what she meant in reference to sweet colored clouds and wine stained skies who’s change of color didn’t particularly note the time of day and more the overall disposition of the sky itself; if that was a thing, I didn’t know for sure but I wouldn't be surprised.

“I think everyone uses their own verbiage here…”

She paused to lift her finger thoughtfully to her bottom lip.

“I don’t know, I’ve never really thought about what others were saying since I always understood them and I just use what’s comfortable for me; I haven’t had to clarify myself so… I just didn’t think about it!”

I almost chuckled at how quickly she brightened again, turning right away around and taking off at a jaunty pace that I had to borderline jog to keep up with. The hall we were traveling down had been a long one so far and the further we went the more serious the Heralds became around us; less and less ‘plus ones’ like I was being visible as Cyan stopped right as she finished speaking.

“Bummer you have to walk– fly so far to get to your place, huh?”

“Mm? Oh, it only took so long because we were talking. If you want to hurry up just… think about your destination and the distance will shorten; Oeuvre’s convenient like that. If you’re having a hard time visualizing just think about how you Manifest or use the communication devices– okay! This is my area, you’ll get your own once you start working on official Cupid business independently but, for now, you’ll be with me so I can oversee your tasks and make sure you don’t ruin anyone’s life with a superficial Match!”

She laughed and let herself in with a swipe of her ID, leaving the door open for me to follow and succeeding in making me a little sick to my stomach with her lighthearted comment.

It only served as a reminder that I was here to learn something very important; the anxiousness and doubt began to grow again the further I thought about it.

A familiar wrapped candy appeared in front of me, a motherly Fairy with concern in her eyes buzzing a little too close to my face as I smiled and took the offering with a softly murmured word of gratitude.

With candy slowly melting between my tongue and the roof of my mouth, I had to force myself not to gasp and risk asphyxiation as I saw what was essentially an entire forest before me with a cozy looking grove filled with floating lamps dripping with vines and fruiting plants that crawled and tendrilled lazily.

There was a chunky stone masquerading as a desk with soft looking moss creeping around the edges; stacks of paperwork and books that could've been advanced reader novels or abundantly generous sized files piled high on each corner and looking very out of place in the unnaturally crisp green and mauve colored woods.

All different kinds of fern looking plants, trees with thick gnarled roots, varying strains of what I thought was large leaved colocasia, and tiny petaled ground cover grew thick underfoot and throughout the seemingly limitless ‘office space’. I think there were even little white mushrooms with barely toasted colored tops growing from a few of the stumps and larger boulders that served as what I was beginning to consider a ‘couch’ of some sort.

“Come in, Birdie! Shut the door behind you or the little bitties will escape again!”

I was quick to comply, pushing the door closed right after I stepped through and taking care not to shut any of the various shivering vines in the hinges as they swayed and bobbed with the gentle, flowing breeze that was rustling peacefully through Cyan’s office.

“…‘little bitties?’”

I carefully made my way over to the recognizably wooden chair in front of Cyan’s desk, taking a seat while I continued to marvel at the flourishing forest around me.

“Mm, the Brownies and Pixies, namely, I’ve got especially small ones that set up their burrows right near the door; they don’t understand that out there isn’t half as nice as in here!”

Her last comment was directed pointedly at a small dugout I had failed to notice to the left of the door, no answer being given in reply although Cyan hadn’t seemed to expect one since she returned her attention right back to me once she had finished speaking.

“Getting down to business, you will be assisting me for the foreseeable future until I deem you fit enough to Cupid on your own!”

I nodded, sitting up straighter in my chair as the mood shifted from friendly to a job interview I definitely wasn’t qualified for; a chill shivered across my back although whether it was from nerves or the breeze I wasn’t sure.

“You’re going to see lots of new things you won’t understand since we’re monitoring my home; I’ll be on job so I’ll only explain something if you need to know. I won’t have time to talk you through everything about a new world when I’m focusing on surveillance and cataloging; and anyway, you don’t need to know about the world for now. What you should be doing is getting used to watching me very closely to familiarize yourself with the core things I -as a Cupid- deem important.”

She shuffled some papers into separate piles with barely a glance, vermillion eyes flicking from paper, to me, to paper, and back again at breakneck speed; the hefty stack of paperwork being demolished into three separate stacks with each corner lined up perfectly with the one above and below it.

It took me far too long to realize that she was doing what I had learned earlier, only about ten times faster while also maintaining an engaging conversation with practiced ease.

“If you have questions about the planet itself -which I’m sure you will- you can ask… Jun when we get back.”

She smiled reassuringly, reminding me that she was innately on my side and not waiting for me to fail or pass out from the intimidating task set out in front of me; and her eyes sparkled again but I was starting to ignore it when it happened since I hadn’t caught its meaning yet.

“Even if I’ll be a bit more serious, I’m still available okay, Birdie? If you have a question about what I’m doing I encourage you to ask away!”

I debated if asking for more specific instruction was worth it but didn’t open my mouth in time before Cyan was fluttering back into the air and gesturing for me to follow along beside her.

“Come, come! This way!”

A cloud wall that stood tall as the trees and seemed to have a high chance of injury if you fell through it and potentially down was our destination, the swirly miasma of moisture ebbing and flowing against itself as it blocked off a generous portion of what I assumed was more ivy covered wall if the barrier on either side of the cloud door was anything to go by.

“So, I can’t help but notice that every time we go somewhere new it’s through a ‘cloud wall’; does that… is it ‘magic’ or something?”

Cyan didn’t slow her pace, forcing me to practically sprint to keep up as she tied her blaze of flowing red hair behind her with a strip of what I assumed to be raw leather or something equally as Fairy-esque.

“Mm… you humans know what refraction is, right? You learn about it when you’re young and still receiving mandatory education if I remember correctly.”

I only just managed to narrowly avoid breaking my ankle on a root growing up in a perfectly tripable arch as I nodded, taking care to keep my eyes on the terrain in front of me so I didn’t ruin our start before we even began.

“Yeah, if you’re talking about like… how light refracts.”

She ‘mhm!’ed approvingly, tossing her head to test the bonds of her tie and slowing a little when she saw how I was struggling. (“Manifest your wings, silly.” “Oh, right.”)

“So then you know that clouds gather because of water condensation, and when light shines through water it refracts somewhere different. Right?”

“Right.”

“Well, on Oeuvre that means that it’ll refract us where we want to go! I’m sure you’ve noticed that the light here is perfect, it shines farther than any other source of illumination which makes it ideal for travel! Oeuvre’s superior light coupled with intent focused direction navigation allows us to travel wherever we need to be! Isn’t that amazing!”

This was one area where Cyan seemed equally as fascinated at Oeuvre’s inner workings as I was, opposed to other things where both Jun and she were indifferent to whether they knew or not and I was the only one wanting to know the nitty gritty details.

I resolved to dig a little deeper about this refraction traveling -as I decided to call it- later since we were now upon the wall and Cyan was reaching out a hand for me to take.

“Wings up and ready, Birdie, let’s go!”

And through the cloud wall we went.