Priya Echo's Adventure - Part 8

CHAPTER 42 - THE HONEYSUCKLE

The fussy rains gradually abated and the metropolis was fast asleep. At twelve o’clock midnight the bell tower struck, deafening a patter across the tops of the city buildings. It was the rascal, who made her way along a circuitous route. In all black, she mimicked the night. Narrow channels marked the passage between platforms. They too would be navigated by a body that glided almost perfectly upon them. A glace below confirmed the last nonchalant tourists in their departure from the central park. They didn’t notice the woman, whose wardrobe that day was more risqué than usual. With her right hand she revised an artless scarf that covered her more discernible features. Like stairs she furtively climbed the high rises. Above the thick glassy Atmo, the sparks glowed white in homage to their ancestor. Their presence like uncommon eggshells, caring and fond of all that slept below. Predictable taps from the leftover raindrops fell in disconnected circles around her. They could no longer hold the secrets of the sky. Unoriginal caws came from wet birds huddled on the lonesome brick. A squat ancillary wall. They nuzzled one another with geriatric beaks for comfort. But that was no hindrance to her travels. The rascal made it to the top. A thought of eyes peering out into the dark made her heart skip. But the chill wind gave no answer. It was half past twelve and the guards would be halfway to dreamland. Tiny threads hung out the sides of her fingerless gloves, tailored hastily. She reached for and uncoiled the rope. Between her legs stood a rectangle easy enough to peer through. Etheria’s mausoleum. Its admirable bowels stocked with the personal trinkets of the patron herself. A slender rope danced a little jig as it dropped to the floor. The rascal relinquished her grip of it and hovered there, gazing passively at the glass case. It was like the chamber of a fertile rose. Those that are enshrouded by winter and made like crystals. Yet this was not that. Legendary rays sprouted from their source. The darkness became a conduit for their essence, a roman aqueduct. An exemplar between her fingertips. “And what do you think you’re doing?” Etheria politely quipped as she ripped the scarf from its bearer. A rascally smile swept across Snow’s face, “I just think it’s pretty”. Etheria cocked her head ever so slightly, “You want to steal my soul-point power because you think they’re pretty?”. Snow nodded in agreement. In relation to her sister’s eyesight, her butt was slightly higher than her head. The rascal waved her arms like a human powered flying contraption. “I want them. They look like stars”. The big sister crossed her arms, “Oh yeah, like you’re going to make marshmallow smores and be back in five minutes. You’re not even wearing your nightgown”. The girl timidly mouthed something in reply. At that moment Etheria was finished. Her long black hair grew to prodigious lengths and she grabbed the intruder, throwing her out the window and several miles across the city. Below her chest, the soul-point hummed with ambient energy. The richness of exploration leapt from its surface, filling the room. Etheria stood there, her chest pumping. Her eyes following the path of undeviating light. A sailor surveying the room and its regions.

In the early afternoon of the following day, Etheria and her son Honeycomb Man rode on a mat of burning roses through the sky. The air was kind that day and the clouds were supple. Etheria pointed below and they picked up Snow for the excursion. Etheria sighed as her sister laughed playfully. The wind granting her hair sentience, its ivory heft subdividing into filaments. Looking at her sister, she sparkled with the power of the dissolving snowflake. Honeycomb Man scooped a cloud ball and threw it at her for sport. At the end of their journey the mat descended onto a fertile grassland. A depression emerged among the grass as they alighted. The three of them were kindled in rousing emotion for what awaited. It was the very spot where the void eye moon seed planted itself. “This will make her more accountable,” Etheria thought, considering the progress her sister had made. Those refugees she sheltered in her inner realm. The battles with the eclipse beings. Dissolving Dazin’s army. It had all made her stronger. The man went on ahead, forging a path through ankle-deep verdancy. Ferns drifted from mountains over the hills in captivity to the air. The fun-loving sun had warmed the earth, and made the countryside all aflush with herbal fragrances. Inflorescence sheltered a hill from the simmering heat. Hope seemed to guide the wind as lines made cursive through the grass. They stretched into the distance, to the bounds of land. A flock of doves tore apart and messily ate a rindless honeydew. The light made their feathers vaguely green. Among the wild horses, a stallion got to its knees to bathe in a pile of lunar dust, throwing its head to and fro. Its neck was ideally muscular. Honeycomb Man admired this sight. His back was ahead and clear to his mother. It was implausibly orange. The sister relished a joke from her whispering nephew. Etheria sighed as her chest became flighty. It must have been the sultry waves. They made her sweat. Beads that would share the glamor of the afternoon. Still the multiplicity of grass fanned out. Its purpose unaccounted for. Its reaches unclear. A wealth of many quivering things. In her heart, nothing could postpone a beat. “Let’s stop right here. Take a look. It’s the Jellyfish Flower” Honeycomb Man exclaimed, throwing his arms out as bars against their progress. Etheria stood with coherent understanding. It was his job as the protector to keep them at bay. Higher than them, the translucent petals drooped. Organs jostled inside, and its blossom was like an apparition. Quickly Snow fell on her butt. Her son smiled, knowing they had all failed to witness the jellyfish bees. Like the flower, they were see-through. Jaws chittered as they saw the uninvited guests. Some had bioluminescence like the relatives of the deep. “Don’t go near either of them,” Honeycomb Man warned. “And why are we here exactly? I thought you said you were going to give me your power” Snow whined. Matryoshka inner realms vibrated with annoyance. The elder paced around the stubborn mademoiselle, “You might think that our empire is strong, but its power is only as good as its people. Rather, it is more like this delicate flower. It gives the bees sustenance. For what it lacks, it relies on defenders. It needs them”. “And what do you mean?” Snow insisted. Her face was now cool to the touch. The elder stared down and waited calmly, “Right now, Snow. I need you to swear to uphold your part of that exchange. Use your abilities to protect the realm. It will be the fight of a lifetime. You will have to face enemies. Grapple against darkness. It will be restless and unkind”. For what her sister lacked in authority, she made up for in energy. Scrunched up in that tight little package. Layers of rippling atmosphere. The soft veneer covering fathomless halls of power. A vital frame blinking with light. And above all, Echo’s eyes. A hint of velvet. More piercing than the iris that they trod upon. “I will protect it,” Snow answered. Hearing it, the elder reunited with motion. She looked to Honeycomb Man and gave a knowing nod. The latter did his thing, causing the jellyfish bee to buzz down and sting the fertile earth. For miles the hilly grassland gave way to honeysuckle. Snow got to her knees and whirled around for the thrill of it all. Picking them up with a wicker basket made of ice. It would last until sunset. Etheria stood there in plain shadow, her arms by her side. A memory unfolding. Smoke and flame. The untamed void eye and its vines. Cities demolished by the crackle of velvet lightning. Those ropes tearing through structures. It was better to be subjugated than wild. It braced her for a second, then faded away.

CHAPTER 43 - SORTJIM AND CARAMEL

Echo walked into the empty room, where two patients awaited, lying asleep on their adjacent platforms. The walls of the chamber were specially designed to subdue phenomenological energy, and it warped her appearance into something that looked … pedestrian. Echo strode over to them, donned in a gray lab-cat and laid her bare cheek against the forehead of the man on the right. As he awoke, she could sense the dream within him fade, its substance dissolve. He opened his eyes and leaned forward, “doctor, that was a good rest, but I am still feeling a little weak”. “Don’t underestimate yourself, you’re making a lot of progress” she assured him, and playfully hit his cheek with her knuckles. The patient retrieved his clothing from underneath the platform and retreated to the outer chamber, where a hot meal was waiting for him. The empress sat down onto the platform and stared into an absent portion of the room beyond the resting woman. Before long, the two aspects of her personality that had stayed hidden for quite some time, blinked into reality. “Certain ideas are starting to appear reasonable, aren’t they? '' Visioness suggested as she made her way towards the patient, and placed her hand onto the woman’s forehead. “It’s not reasonable to act on instinct alone, as you most certainly discovered” she returned. “How can you be so shortsighted after everything that has happened? Half of the Fiefdom is already obsolete. Think on your daughter Phantomess, the patron of the trail. But where is the trail? It may as well be a figment of history’s imagination. When this new process is complete, and all that remains are the islands of the realms, what will you become? Nothing more than something insubstantial, looking out into a white canvas that is the annulment of being, and reminiscing about a horizon that doesn’t exist” Visioness counseled with her merciless, provoking rhetoric. At this Echo fazed back in her memory to a conversation she had with her mother Melina a mere four days ago. “That would be quite unnecessary” her mother replied, in response to her suggestion. “But mother, if I were to enter you, and be reborn into the flesh, I would become more than I am now. And we could have the others follow suit”. Melina stopped short of her work of fixing the aetheric mechanisms within a cloud and looked to her daughter “despite everything you have learned, how can you be so undiscerning? You are not going to die, my daughter, if we were to awaken from the dream, or if we were to perish. You and the rest would not flicker away out of existence. This reaction has been allowed by nature. You would become our legacy”. “We are more than an aspect” Pelfe conceded, appearing at the feet of the resting patient, across from the other. “Then why do you suppose that we do not have the power to alter the finality of the switch. That is what we are calling it, aren’t we? Like a light switch. As soon as this patient awakes, it will dissolve like salt into water” Visioness attested. Echo looked back and forth between the two aspects for a moment, and covered her mouth with her hand for a moment to think, “Pelfe, although you are my aspect now, you were once my sister. Visioness was born as an aspect of my grief. Did you split off an aspect yourself, Pelfe? Perhaps an aspect of hope? Such may cure this asymmetry within me”. Visioness jumped backward and twirled around in glee, laughing, “look at this! We have an asymmetrite in our midst!”. “I think you're missing the whole point” Pelfe groaned, disheveling her hair, “this … polarity switch, if that is a proper term for it, must simply be itself a default property”. “Then the reaction has altered the logic of the polarity switch” Visioness proposed, “It would only be the latter if the Scilysts were asleep, but they are a state that is a mixture of both”. “The ultimate trial, perhaps,” Visioness said with a sadistic grin as she brushed the throat of the patient, “would be to kill one of them, and have the dream persist afterwards”. “My darling shadow, you are a genius” Echo announced, inciting an animated response from Pelfe that was somewhat like interpretive dance. “How can you be so base!” she sobbed. “Not that, what you said earlier, Visioness. That it will dissolve like salt into water. The self-awareness surely does dissolve like salt into water in the liquid of the dream, but there is a way to counteract that. Tell me ladies, have either of you ever had a lucid dream?” Echo queried. “I had lucid dreams of Henry,” Visioness answered quickly. “The golden land is rife with lucidity,” Pelfe added. Echo calmed Pelfe, took a deep breath and began her explanation, “Perhaps there is a route, in the absence of phenomenological energy, to do this. In a normal process, the sleeper is oblivious.. In a lucid dream, the dreamer knows the dream, and uses that knowledge to use it as a sort of canvas. This agreement activates the lucid dream state. Now consider this, that there might be a reflection of these two steps. The third step shall then be called omni-dichotomy, and the fourth step shall be called counterfeit oblivion. After the four steps of the dream reflection are completed, the individual may then perform the fifth step of lucid awakening. Then, through natural means we are moving into the expanded territory of the overarching logic, or are circumventing the logic of the polarity switch. As with a great burdensome task, the phenomenological route is perhaps a shortcut, whereas the natural route is the long tread, requiring sweat and toil and hard labor. The logic of dependence and the polarity switch is given new organization, as geometries with new dimensions may find new ways to connect”. “What a cheap tactic! This dream reflection you propose is just a common inversion” Pelfe admonished. “Maybe it is, but I want to know one thing, sister. Why is it that when we fused, my consciousness was the one that became prominent?”. “This was doubtless a result of the power differential between you two” Visioness remarked. “answer me then, Visioness, what do you think was the consequence of your absorption?” Echo asked. “Perhaps ensuring that when the time is right, there may be a substantial, non-dream child born of you and Sam,” she conjectured. “I have experienced an ever-increasing degree of parenthood. First there was Mar and the generation. Then there was the avatar. Then there was she that came from my body. Then there was she that was born when I set eyes on another. Then there was she that was born of me and a mortal” Echo mused. “Exactly!” Visioness proclaimed. After a long silence, Echo looked back at her and asked, in a gentle voice, “What would you say was the result of the fusion of our halos? Your iris halo and my cave halo? The substance would be combined, and that, without doubt helped in the rituals of the transition”. “That is perhaps an interesting view of my current state … aspect-mother. Was it coincidence that I was drawn to the power of the void eye, and took it for myself? It is of the dust bloodline, and you did inherit the dust-throne. Perhaps there is something you still seek to inherit from the originators, if not their flesh” she said, and almost began to raise an eyebrow with vile pleasure. Echo repressed a degree of her eccentricity, and then replied, “Within my cave then, I can call into being lucid echoes. Then that would serve as a way to phenomenologically accelerate the dream reflection”. “The two of you are getting ahead of yourself,” Pelfe interjected, “there are still unanswered questions …”. “The reflection will equate those perspectives” Echo answered. “What are the risks?” whined her sister. But Echo was in the midst of speaking out loud to herself and the other aspects, “This would go much faster with the spectrum mind wave, but I doubt rider’s reflectant would willingly allow us to exploit it, given the current climate”. Visioness gave a loud cough to gain her attention, “I think our sister was asking, quite politely, what the risks might be”. She stared back blankly at the other two, until Pelfe finally broke through, “Then we will need some better test subjects!”. The very pedestrian, gray coated doctor instructed Pelfe to play the harp, and waves of noise coursed into the well of the Iris Halo, its damp interior dripping with sensory activity. Lucid echoes swathed the patient, making her breathing rise and fall. “Did you get enough sleep, Sortjim?” the doctor asked. She rubbed her eyes and adjusted her wristwatch, “never been this refreshed before”. During the afternoon session, the doctor told both of them about a type of rare grass, florensereya, that only grows within broken egg shells. Such would be the best possibility of curing their hypo-nostalgia-ignorance. By the end of the week, in a joint session, and after instructing them numerous times about the steps, she was ready. Scientific curiosity burned intensely in her chest, so much so that she could only feel the slightest hint of natural emotion. Looking down, the two patients had quickly fallen fast asleep, but by random chance their faces had each fallen to a side of the platform, such that they were facing each other. Echo could feel the edge of her mouth curl into an invisible smile, a small unevenness against the hard mask of her face, then crawled into the moist interior of the Iris Halo, finding within a circle of stalagmites a bed of broken eggshells, and the florensereya growing within one of them. When they came to, the doctor provided the ingredient to both of them, then brought them into her office, printing and presenting both Sortjim and Caramel certificates for their bravery during the long therapy and for overcoming the illness.

CHAPTER 44 - THE LUCIDITY

At the same time, Dreamess summoned both Snow and Etab to a twin planetary system near the Cliva sector, “Like the system you see, the realm too has twins, if I am not mistaken”. The two patrons looked at each other, knowing the speaker meant their relationship as bearers of the matryoshka inner realm. “We are glad that you had such gardening skills, as to grow the onions that brought us forth from below” Snow remarked. “Then you will be glad at our task today, as it is like gardening. We shall call it omni-gardening perhaps?” Echo said in jest, and laughed at her own joke. “Can you be straightforward for once, empress?” Etab proposed. “I will, as we are here to do has never been done before, even once in the ten ages” she replied, and turned her back towards them, and with each hand pointed at one of the twin planets, “Snow, you will take the one to the left, and Etab, you will take the one to the right”. The dissolving goddess realized with certainty what Echo was suggesting, “then I am to manifest my matryoshka inner realm on this world, like laying a blanket across a bed, and found a new colony for our people?”. Etab, who was almost always dour in appearance, disclosed a rare smile. The two began to fly towards the planet until Echo called out to them to return, “do not proceed so soon!”. “This will require a good percentage of my daily power,” Snow professed. Echo halted them and introduced the requirements of the dream reflection to them, “It will not be easy. The foundation of these colonies must be strong. For that reason, a simple manifestation will not do. I have invented a new technique, although somewhat archaic, that I want you both to apply”. And so, over the course of ten hours Echo taught them the dream reflection, and the exertion of it made them perspire. As Snow and Etab achieved lucid awakening, the matryoshka inner realms were manifested on each their respective worlds. Snow named her world New Allium, after the scientific name for onion. Etab named his world Crown Bulb. “This is my time to sway them” Echo thought as both of her disciples rested, wet and perspiring upon a fertile grassy plain of New Allium. She stood over them and said, “brother, vision-daughter, you both know as well as I do our plight. Despite everything, we are incomplete, as we are partly figments of the mind of our great parents. Although a day may come when the realm must continue without the dreamers, there most certainly should be a way to guarantee that we are solid, and not subject to the polarity switch of the original base-reality dream procedure. The way to build that foundation, and guarantee our safety is the reason I formulated the dream reflection, and with it I entrust you with this next endeavor. For I have chosen both of you to enter our great parents, and enact the dream reflection, such that an avalanche of lucidity will wash over the realm, granting it density”. “They will most certainly recognize our explorations' ' Etab panted, and placed his hand on the vision-sister’s shoulder. Snow stood on her feet and glowered intensely, “This is most mischievous mother! Even more so than the dark past you tried to bury from all of us for so long. I will not be a part of this, although I will not declare it to our great parents''. The schemer pinched the bridge of her nose in irritation. As Snow left through the skies of New Allium, Etab looked to Echo and smiled once more, “I am glad to see her finally standing up to you, at least partly”. When they returned, their parents were resting from refashioning the golden aetheric gears and mechanisms within a cloud. Echo watched as her father Linden’s chest rose and swelled. Melina was beside him, and so the time was right. They performed the spell, imbued with all the necessary mechanisms. Like dawn brushing across her face, Echo felt the wave of lucidity, and it was of such low frequency only she could. Moments later, couriers burst through the door, and her parents arose. Echo brimmed with anger to learn the childish Alliance cared not for her magnificent parents. Things had gone amiss on Brine-Bath. And they were on the attack.

CHAPTER 45 - SNOW’S CAFE

“This must be it,” the first woman said to the other two, as they looked at the skinny, neglected space between the lumbering office buildings. Besides the glass, which had sparsely cracked at all over the years, the remainder of the building was weathered and grayish white. A lonesome storefront sign in spaced letters across the top spelled “December’s Delicious Cafe”. From the south a paltry wind blew, causing the door to creak in its frame. “Not much to look at, isn’t it?” the friend on the left said. Made ever so hesitant by the worrying, almost premeditated lack of character behind the glass the other friend took a step back. It was an empty space without merit. But the woman only stood sentinel, feeling the smooth caress of wind in its feeble senility, and then pressed forward, saying “That’s our invitation I guess”. Beckoned, the friends followed. Once inside, she began to rub her temples, and look around. The patron was speechless as she paced about the room in sporadic motions. “Patroness, are you alright?” April Frosting asked of Snow. “Calm down, we need to find whatever is here” Alluring Philosophy reassured her. “Exactly! Exactly! That table was here … and that chair was there … and that picture was there!” she declared pointing at vacant spots all around the room. In flashes her counterpart's life began to return. “Little does it matter where we came from, even in our past lives” Alluring Philosophy interrupted, trying to cure the woman’s distress. “I was over there, behind the counter, minding my shop, watching people come and leave,” Snow answered, gliding over to where the partition for the kitchen was. Both of the friends sighed with lack of enthusiasm as they watched her stand behind the counter, as if to offer them a snack. Then they noticed that she was not looking at them, but beyond, glaring out the window with a blank expression. April Frosting waved her hand to get Snow’s attention … and break her from her reverie. “What did you see?” the metacoma questioned, seeing how the shop-owner had a hand over her mouth, as if to subdue what was trying to escape. “This was my cafe. Now I remember the minute it happened. I was standing here and cutting an onion for a sandwich. The shop was empty, as it was early morning. Looking up, I peered out the window, out there. At first there was nothing, but then one at a time the snowflakes came. Before long, winter danced outside the glass. It came, unspeakable sheets of white. In awe of the beauty, I cried, and tears streamed down my face. It may have been from the onion, or from what I saw, or both. And I may have fallen asleep for a minute. That was when I split, and below, when Echo saw Sam as Dazin, I was brought into being” Snow recognized. “Interesting,” Alluring Philosophy remarked, dispassionate like a proper sleuth, “who did you sell it to?”, in reference to the sandwich. Kneeling down, clearing away cobwebs to a locked cabinet, she unsealed a metal box, “I kept all my receipts down here”. Thumbing through the receipts by date, she finally came to the right article. “Eugene Traveler” the signature on the receipt indicated. “I know this one, he is within the portion” she said, and rushed out of the shop. They continued through downtown Vancouver. As they did, April became more concerned with the ambiguous weather. For when the temperature is just so, it cannot be felt at all, and it is as if … nature is absent. Sensation ceases and curiosity remains. “The patron’s mood will liven when we find what we are looking for” she reassured herself. Traveler could be found in the commercial district, tending to a trade fair booth for civil pharmaceutical telecommunication. Nearby, rattle cuttlefish had found their way in through a window. They had at the ends of their tentacle's chimes like that of a rattlesnake which, when vibrated, resonated like a windchime incessantly. A security guard was dispatched to shoo the strays away. “Mr. Eugene, would you be able to answer a few questions?” Snow asked. “I would be happy to answer any questions you have about our products. Ever since the architect pharmacist Bates Origami founded our company, we have had the goal of serving the public with the highest quality” Traveler answered, thinking he could capture their interest. “I’m not here for a sale. What I am looking for is more specific, and personal” the patron replied, then took the receipt out of her pocket, handing it over to him. “You want to know about a sandwich I bought more than ten years ago?” Traveler, raising an eyebrow, replied ... not quite sensing the deviation in time. “I know it’s a lot to ask” the woman admitted. “This place hasn’t even been open since the old days. It’s in the forgotten part of town” he recalled, passing his eyes over the small type with care, a glint in his eye. “We are conservators paid for by the committee. Any history of the old city, we would definitely like to be acquainted with, if it could be preserved” fabricated the detective, hoping for more. “But this was just a quaint little shop” Eugene countered, taken somewhat aback by the rare request. “After a complete record is made, locations important for Vancouver’s cultural history will be selected. This is important as a step in our process” Snow elaborated and saw that she had finally won his trust. “I see. December’s Delicious Cafe… yes, I can almost picture it now ...lunched there from time to time. They had sandwiches and charming cups of lemon tea. That was before the phenomenon, before lemon tea was augmented by crystals and interpretive dance. My favorite was the swiss. I would have a slice of banana bread on the side. Kind and inviting, filled with light gossip. The owner was pleasant and ran the place herself. Now that I think of it … that was the one place everyone always looked forward to going. You're making me nostalgic for the old days'' Eugene divulged to the guests. As the words entered her, she shivered subtly with nervousness, preparing to ask the next question, “Can you tell us about the sandwich?”. Traveler rubbed his chin, thinking, “Lucky for you, that was a day I could never forget. I was on my way back to work when the bag was stolen by some runaway scamps. Never got a good look at them ... even so, that was so long ago”. As he extended an arm to return the receipt, she placed her hand on his wrist saying, “Thank you for your assistance, friend. Keep this, it’s a piece of the past”, and walked away with the other two. Back at the shop, April formed a table and chairs from cake frosting for them to rest. “Well, at least we know it went to good use” Alluring Philosophy remarked, in order to cheer up the rest. “Should we continue to look for clues?” April wondered aloud. Snow looked at them both, “I wouldn’t think so. Duchesses, since our harmony is strong, I will relate to you what is now becoming clear. If you will recall, I came into being the moment that Echo saw Dazin at that party. Likewise, I witnessed the snow with tears streaming down my face as I cut the onion. I was in awe. Just as I am a personification of awe at first sight, I am love at first sight, an entity called forth by that experience of Echo. For this reason ... my identity has been contingent upon their continued bond. Had history found a different course, separating the two, I would not have survived, but faded away, dissolving like a snowflake upon the tongue, just as a dream”. “Fascinating!” April exclaimed as Alluring Philosophy gasped from the swift surprise. “Perhaps I was being naïve when I shouted at mother before. Now that I am face to face with a similar dilemma, I feel her struggle” Snow thought to herself. “However, I was broken from this requirement recently by a spell. The dream reflection. At the time I did not recognize the consequences. Now I … we … are free to claim our own identity. But I am at a loss as to what path I may wish for. Where there was purpose … now there is possibility. Duchess … I feel so afraid” the patron confided. Overwhelmed, they all embraced each other. Separating, she led them out of the shop and towards the street, listening to the clack off the door as it closed behind. Yet before the return, the woman turned again to examine the shop. “A runaway scamp you say …'' she whispered to herself. They went back into the interior, walking through the back kitchen until the door to the cellar revealed itself. “Let’s go this way and see if it leads somewhere” Snow proposed, gratified by her friend’s fortitude and the new lead. Below, in the musty cellar, there was a chasm in the wall that led for a mile underneath the city, to a society of subterranean misfits. Tattered red and white flags, some of them strips, hung from the ceiling of a communal gathering where bartering tradesmen of the underworld thronged. “A proper freshening of the portion is in order” April began. Alluring smiled back at the humor. Then, powerful waves of drowsiness overtook both of the duchesses, and they fainted onto the dirty ground. Snow felt it, but shook it off, kneeling down to place a hand upon April’s shoulder to rouse her ... but then realized, in a true awakening of horror, what had occurred. “Etab'' she thought, realizing the enterprise of the empress and the dark patron had been successful in sending lucidity across space and time. Then this would be a natural backlash, like a shockwave passing through the fiefdom. The metacoma, most of them would be plunged deeper into that precious state and be unable to aid them in a battle that was on the horizon. They would be defenseless. Rambling up to them from the crowd, an old black-bearded vagrant in a thick hood noticed the disturbance. “My April … and Maude, '' he stuttered. The expression on his face gave it away. “Then the scamps were these two” the patron surmised as she rose to talk to him, “They fainted when they saw you. It was too much for them … after all these years. They will be like this for a good time, maybe weeks if not years. Will you look after them? I have a spell so they do not hunger”. With tears making paths upon his face, clean lines, the ragged man embraced her, and lifted up one of them while Snow lifted the other to where he had his quarters behind a shower curtain and placed them down upon a bed. When it was done, the cafe owner returned back through the tunnel to the cellar, up the staircase and out into the still air of Vancouver. Snow looked down at her hand, realizing that she had perhaps dropped the ring somewhere in the dark. “I didn’t lose it. I feel … interesting” she realized. For the solid ring had become mirror light that entered her and became blood. Whispers melded as an alloy. Somewhat unburdened by the new angst that had presented itself so suddenly, the woman smiled with fierce courage and continued back towards the heart of the portion.