OH, THIS URGE SERVES ME WELL
compulsion, the universe contracts and folds in on itself / doe, wide-eyed disbelief / great divine mystery / elusive truth, disguised in the breeze / constantly changing, just to say the same thing
Labyrinth after labyrinth. Turn after turn. I move unhindered – not stumbling, not cautious, not afraid of a thing. The trouble with dying – and doing it again, and again, and again, as so many different things, in so many different ways – is that it starts to lose its bite when you’ve done it enough. What is the worst thing that can happen to me now? Dying again?
(No – the worst thing is failing. But that hasn’t sunk in, yet. I am still too young to process the weight that has been pulled across my shoulders like a heavy blanket. Later, it will feel more like lead.)
I don’t notice the man or his companion until I am upon them. Considering the size of said companion, I think that it is an accomplishment – and likely a strike against me. But the crystals are thick, and the reflections are deceptive. I almost mistook them for a part of the landscape, at first. There are so many strange things in the mirror.
He is dark and pale at once, with a sizable set of horns that do, to my credit, catch my attention; my warrior’s training has not been forgotten entirely. Hello, he says, with a sort of surprise that suggests to me that I am just as unexpected to him as he is to me.
“Oh-“ I say, still smiling broadly, maybe foolishly, “oh, hello.” I wasn’t expecting to see anyone else here, but, then, I don’t know anything about this island. Maybe people live here. I imagine it would be difficult to do so, considering that every single surface on the island is- strange and magical and reflective, but, with time, I’m sure that you can learn to deal with it.
What catches my attention, more than the man, is the creature who is with him. I don’t notice the shifting of scales, at first – it is so big that I nearly mistake it for a part of the landscape -, but, when it lowers its head to rest level with the two of us, I gasp. It is not a fearful gasp. (I am not afraid of much.) If anything, I would say that the sound is more like exhilaration, or pure delight.
The reptile breathes out sky-colored vapor, and I watch it wide-eyed as it twists in the air, first like racing horses and then like- fish, I think, but not any fish I’ve ever seen before. (I only recognize them by their fins, and even then, I am not certain. Discovering the ocean has led me to realize that there are far more types of fish in the world than I could ever have imagined.) I take one step closer to its huge skull, and then another, marveling at the sheer size of it. Goodness. The only creature I’ve ever heard of that seems like the massive beast before me is a-
I turn back to look at the man, wide-eyed, still grinning from cheek-to-cheek. “Is that a dragon? I’ve heard stories, but I didn’t know that they were real!” Oh, maybe I should be more cautious – but I’ve stumbled right into them now.
In front of me, my first life stares at me disapprovingly – her dark eyes narrowed to slits, the drip of blood from her drawn blade, her emerald armor coated in a thin sheen of ash. But my eyes are on the dragon, and on the man, and I don’t notice her stare at all.
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"Speech!"
EVERYTHING IS RISK, SHE WHISPERED.if you doubt, it becomes sand trickling through skeletal fingers.☙❧please tag Nic! contact is encouraged, short of violence
