Tag Archives: Greater Beyond

94.3 / 276

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There were the two Kao-Sidhe with them at the Peak. They had accompanied the elemental they guided to this invitation, and were occupying some upper wall space with a lot of apparent activation. Rosy Glow was raptly reflecting the extradimensional palette before her petal eyes. Dragon Food was looking especially well-put-together, zesty and sparkling with flair, glistening with sauciness and hot from the fire as he took in the dance of two dragons up ahead. He couldn’t resist his own irresistible nature, and he began to float forward.

Bux Woollibee’s head turned as Dragon Food drew level with where he was standing on the bridge. He reached out to try to catch what might be a foot or a trailing wisp of aroma, but the sidhe was at this moment incorporeal. Dragon Food continued onward, his look turning more determined and courageous. Bux waggled a pointing finger after him as the Kao-Sidhe approached the viewpane. Arjun noticed and understood; walking calmly over, he reached out a hand that passed right through Dragon Food’s currently diminutive form, which continued forward with stubbornly singular focus. Arjun looked at Soleil. Soleil looked at Rosy Glow, who was enraptured both by the otherworldly sunset and by her love flying into it. “Can you do anything about that?” Soleil asked her road friend. “What is he doing?”

“I don’t know,” murmured Rosy Glow, “and probably not. We, our kind, have to be what we are, or we wouldn’t exist. I believe right now, he’s going to be what he most truly is. I love him for exactly that. I don’t think I could stop him if I tried, and I’ve never tried.”

“But is he going to be okay? Are we going to be okay?”

“How could I be the one to answer that?” She looked back toward Dragon Food and the sunset, swooning helplessly.

“Can you blind him? Confuse him?”

“Me? No. Though he might argue differently. And trying might ruin this, first. Isn’t there more time left in the song?” At this moment, Dragon Food passed through the viewing pane and out into the aqueous area inside the permeable torrential slip field.

With one hand out toward what just happened, Arjun demanded of Rosy Glow, “Where are your limits? What are your limits? Could he always do that?”

“Always? No, I can’t imagine so. He’s doing it now.”

“Doing what?” asked Arjun.

“His thing.” Her hypnotized expression turned into an anticipatory grin.

Arjun’s thoughts raced. They’ve been working on this for academic ages. This wouldn’t exactly be happening right now without these two, or this one apparently determining his own role. This was now occurring on its own. They couldn’t have guessed or tried for this, and this has to be it. We’re already getting more than we ever have, and giving more than we ever have. We now have to pay attention, save everything we can of this moment. He looked around the room, checking the reactions of the research crew. Instrument reading techs in all their fields appeared to understand the gravity of these observations, doubling down on their focus, accuracy, and detail. No one had any idea what to expect when they started out, and not in the next phase, or this next. They knew how to handle not knowing. They were here for real science.

94.2 \ 276

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There was, at some point, another voice in there with the first voice. Both voices were there between the things they could hear, sense, and record – like unheard footfalls.

Instrument readings were consistent, yet came in differently; it was the metaphenomena, the differentials in timing, things that weren’t being measured about the things that were being measured. This was yet noted by some, with the keenness of peak moment attention. The sound of the song was an object being carried along the same trajectory by two dancers instead of one.

The matching of the two parts of sound became more seamless, more indistinguishable. They began to see something out there, similar to the sunset they saw on their first full run. Was it a different sunset? Here, it was a different day. Was that a different place? Here, they were in the same place. Between themselves and this other present place was a shadow – a mesh of two shadows that were the same but different, looking alike but moving differently. They could barely be discerned between two halves of otherwise light-filled worlds.

That’s where the action was happening, barely outside of sense or comprehension, on the very edge of awareness. Why did they read this sound connected to this moment, and produce a sound to create this moment? Why were these two Dragons necessary? Two Dragons.

Arctyri wasn’t there to lend er perspective; ‘e was only helping facilitate transit to safe surface. Arkuda, of light-filled nature, was calmly held in the awe of developing comprehension. The second Dragon was the same Dragon, like the other half of the song was the same song. The Arch had been working on this research since before Acamar had emerged. Arkuda recognized the way of Dragon conception – the development of an element of truth in existence, from other elements of truth, somewhere outside of and throughout time. Once it was real, it had always been real, even if one day it might not be real in the same way. This moment was inextricable from itself. That other Dragon, which was the same Dragon, was in another place, which in some way might be the same place. In these two places, two parts of the same song were being played.

Many of the humans aboard looked through the shadows to what was beyond, each recording for their own profession to the best of their ability. Across an impossible distance of clarity, there were people, so like them. There were strange structures. It was hard to focus, but easy to feel.

94.1 \ 276

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Everything go in the abyssal experiment zone, where the experts had been living for span upon span. With the new elements swimming in place, maybe only for this one time, they didn’t know how they could possibly give anything more to the culmination of their group effort.

When it began again, the whole Arch could hear it: The Hoopoe’s ultimate track (with regards to this experiment, he would murmur). They’d gotten the best musical talent for this party, it was agreed.

This time, the track sounded different; the difference was the new Dragon. Acamar was there, out in the abyss just past where anyone could see. The sound transformed the way sound does when it bounces off an object, but this object didn’t make sense three-dimensionally. The listening crew experienced something like echolocation, though instead of returning a distorted soundwave, the sound was completed into something greater than the sound they were producing. It was similar to a musical sense of completion, the home note in a composition where every note hit home. The elements of completion were otherworldly, yet because of the way their portion of the sound was grounded in their own reality, the in-between quality still belonged. It was like their own entire dimension was balanced on one side of a seesaw, and this sound was the plank displaying the balance – but likely, they were realizing further, not the only balance touching this existence.

Somewhere in there was the voice of Acamar, but it was between everything that they could hear, while being distinctly there. Acamar was doing something with this wave, or this wave was doing something to Acamar – as though ‘e knew what it meant, what it was, and what to do. Dragons do recognize their element in all novel occurrences.

Time as a dimension seemed to suspend. It was strangely comfortable, the way people are comfortable in the moment before everything that might happen next. They cherished and savored the world they knew, before eagerly facing one they didn’t yet – the world to come in the following moments, approaching as every future approaches.

93 \ 275

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Arcta lounged against the bottom curve of an alcove wall – low-ceilinged, cushioned, and comfortable. It was just her inside, lit with a nice medium-level glow. She tugged a scrap of paper out of her fitting sleeve. Snuggling into the curve, she read.

a space on the other side
one form or another
near enough to touch
one way or another
what makes the bridge?
what do we seek?
is the bridge what we seek?
what hunger or call brings us here
to the swaying path?
I sense the desire to be known
by something that wants to know us.
we’re drawn to this pursuit,
danger seems to signify its value.
myself likely closer than most
for various reasons –
can almost touch it,
if I knew what touch meant here

({warping, trying to hold onto a memory of a physical form, but there’s something nearby that’s different; the memory is held together, but in a way that keeps changing it. hold on or hope})

There was something more about what was on the paper, some lingering experiential feeling transmitted that wasn’t in the words. She would take one of these from the stack, that Raev had written in odd moments. When he said maybe he’d write a poem about it – when she busted him out of stillfreeze – she said she’d read it. He gave her all these, that he’d written to make sense or nonsense of it. This was just the right kind of time to have a little of his presence. In full self-honesty, she wasn’t expecting much more of it.

These explanations of amorphous, bodiless experience had some scent of critical information. Reassuringly, none of it seemed like anything she could do anything about. She was just the only one who’d expressed any interest. Maybe nobody could do anything about it, at this point. All of this had been in his mind when he came out of stasis. Raev had experienced or seen a lot, somehow, during that time.

92 \ 274

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The third mekani leaped away, and the dust swirled. Behind each of the several Aquarii enveloped in radiance, regular-sized blue orbs sparked into electricity. The nearby people who saw them first started up the exit chant: “Hey hey, ho ho, we won’t put up with it anymore!”

At this signal, they scrambled up from the ground and formed small clumps around group guides holding a tall object up high. Then they linked hands again, and hustled, group by group, toward the nearest glowing orb shielded by an Aquari. Small group organization was easier to manage chaotically. For each set of hands linked, just one person had to touch the orb, and they’d be netted out.

Bright Wave, Soft Sand, Sharp Talon, and the others gave the greatest last ounce of their defensive intensity to these moments of egress. The pilots facing them had to ride out the storm in the procedural stasis of instrument and sense confusion.

The sounds of human passage died down until Bright Wave felt the arrival of an empty breeze. Turning her head to look, she saw that it was just them left across the area between the fence and the distant hovers. The glint of a glowing zerite chip embedded in a boltball caught the corner of her eye. Its presence had been boosting her amplitude, and she said goodbye to it. Still holding her pendant high, she backed toward her orb, seeing the others do the same. Once Bright Wave was close enough to touch the orb, she cast a piercing white light in front her and disappeared behind it, as did the others.