Enyatta fell, and fell, and fell, through the darkness of the void. In the distant corner of her brain that was currently occupied by her consciousness, Enyatta had the vague thought that she should probably be terrified. After all, she had only traveled by inter-dimensional portal once before, and the Librarian had knocked her out when it had kidnapped her. This time she was only mildly comatose due to the shock of it all. To be perfectly honest, her stunned state was probably the only reason she wasn’t screaming in terror.
Suddenly, with no warning at all, Enyatta was blinded by light. She absently noted that she had been unceremoniously kicked out of the void and was now hanging in the air. Then gravity took over and she fell a much shorter distance and landed in something wet and cold. Enyatta floundered desperately, panicked. She waved her arms and legs in some sort of crazed dance as she searched desperately for something solid. Her left foot thrust straight down and her big toe slammed into what felt like a rough and craggy rock. She opened her mouth to yell and only managed to swallow a large mouthful of what she belatedly realized had to be water.
The discovery of something familiar helped to calm her racing mind. She pushed both feet down gingerly toward the rock that she had previously painfully discovered. Coming into contact with it, she pushed off forcefully, shooting her body toward what she hoped was the surface of whatever body of water she had ended up in. Luck was on her side, as her head was thrust out of the water and into blessed fresh air. Enyatta heaved several deep breaths, staring wildly at her surroundings.
At first glance, she had fallen into a circular pool roughly 10 meters in diameter in the middle of a watery cavern lit in a greenish hue. At the edges of the pool, exotic greenery took over, buffering the pool from the smooth cavern walls. Overhead, rays of sunlight penetrated through small holes in the cavern roof, partially covered with vines and large leaves, giving the cavern its subterranean feel. The cavern, or grotto, she thought, was altogether an oblong shape approximately 30 meters long by 20 meters wide. The pool Enyatta had landed in occupied a space somewhere near the center, the freezing temperature of the water somewhat explained by the single ray of sunlight touching its surface, illuminating a small area around Enyatta almost as though the cavern had turned a dim spotlight upon its unexpected guest.
As she examined her surroundings in more detail, a slow smile began to spread across Enyatta’s face. This was water. And those green things? Those were leaves. Real, honest to goodness green chlorophyll loving leaves. And there was dirt, and moss, and a sandy beach, and some sort of delicate orange flowers. And there wasn’t a single sterile metallic white surface to be found anywhere. Best of all though, the glowing lights from millions of databanks had been replaced with a few precious rays of glorious, wonderful sunlight.
“This can’t be real,” Enyatta thought as she beheld the vivid paradise laid out before her. “I have to be dreaming.” She slapped herself. It hurt. That hurt brought the pain in her foot to her attention and she realized belatedly that had she been dreaming, stubbing her toe in such a manner probably would have woken her up.
Shaken out of her awe by the reminder of her own fallibility, Enyatta shook herself and began an ungainly paddle toward where the pool of water ended in a pristine sandy beach. After several moments of struggling that felt like hours, she felt her foot brush something soft and grainy, and she hauled herself out of the water and onto the beach and flung herself down on her back in the sand, exhausted. The white robe that she was wearing seemed to stick to the sand in its sodden state. That was ok though, because Enyatta didn’t feel like moving anytime soon.
As she lay on the ground contemplating the wild and drastic change in direction that her life had suddenly taken, a weight on her chest reminded her of the broken soul stone that might, or might not, contain the Spirit of the Library. A being who was her only friend, her teacher, her master, and her jailer all rolled into one. Enyatta reached across her chest and grabbed the stone fragment, pulling it up to her face in order to get a better look at it. It had been reduced in size to such an extent that it now fit in the palm of her hand. The violent carving of its facets had given it the shape of a half moon, as it was only 1 quarter of the original sphere. The runes along its smoothly curved outer facet no longer blazed with blue fire, but rather glowed like heated blue coals. Of its other two edges, one was perfectly smooth and unblemished, where Enyatta had cut it with her chaotic qi. The other was jagged and rough, a testament to the power of the attack from the blood scythe.
The dim blue glow that illuminated the broken script of runes along the edge of the stone gave Enyatta hope that her friend and protector was not gone forever. Cautiously, she stretched out a tendril of soul force toward the stone. There was no response, only a dim feeling of pain from some sort of presence that seemed to Enyatta to be much diminished from the normally vast aura of the Librarian.
Enyatta racked her brain for something that might restore the spirit to its former glory. After several moments of consideration, she settled for feeding a small amount of chaotic qi from her dan’tian into the stone, reasoning that a spirit born of chaos would be able to feed on the energy. She hoped that the Librarian would wake from its comatose state soon. She had plenty of questions for it, starting with where the hell the portal had sent her. Not that she would complain too hard of course. Whatever else could be said about the arrival of this “Celestial Emperor” fellow, the resulting confrontation had seen her removed from her asteroid home/ prison. Sure, Enyatta felt guilty about the injury to the Spirit of the Library, but not guilty enough that she would wish things had gone differently. She had finally taken her first step toward freedom and she wasn’t about to turn back. And so, on a foreign world, in an unknown grotto, lying on a beach that felt ever so comfortable at the moment, Enyatta drifted off into an exhausted slumber.
Enyatta awoke to find that the branches near the holes in the ceiling had moved closer while she was asleep and were now hovering directly above her head. They had also turned blue for some reason. Enyatta shut her eyes and rolled over, figuring that she must be hallucinating and that therefore she needed more sleep. Then she realized that she had been hallucinating a lot recently, and that for some strange reason her hallucinations had been coming to life and causing her problems. The logical conclusion of this line of reasoning was that all hallucinations should be taken seriously until their illusory nature could be conclusively proven. Enyatta rolled back over and her eyes widened in wonder.
What she had thought were mysterious blue branches were actually antlers. She craned her neck back to get a clearer picture of what sort beast possessed such a magnificent rack. Standing behind and above her with his hooves straddling her head was a truly magnificent stag. Its fur pelt was a silky midnight blue, with small white spots. It appeared as though someone had taken the space scape from around the Library and painted it onto an animal. The overall impression of a sentient velvet starscape was broken only by the forehead of the stag where a jewel the size of a closed fist glowed orange and yellow, like the hottest core of a star. Its antlers were a lighter shade of blue than the rest of its body, more akin to an evening sky just after sunset than the deepest night. It was slim and graceful, with equine lines built more for speed rather than power. It stood only about 5 feet high, and would only have measured to Enyatta’s chin, had she been standing up. Rather than attempt to move though, Enyatta just lay on her back and stared up at the majestic beast, afraid that any flinch or fidget would break the magic of the moment.
Not only was this the first living creature she could remember seeing; it was more impressive, and more real, than anything she had read about in the vaults of the Library. Once again, she felt that her life had taken on a dreamlike quality. Eventually she knew that she would just have to accept that going forward, every waking moment would be filled with the fantastical. She considered the notion, then decided that if the fantastical was what the fates had in mind for her, she could roll with it.
The stag slowly lowered its head until less than a foot separated the gem on its forehead from Enyatta’s wide eyes. Enyatta stared, entranced. The deeper she stared into the gem the more certain she grew that the oranges, yellows, and golds within its faceted transparent depths moved to a pattern of their own accord, forming hundreds of individual tongues of flames. Dimly, she realized that she should probably be frightened. After all, the beast above her was obviously magical in nature and she had no idea as to whether its intentions were malevolent. However, the gentleness and humor that she perceived within its black eyes were unmistakable.
Ever so hesitantly, as though fearing she might scare it away, Enyatta reached up a hand, palm out, toward the gem on the stag’s forehead. The stag stared deeply into her eyes, standing totally still, as her hand slowly traversed the distance that separated them. After what seemed their own special eternity, Enyatta’s hand came to rest gently on the gem, eclipsing its surface with her gentle palm. As though controlled by a force neither could name, the stag lowered its head and gently rested its nose on the forehead of the young girl.
All at once, all of the soul force that normally resided in the area between her eyes was drawn down Enyatta’s arm to the palm of her hand. It was as though by touching the gem she had allowed it to begin to vacuum her very essence into its glittering fires. As she saw the milky glow of her soul force pool in the palm of her hand before being hungrily sucked in by the gem, Enyatta began to panic. As though it was reading her mind, the stag snuffled quietly through its nose against her forehead, and caught her excited gaze with its twin placid pools. Staring deep into their dark depths, Enyatta felt a soothing presence in her mind. She was further distracted from the strange and uncomfortable sensation of the movement of her soul force by a cool and dry sensation on her forehead, like it was being hit with a gentle jet of air. She glanced up and realized that the sensation was the result the stag’s own soulforce, a midnight blue (purple?) rather than a milky white, gathering into several teardrops on the crown of her head.
Slowly, the velvety drops began to be absorbed into her skull, replenishing the void left by the disappearance of their milky white counterparts. As more and more soul force was absorbed into Enyatta’s empty repository, it seemed to accumulate and hang in the empty space, expectant. Just as the final drop of soul force disappeared from her forehead, Enyatta realized that so too had the final drop of her own soul force disappeared into the fiery gem. Her hand dropped from its hard surface as a sudden wave of exhaustion swept over her. The stag likewise staggered backward several feet before collapsing as though its legs were too weak to support its own weight. Once more, stillness reigned in the underground grotto.
“What was that?” Enyatta thought as she tried to sit up, struggling from a lack of energy. Eventually she made it into a verticle position, and sat, hugging her knees to her chest. She shot a quick glance at her newfound… companion? … friend? ... pet? To be honest, Enyatta wasn’t quite sure what to make of her new acquaintance. She took some small amount of pleasure though, in the fact that the creature seemed just as exhausted by the sudden sharing of soul force as she was.
As Enyatta gazed at the stag who had drifted into an exhausted slumber, a soft smile spread across her face. The stag shifted in its sleep, snuffling through its nose in a manner that Enyatta found quite endearing. She chuckled softly, careful not to wake the sleeping spectacle. She was happy that her first encounter in this strange new world had proven so benign. From the reading she had done in the Library, she knew that she could just have easily have run across an angry golden furred gorilla, poisonous nightshade serpent, or winged tiger. She wouldn’t have made anything more than a delectable appetizer for such a high grade opponent. Enyatta paused in thought. “I wonder what grade my sleeping friend is?”
Something shifted deep in Enyatta’s thoughts, snapping her out of her temporary reverie. She looked inwards, casting her consciousness in search of the disturbance. She soon came to the source of the strange feeling. As her soul force had begun to recover, gently seeping pure new energy into the cavity behind her brow, the new energy had come into contact with the energy already there; the energy left behind from the midnight stag. As each new strand of pure white energy replenished the emptiness in the cavity, the purple soul force already present sent out of a strand of its own that tied itself to Enyatta’s soul force in a complex knot. As each knot was tied, Enyatta’s soul force cavity grew just a tiny bit larger.
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Enyatta watched the process in fascination. The more knots were tied between the two flavors of soul force, the more clearly she could feel a growing presence in the back of her mind. The presence radiated a warm and lethargic aura. It didn’t take an intellectual leap to guess that this was the mental presence of the stag that was asleep just a meter away on the sandy floor of the grotto. Enyatta reached out a small and pointed tendril of thought toward the new resident in her head, then paused in hesitation. She didn’t want to wake the stag up. From how exhausted it had appeared after going through what she now guessed had been a binding ritual, rest would be important to restore its strength. Plus, Enyatta always hated to be woken up when she was trying to sleep off a strenuous bout of training. She didn’t want to start their relationship off on the wrong foot. After all, she was fairly certain that if she could feel the presence of the stag in her mind, chances were the reverse was true for the stag.
Luckily, the choice was taken out of her hands, as the stag took that moment to open a lazy eye. Its gaze roamed across the orange flowers at the edges of the beach before sweeping back across the sand to focus on Enyatta. Enyatta felt a query from the presence in her mind brush up against her senses.
“Did it work?” Surprisingly, the question came through as a clearly worded question in a language Enyatta understood. The “voice” carried just a whisper of the warmth of a star and cold of the void held in perfect harmonization, giving it a peculiar sort of deep echo effect. Enyatta also noted that the voice was most definitely male.
“Did what work?” Enyatta replied, although she already had some idea to what the stag referred.
“I guess that answers my question,” the stag said, struggling to shake off its lethargy as it stood up, keeping its gaze warily fixed on Enyatta’s face.
“I assume you are referring to the binding ritual,” Enyatta said cautiously, adding “You do know what happened right? It was like we exchanged soul force. Did the soul force that the gem absorbed entwine itself with your soul force? That’s the soul force that I absorbed did. Did you know it would do that?”
“Whoa, slow down,” the stag interrupted Enyatta’s barrage of questions. His presence in her mind radiated a soothing aura. “Lets start at the beginning. My name is 明午夜 (Ming WuYe), but you can call me WuYe. What’s your name?”
“Enyatta,” Enyatta said quickly, her mind whirling. “Ming WuYe, doesn’t that translate to Bright Midnight?”
“No acorns between your ears I see,” WuYe said, chuckling. “You are right of course. My parents weren’t particularly imaginative. Ming is the family name that comes from the solar gem that every member of my family possesses. WuYe is due to the peculiar color of my pelt. Your name is much more interesting though. Enyatta. Where does it come from?”
“I don’t know,” she responded honestly. “I don’t remember my parents very well and the last time I saw them I was too young to care about my name.” She paused. “That’s not important though. You didn’t answer any of my questions!”
“You’re right. Very well then.” WuYe drew a deep breath, his mental presence becoming slightly nervous. “This will not be easy, but I will plow ahead anyway. They say that it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission, but rarely have I heard ‘them’ asking for forgiveness. To your questions though. I can confirm that your guess was correct. What happened between us was a very old, very powerful soul binding ritual. It is something that can only occur when two souls have an innate compatibility with each other, and rarely ever happens between a beast such as myself, and a human. However, I suspect that its success was due primarily to the fact that I am no ordinary beast, and you are no ordinary human.”
“Hold on,” Enyatta broke in. “What do you mean by ‘innate compatibility’? Furthermore, you speak of the success of the ritual as though it was uncertain. What if it had failed?”
“If it failed, I am afraid we wouldn’t be speaking right now, since we’d both be dead.” Enyatta gasped. WuYe continued hurredly, as though trying to talk his way past such a minor detail. “However, since it didn’t fail, it means our souls are compatible, meaning perhaps they are similar in age, power, or shared a connection in a previous life. So all’s well that ends well, right?” WuYe’s anxiousness was conveyed in his mental sense and his refusal to meet Enyatta in the eye.
“What do you mean ‘all’s well that ends well’?!” Enyatta shouted. Although, since the conversation was taking place entirely within her head, this translated to thinking very forcefully. “I could have died. You could have died. It must be, like, a one in a million chance that our souls were compatible, and you didn’t know this going in?! What were you thinking?!”
“More like one in a billion. But there was something about you. I sensed it,” WuYe insisted. “Besides, you sensed how both of us lost control once the process began. This was meant to happen.”
“’This was meant to happen,’” Enyatta imitated sarcastically. “Look, fate and I have been having a really weird day, so I suppose anything is possible. But still, I wish you had risked both our lives on more than just a hunch.”
“If wishes were fishes, there would, um… be a lot of fish. Okay, so it’s not my finest piece of sage advice, but the point remains: what is done is done. We are stuck with each other now.”
“Stuck with each other?!” Enyatta asked with growing incredulity. “You mean our soul binding is permanent?!?”
“Of course it’s permanent. It’s a soul binding. Anything concerning souls is generally pretty permanent. This especially though. It links our souls together. When one of us departs this mortal coil, the other will be bound to follow.”
“Mortal coil?! WuYe, are you even listening to yourself right now? You knew this was permanent going in. Why would you want to bind us together for life? You don’t even know me. I’m just some redheaded girl who washed up on the beach of your secret hideout grotto lair thing.”
“First, you aren’t ‘just some random redhead’. I sensed something special about you the moment I saw you. Second, Enyatta do you realize how rare it is to find someone your soul can connect to? Doubly so for me, since I am not exactly your average common magical beast. Third, not just any random person, or even random cultivator, walks around with a stone full of some sort of primordial energy clutched in their fist. In short, we had a rare connection, you were very interesting, and, lucky for me, you have proven to be of at least average intelligence.”
“Average intelligence?!?” Enyatta was almost struck dumb by the sheer audacity of the buck. “I’ll show you average intelligence. I have read more books than you could possibly ever have dreamed of! I have probed some of the deepest secrets of the universe. I know why stars are formed, and how they burn. I know about insurance, computers, politics, biology… I know more than you ever will in a million years!”
“Notwithstanding the fact that I am pretty sure that you are making some of those things up,” WuYe said, his mental presence radiating mischief. “If you’re so smart, how come you don’t know how to swim?”
“You… I … Its just… ARRRGGH!!” Enyatta formed a brick with her thoughts and attempted to beat the infuriating presence in her skull out of it. All she managed to do was make her headache return with a vengeance. “Fine. Fine. I give up. I’ll forgive you this once. As infuriating as you are, WuYe, you’re not wrong. I don’t know how to swim. I am assuming that you do. This being the case, I will forgive you on the condition that you teach me all of the ordinary things that I have never had the opportunity to learn. Starting with how to find food, and what is safe to eat.”
“Really? You’ll really forgive me? Great! You won’t regret this! We are going to be the best of friends, I promise,” WuYe’s ecstatic response betrayed the true feeling behind the air of wisdom and maturity that he was trying to project.
“Before you get carried away,” Enyatta interrupted, “a word of warning: if you ever make such a momentous decision again without consulting me, I promise I will chop off your antlers as you sleep. Don’t doubt my resolve.”
Ming WuYe’s mental presence shivered and he unconsciously stumbled backwards several paces, caught off guard by the sudden venom of Enyatta’s words. “Message received loud and clear Ma’am.” He privately reflected that he was very lucky that the conversation had gone so well up to this point. Enyatta’s threat had made him aware of the danger and power that lurked within such an innocent looking package.
Enyatta uncurled herself from her previous sitting position and managed to stand, feeling a good deal stronger due to the energy that she had recovered during the long conversation. She still felt angry that the stag had been so bold as to initiate the soul binding ritual without informing her of its implications beforehand. If she had to be honest with herself though, she also felt grateful to have found someone to talk to in such a strange new place, especially since the Librarian asleep in the soul stone shard seemed no closer to waking up.
Enyatta surveyed the grotto. Nothing seemed to have changed during her brief rest, with the exception of the addition of Ming WuYe. The grotto retained its peaceful and soothing aura. Nary could a ripple be seen in the pool, allowing Enyatta to see the many colorful fish that roamed its depths. This gave her an idea. Smiling wickedly, she turned to address her companion.
“All right you smug buck,” she said. “If you can swim so well, how about catching me a fish to eat for dinner? Or lunch. Or breakfast… what time is it anyway?”
“Your wish is my command,” WuYe said jokingly. “Which delectable dinner would you prefer? The rich and flavorful four-eyed salmon, the airy winged skitterfish, or the fiery red-tailed trout?”
“So its lunch time is it? I guess the four-eyed salmon sounds good.”
Wasting no further time for conversation, WuYe took a running start and executed a graceful dive into the pool with a small splash. He surfaced a moment later with a good sized gray fish with brown spots and, disturbingly, four eyes, clutched in his mouth. Enyatta was impressed despite herself, although she’d rather die than admit it to her newfound friend, who she had already determined had an overblown opinion of himself.
“Thanks,” she said as she nonchalantly accepted the fish from the mouth of the buck. “Now if only there was some way to cook it. You don’t by any chance know where I can find some flint do you?”
“Flint? What’s that and what does it have to do with cooking?” WuYe stared at her doubtfully.
“It’s a type of rock. I need it to make a fire.”
“A fire from a rock. Right… I am beginning to realize that you have many very queer ideas in that head of yours. If its fire you want, you need to use fire, not earth. Here, allow me,” so saying, WuYe beckoned Enyatta toward a flat rock. “Set the fish down on the rock and stand back.”
Enyatta did so, and then watched silently as WuYe began to cook her meal. A thin line of fire suddenly flashed out from the gem in the stag’s forehead, hitting the rock just below where the fish was sitting and causing it to heat up. Soon, the heat was such that the rock was glowing red, and Enyatta had been pushed several paces backwards. The fish slowly browned and crisped rapidly beginning to emit a rich aroma that filled Enyatta’s senses. She tried not to stare at its eyes as they fizzled in their sockets. She was more concerned though, with the fact that the gemstone on WuYe’s head had just spat fire.
“Your dinner is served my lady,” WuYe said triumphantly. He expertly speared the fish with an antler and presented it to Enyatta.
“Thank you my lord,” Enyatta said, playing along and trying desperately not to laugh. The sight of such a majestic creature looking at her with such pride all while a fish hung off one of his antlers was quite amusing. She accepted the fish, and, striving to achieve the same nonchalance, used a hand coated with chaotic qi to chop off its head and skin it. She decided there was no reason to admit that she was impressed with WuYe’s abilities, and instead let her own abilities speak for themselves. She didn’t need to inflate the stag’s ego any more than it already was. Sure, she knew that the thin stream of fire was caused by WuYe’s manipulation of qi in tandem with his knowledge of the dao, but it was one thing to know and another thing to see. If judged only by appearances, WuYe’s use of fire to heat up the fish was clearly more impressive than Enyatta’s use of chaos to unmake its head and scales. Appearances could be deceiving.
Enyatta bit into the fish, closing her eyes to savor its rich flavor. It tasted smoky, with just a hint of spice. She moaned in pleasure as a drop of juice traced the line of her chin. She could sense WuYe waiting expectantly. “This is marvelous, thank you,” she said seriously. All thoughts of keeping WuYe’s ego at a manageable level had vanished in the face of such tasty deliciousness.
“Of course it is.” Satisfied, WuYe lay down in the sand on the beach. A ray of golden sunlight shined through from a hole somewhere in the roof of the cave, penetrating the cover of the large green leaves. It fell across the gem on WuYe’s forehead, causing illusory tongues of flame to hang in the air, as though they were silent specters left over from WuYe’s magical feat.
Enyatta finished eating her dinner, smacking her lips to savor it. She washed the juices from her face and hands with water from the pool before walking across the sand to join him, feeling the fine grains of sand caress the soft skin of her feet. She lay down beside him, her splayed hair forming a fiery halo around her head. The two shared a companionable silence. Enyatta reflected that this might not be so bad. Sure, she had inadvertently pissed off a being with godlike powers, and been teleported who knows how far across the universe, but at least she had found a friend. The Librarian made only an acceptable companion at the best of times, and she wouldn’t characterize their relationship as one of friendship, rather as that of guardian and ward. As she allowed a dream to overtake her drowsiness, she decided that as long as WuYe was around, facing a strange and exciting new world wasn’t quite so intimidating. If only she could figure out how to deflate his ego along the way.