The lights are lit. The voices of the crowd come to a low hum then to silence. The band warms up their instruments. The curtain parts and there she stood, her eyes closed, waiting. The theater holds its breath before softly; slowly, the music starts at an adagio. Her eyes stay shut as her feet move in time with the percussion. So soft, and light gliding across the floor, shifting and swaying in impossible motion.
There was magic in her bounce, playfulness in herpuirotte, and a laugh in her bounce. Her dance was her. She was a master, a witch casting her spell upon the audience without a thought. A heel-turn, a hip twist, a flick, and fleckerl, pivoting as the adagio morphed into allegro. The temp increasing. Not a single step out of place as she continued on stage, never once opening her eyes.
She was alone on stage, and she was reaching beyond. The audience was never the point of this show. This was her dance. Her magnum opus. A dance of magic in a place that forgot it long ago. Technology and machines, pushing it all back. People began to forget. Here and now, though she would show them the true magic in her dance. She would show them the ethereal, and transcendental, all within a simple dance.
The world watched on in complete awe, unable to take their eyes away. The camera focused unable to fully capture the beauty, yet it was just enough for the people watching at home to feel the magic. Then the world fell away. Quite literally, as the music reached its climax at the crescendo, she did the genuinely impossible. A tear in the fabric of reality itself appeared all around her. It was a glimpse at what lay between realities, the chaos of what could be and never will. A place of possibilities, unreality, and things best left unmentioned. But the dancer saw non of that, as she only had the dance. It was all she had left as she danced out and into the between. Dancing into eternity itself. Leaving the world that had left magic behind long ago.
#
The scene froze on the image of the portal between worlds. The music still seemed to linger in the air. The world is just a bit colder with the dancer gone.
A man stood upon a stage, a remote in his hand with eyes distant, as he stared into the unreality captured. Completely ignoring the strangeness of a blue Djinn woman, and a floating sword sitting in the auditorium’s seats watching the scene. The two were in awe, at least the Illia was. She could not get a read on Sasha’s feelings. It was either awe or confusion or a bit of both.
Illia was confused as she asked, “You can just dance a rift open? We’ve been studying magic for the last few years trying to get home. Only Sasha here has been able to open rifts.”
“Cut Rifts.” The sword corrected its voice distinctly feminine.
“Sorry. Cut Rifts, and they can’t explain it at all, not to mention we have no idea where they go.”
The man let out a long sigh before turning away from the screen. “There are so many different ways a person” the sword bobbed, “Or animated sentient item, or even an animal, can open rifts or travel through the between. Stepping through a fairy ring, or hit by a vehicle, or summoned by another world, woken up in a new body, or any other multitude of ways. Yours was stairs. Sasha cut a path. She” He pointed to the screen, “danced a rift into existence.”
“How do you dance a portal open?”
“Accident…actually looking at the footage. I think she might have done it on purpose. I hope she found what she was looking for.”
Illia still didn't know what to think about all this, or why the Human was explaining things. It was all quite far-fetched. People are taken from their home worlds to become Heroes in another. “None of that explains why you’re showing this to me. What is the point? If you send people away why haven’t you just sent me or Sasha away?”
“One. To show that it wasn’t me who took you.” The man eyed Illia. She felt uncomfortable under his stare.
“Yes. I think I understand.”
“The second reason I am explaining this to you. I try to make sure everyone when I can, understands what is going on.” A little sheepish he add, “And you took your file.”
“My file?” Illia’s mind went blank, thinking back to a little manila folder hidden under her mattress. The one thing that contained absolutely everything about her. Her thoughts, hopes, dreams, even her thoughts. Her face drained of color turning a few shades silver.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Huh, your kind of pale too, and yes your file. You have it, so I can’t match you to a world until I have it back.”
“What if I don’t.” She couldn’t imagine anyone having that much information about her. It would be like handing over everything about who she was. She wouldn’t even go through it. Once was enough to learn how much she didn’t understand herself.
The man stared at Illia confused. I don’t think he thought I might not do it.
“Stay here. Go through the library. Make some stuff. Live however you want. You’d just be stuck.” He gestured to the room itself. “Here. With me and Drystia.”
“You won’t force me to give you the folder?”
“No. Though at some point I might try to find it myself, but this place is huge so I don’t see you getting in my way.”
Illia was speechless. Sasha was not. “What about me? You going to send me away?”
The man shrugged, “If you want. Honestly, I think you should stay with her. She’ll need someone to rely on. Though I expect you could just open your own way out whenever.”
Illia was in a mind fog over the next few minutes as they wrapped up the conversation with the human. He had been polite and kind, nothing like she had imagined. Even after what they had done to him. Though it had been a year so maybe he had forgiven them. The two were shown the door.
Sasha and illia stood outside. “Now what?” Sasha asked.
She had no idea. It felt like she was at a crossroads one that led to freedom and another was just staying in her cage. A cage she had grown comfortable in. A cage she could do whatever she wanted, yet still a cage.
She was terrified and to close to this right now. “Lets find Rixar. He might have an idea.”
#
The door shut and a man and a doll are alone, with a frozen video.
The doll stood next to the man. “So can you really not send her away without her file? Cause I swore there were others like that.”
Nicki rolled his eyes. “Of course, I don’t need her file, but I don’t think she’s ready yet.”
“Ready?” Her voice was incredulous, “Since when do they need to be ready?”
“I don’t know I could just feel it. Also, I think she’d be happier if she made the decision herself.” He shrugged. “Also giving her time isn’t an issue, I mean it might have been a year for them. It was only a week for us.”
“I bet you’re hoping she chooses to stay.”
“Why do you say that?” Nicki’s voice caught being called out.
She gestured to the room around them, “This is a big place.”
“Maybe a little,” Nicki admitted. The office was a little big and there weren’t all that many people he could talk to about it. “I don’t know.”
Drystia thankfully changed the subject. “Why this memory?”
“I don’t know. I almost played it all the way through.” Nick said as he stared at the controller.
Drystia reached up and place her hand on the remote.
Nicki nodded and hit play.
The dancer was gone and the audience watched in disbelief. From start to finish the woman's show was pure magic, whimsy, and skill. Nothing a machine could replicate. The audience could feel it as the show came to an end. It was the last of the world's magic leaving them in its own whimsical way.
The people who watched would remember this to the end of their days. Sadly for many, they would not survive the day. From up on the stage, the tare into a place of chaos stood. Still open.
The audience sat staring, wondering what would happen next unsure if this was part of the show.
Tap. Tap. A simple sound, that could mean a thousand different things, but In this particular case something utterly odd and dreadful came along with it. A palpable wave of fear, rushed out of the portal hitting the audience with a paralyzing fear. So many were glued to their seats, unable to even breathe, others, possibly the lucky ones, rushed to the exit. As a thick scaly claw grasped the side of the portal, pulling itself out. Onto a world that had long forgotten its kind, a world that had related it to myths and legends. For the first time in ten thousand years. Well, ten thousand three hundred and sixty-five to be precise. A dragon stepped into their world.
#
If one looked just beyond the dragon, which would be a shocking amount of willpower to not just stare at the majestic scales and pure size of the thing, then one would see a man just on the other side of the portal. His bloody hands grabbed at the edges of the rip in reality. Purple lightning coursed through his body as he screamed.
Just behind him a shadow of nothing. A horde of creatures made of nothing, things of myth and dreams moved ever closer to the opening.
“Will you hurry it up!” A feminine voice yells from behind. The perspective shifted showing the man still struggling with the tare, as well as a seven-foot tall woman in a large crimson dress holding her sword forward, swinging into the creature’s essence keeping them back.
“I’m trying. This isn’t easy you know.” Nicki yelled at Drystia.
Frustrated and tired she yelled, “Just try!”
Nicki pulled with everything he had. The world rippled, and shifted, as the edges slowly came closer together. Looking out into the world the people were panicking and a rather prideful dragon stood looking at the little things the man could only hope he would hold up his end of the deal. “Prepare them Ddraig. This rift will open again.”
“I will do what I must.” His voice was like a howl but his words were perfectly understandable. “It is what I owe you and them.”
Nicki smiled as he fell to the ground unconscious, the rift closing. The monsters were frenzied but Nicki and the full-sized Drystia could no longer be touched as they faded. The woman stood vigil over her charge as they were pulled through the between to their next disaster.
* * *