Safe-ish

Nix snuggled into Tessa’s arms, which she used to cradled him like a baby. Tosh could see the full extent of the creature. It looked like a thing out of myth. What he thought at first was a small, scaled, snake-like creature of red scales with blue frills was more. A serpentine head and slender body with a pair of gossamer thin insect-like wings a third of the way down from the head. Its coloring was a dark crimson that faded to a pale ochre near the tail, which ended in a vicious-looking stinger.

Tessa scratched Nix’s chin again and then let the creature spring from her, letting it flitter about around her hands and her body. She let out an innocent giggle and clapped her hands as Nix moved in wider and wider arcs around her.

Tosh looked up to see the light of the star was much like Sol, yet far away. The grassy knoll he found himself on was much like that of Earth. Though by moving a little, it felt more like Martian gravity.

“Where are we?” Bors asked. There was something in his voice, a catch that made Tosh turn to look at his bodyguard.

“When is a better question?” Tessa said, smiling up at the little flying serpent. She scratched under the beast’s chin when Nix dipped down, letting Tessa’s fingers scratch away. Nix burbled and gurgled like a baby, getting attention from a doting mother before flittering away again.

“What do you mean, when?” Bors asked, looking at Tessa with a mixture of fear and anger.

Tessa looked at Tosh, her eyes seeking help. Tosh only shrugged. “You’d better explain,” Tosh said. “I flunked that part of Uni.”

“Do you know how the Gates work?” Tessa asked Bors.

“You walk in and you walk out somewhere else. Teleportation,” Bors said.

“Something akin to that. But space and time are rather… fluid,” she said, placing her hands together, palm to palm, before interlacing her fingers. It was a very exact and precise movement that caught Tosh’s eye. He’d seen it before at Uni and never understood it when the Guildie tried to explain the “science” of the Gate.

“Huh?” Bors asked, clearly confused.

“You can go into a Gate and come back to the same spot, but in a different time,” Tessa said.

“Are we in Renkeshka?” Bors asked.

“No. I had to go somewhere and somewhen else. And, she touched both your minds for a safe place. Well… safe-ish.”

“She?” Both Tosh and Bors blurted out, looking at each other.

Tessa pointed up. Tosh’s eyes followed Tessa’s gesture. After a few moments, he was ready to write off Tessa’s actions as being a strange Guildie thing. He then saw it. A faint outline about twenty feet from where they were on the knoll. Hard to make out, but after staring hard at it, the outline grew sharper. It’s a Gate. It hasn’t moved. Wait, are we—

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“Then, we are on Mars?” Both Bors and Tosh asked, looking at each other when they realized it at the same time. Both then looked around the odd landscape that wasn’t Mars, yet was.

“Yes,” Tessa said with a simple nod.

“When?” Bors asked, looking around. Seeing something, he plunged his sword into the ground, dropping to one knee with his head bowed.

Tosh looked at where the barbarian was looking and saw a gigantic mountain, an enormous mountain, taking up most of the view of the North. “Is that—”

“Olympus Mons, before it was destroyed,” Tessa said with a nod of her head.

“So we are in the far-flung past,” Tosh said, doing some math in his head.

“Ancestors be praised,” Bors said. He muttered something in his native tongue that was too fast for Tosh to completely comprehend. He caught something about the Mother and something about being the right bearer of the Soul. Yet most of it was gibberish to him. Bors continued to touch the pommel, and Tosh thought there was a glow coming from the white gem. He banished it from his mind as a trick of the light.

“And now?” Tosh asked. “Are we at a waypoint, or are we going somewhere soon?”

“A bit of both,” Tessa said, giving the serpent another scratch under the chin as it darted around her. She let out a small tinkling laugh, and Nix started to swirling higher and higher in the sky, looping and bending his body into different shapes, flowing from one to the next in an endless string of red scales.

“Care to elaborate?” Tosh asked.

“Let him finish his prayer. I can replenish and then we can go.” Tessa called Nix to her lap. She then leaned back on her arms and took in the sunlight. She let out a sigh, looking up at the light with a wistful smile on her face. “Always a great place to replenish.”

“Replenish?”

“It takes willpower, concentration, and a bit of luck to use a Gate,” Tessa said, not even opening her eyes. “She is greedy, but it’s worth it.” Tess turned her face further up, eyes opening to look at something in the sky.

“We are on ancient Mars, Tosh,” Tessa said without moving or opening her eyes. “Not all Gates are as tethered as she is to me. She needs to recuperate as well. That blast of energy to distract those Tuesday Guildies took more out of her than I thought. Won’t be able to leave here for several days, so rest up.” Tessa then let out a sigh. She drifted off to sleep, softly snoring. Nix fluttered down onto her chest, curling into a tight coil, and gave Tosh one last hiss of derision. Then he tucked his head into the coil he made and slept.

Tosh looked over at Bors and thought he’d be at it for a time. Sighing, he stood, found his legs weren’t as shaky, and walked to other side of the knoll. “Don’t go too far,” the words of Tessa came as Tosh walked down the other side of the knoll.

“Understood,” Tosh said. He settled into the knee-high grass a few dozen feet from the crown of the knoll and took in the sights of ancient Mars. There was much to it he thought was amazing. The landscape painted with a dozen different greens. Forest, emerald, wan yellowish-green, lime, and even olive. Each shade of green on some soft rolling hills except for the giant colossus of Olympus Mons behind him. A peaceful place here. He took a deep breath and felt something thrum on his wrist. He looked down and realized the tattooed snake-scales were pure red.

“Wonderful. Time for another shot.” He abhorred the needle. Still, he had chosen to go down this path. Luckily, the injector was mostly painless. He pulled it from a fold in his robe and injected it into his arm. The hormones would take some time to continue to block what they needed to. Knowing the injections would take a full year to complete was an annoyance. At least he was close to what he truly desired. And with the boon that was promised by The Master, he could afford what he needed for years and still have enough to live comfortably for a long, long time. He closed his eyes and let himself relax. The sun and warm breeze lulled him to sleep. He hadn’t realized he had fallen onto his back, yet it was so nice and soft that he ignored it. A warmth suffused Tosh which let the tension ease more and more. His mind reached out to the dream of the future, and it made him smile. No need for injections.

He would be whole. Such a wonderful dream…