1 Soul Bound
1.2 Taking Control
1.2.2 An Awakening Epiphany
1.2.2.2 Good etticat
The sky was full of stars. Well, not quite stars. Hundreds of crystalline balls, twice as tall as Bungo, floated high in the air above an enormous stripey mound. And basking upon them, flying between them, hiding behind them, chasing around them or generally just flitting about were uncountable dragonflies with 2 pairs of wings that stretched nearly 1 meter from tip to tip. She’d thought Snowbell’s wings were beautiful, but these were breath-taking: iridescent on top, shading from purple to blue to pale green to gold to blushing pink, and transforming with every stroke. The colours continued more stably onto the scales down the spine which blended smoothly into the smoky grey pelt of a miniature serval, whose bright yellow eyes, angular face and tall ears made it clear that this was not in any way a domesticated creature.
The underside of the wings were a perfect mirror and nearby, on the warm brown terracotta paving slabs, several of Lady Dieconeura’s smaller bodies were chasing spots of light created by a full sized body sitting upright on the roof of a nearby building, bending her wings to focus the reflected light down to a single point.
She checked the party, and felt something missing. Bungo! “Tomsk, did you tell Bulgaria about Bungo?” she asked. Tomsk swore. He and Bulgaria went still, obviously talking in direct chat to each other.
One of the bodies walked towards them, and Alderney took a step forwards, then knelt down and held out a hand, waiting for Lady Dieconeura to sniff it then deign to enter stroking range before she started fussing and praising her beauty. The Lady purred her approval of Alderney before walking on to greet Kino and Wellington. Wellington didn’t get a purr, just a swish of a tail in his face and she walked over to Tomsk and then towards Bulgaria.
Bulgaria: “I’m going to flip out for the next half hour. Please tell my Vessel about Lady Di.”
Kafana: “I think we all should let our vessels have a go. I know Vessel-Kafana will enjoy this.” She felt a pang at having to refer to her Vessel as something more removed than “Self”.
Alderney: “Good idea. The two of us will go now, then it will be Tomsk and Wellington’s vessel’s turns.”
Alderney added in direct chat {Come all the way out to arlife.}
{Minion, flip me back to arlife, please.}
*flip*
[Yes, my Queen. You’ve been in quite a while. I suggest stretching slowly.]
She felt an overpowering need to run to the toilet, and barely made it. She was thoroughly grateful that she’d had a second one fitted for the guest bedroom Alderney was sleeping in.
A minute later, Alderney poked her head in. “Nadine, I wanted to check on you. The launch is over. We could blow this popsicle stand, leave the game, leave the building, go out for a walk or something. You got pretty dramatic back there in the Plaza when you splatted that thief. I think you might still be teetering on a high in reaction to that. It isn’t reality, and it is easy to forget that. You especially get really immersed, more than anyone I know. Stroke cats or take some time out here to get your balance back? I’ll go with whatever you pick, but I’m not going to leave your side today, either way. You decide.”
Alderney giving up the chance to spend time with something that cute and pretty? Wow!
She stood up and took a deep breath. The flowers outside her window gave a lovely smell, this was her home. She blinked and, despite the red hair and greater height her friend had in arlife, Kafana realised she was still thinking of her as “Alderney”, rather than as “Heather”. Did she need to take a break?
She shook her head. Arlife would still be here in 2 hours time, when she had to go cook and serve her local friends. She’d had years of this. Dragonfly cats wouldn’t be available tomorrow.
“Cats” she said, as firmly as possible. “They do say stroking them is meant to be therapeutic.”
Alderney let out a breath she’d been holding in one massive squee that nearly matched the highest notes Kafana could hit in the whistle register. She flew over, gave Kafana a crushing hug and then ran back to her room chanting “Cats. Cats! CATS!”
*flip*
She walked over to Tomsk and took his hands. He flipped.
Kafana: “Hello Tomsk! Keep holding my hands.”
He smiled a very similar smile to the one she knew, then looked about in wonder.
Kafana: “In a moment, I’m going to let your hands go. But before I do, there’s a safety tip you need to know. Look at me when you’re ready to hear it.”
She only had to wait a moment.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Kafana: “Do you see the cute serval with dragonfly wings?”
Vessel-Tomsk: “Sure. They’re pretty, like your eyes.” he kept his gaze upon her, looking a little roguish.
Kafana: “Well, they are all bodies of a gestalt entity named Lady Dieconeura, who’s a powerful mage and runs this place. She’s a touch empath and wants you to touch her so she can judge whether you mean harm to her or her Zoo. When I let your hands go, be prepared to stroke her respectfully, but don’t touch her wings. Not that you would anyway, but when a potential consequence for getting it wrong is having your head teleported away from your body, it’s best to make sure. Any questions?”
Vessel-Tomsk: “None. But, while I’m here with you, thank you very much for suggesting Columbina talk to me directly. She explained to me about you and Tomsk, and I understand him so much better now.”
She let go of his hands and he knelt down to greet Lady Di. “So you spent all that time in the Dove just talking; you didn’t…?”
Vessel-Tomsk: “Before a match? Are you kidding me? He would never risk letting down Bungo or the rest of his family. You know that, right? He means it when he says he is your brother, Kafana. You will always be first in his thoughts.” He stood up, having carefully stroked the High Master Mage, his eyes and attention still mostly upon her.
Which would be respectful enough if Lady Di were just an animal with strong magic that Tomsk were greeting. But, for all the cute shape, this was an individual with a human-level intelligence and with higher social status than any monster or creature. She wondered briefly which Marquis or King had been desperate or open minded enough to bestow a grant of nobility upon Dieconeura. From what she’d seen, they took titles seriously around here.
If the Lady wanted people to not acknowledge that, why did the Zoo staff continue to use her title? Perhaps she let each person decide how to greet her for themselves, as a way of identifying the visitors most likely to appreciate her real self?
The small body approached her. Well, let’s see if she could do it properly. {aura on}
Kafana: “My Lady Dieconeura, please forgive me if I introduce myself, as none here have seen fit to do so. You have met my other Self, who was born on Covob. I am the Questing Spirit known here as Madame Kafana Sincereo, named personal friend by Lady Pia Trinci, wife of the Marquis de Torello and Lord Claudio Landi, Count Mercato, recognised Power, Bard and Saviour, the Twice-Born banished from the Abyssal Realm of the Inferno by the Princess of Devils and chosen Guardian of all eight prime deities. It is my profound honour to meet you and I grant you leave to enter my mind to see if my intentions match my words.”
Timing her actions to her words, she held out a braced arm, bent horizontally at the elbow, inviting the flying creature to use her as a perch. A furry body landed lightly upon it and touched a cool nose to hers.
*ding* [Your reputation with High Master Mage Dieconeura has increased by 50. She finds you interesting.]
Alderney: {Kafana!}
Tomsk: {If you’ve got it, flaunt it.}
Kafana: {I noticed that none of the other adult bodies chose to walk around by preference. I thought she’d be happier up where she didn’t need to worry about someone accidentally kicking her wings.}
Wellington: {Sensible. Why not copy her?}
Alderney cocked an arm, looking hopeful, and another body from the sky soon joined her, and they followed behind Gustav.
Gustav: “The building near the gate is used to temporarily store goods being delivered or collected. Everything else is kept in the orbiting spheres.”
Tomsk: “Like an astrolabe?”
Gustav: “More like a train switching yard, I’m told. It’s beyond me, you’d have to ask one of the experts. I’m just going to take you up to near the peak, show you the view and then take you back down to meet the mages.”
Wellington: “I don’t think they’re spheres. They look more like disicosidodecahedrons to me. Alderney, you’ve got Hawk’s Eyes, can you count the faces?”
Tomsk: “Dizzy Cozy whats?”
Wellington explained patiently: “It's a dis-icosi-dodeca-hedron”, carefully sounding out each part. When Tomsk didn’t look much enlightened he added: “affectionately known as the U32 holosnub.”
Alderney: “It’s got lots of 5 sided and 6 sided stars etched onto it. Does that help?”
Now they were close to the mound, they could see it had two paths winding up it, one pale pink and the other a smoky grey that matched Lady Di’s fur. The inside wall of the path was lined with hexagonal stars just about touching each other at their points. Gustav led them up 4 turns around the pink path, and with each turn the stars grew smaller and the path narrower. Kafana caught glimpses of seas, deserts, forests and many other ecosystems through the central hexagons of the stars and the trip was a cacophony of sound, mixing whoops, chitters, snarls, bird song and all manner of other imaginable animal calls.
He stopped several meters below the peak, where the path became too narrow to progress further, but Kafana could still see increasingly miniature stars as the path continued up. They were level with the top of the exterior wall, now. She looked down, and had trouble describing what she saw. The body of Lady Di on her arm flew off, as did Alderney’s.
Bulgaria: {I’m back. Bungo is on his way. He’s doing fine.}
Kino: “The sounds. It makes me think of the Tower of Babel.”
Bulgaria: “That was based upon Etemenanki, the grand ziggurat dedicated to bull-headed Marduk the immortal son of the Sun, wielder of Imhullu.”
Tomsk: “The pattern below looks a bit like a Yin-Yang symbol, with the grey path sweeping on around to join a dark paved circle with a sparkling crystal tower at its centre that’s nearly twice our height here and glowing at the top. The pink path seems to connect to a circular thicket of crystalline trees. There’s a gap in the middle, but I can’t see from here if there’s anything in it.”
Kafana: “To me it looks like a double helix, sitting on top of two embryos with their tails intertwined.”
Alderney: “Nah, it’s a funfair helter-skelter, sitting on top of a spiral galaxy. Who cares? Let’s go see the animals and learn how to tame them.”