The dagger starts to break apart in my hand, small pieces peeled away from the handle and blade alike on tiny metal stalks. It felt as if I held a small clockwork device in my hand rather than a weapon, the handle twisted in my hand, pinching my palm and loosening my grip while my hand jots from the pinch.
The dagger yanked violently away from my hand while the flats on either side break away and flutter aside violently, keeping the blade floating in the air with a deep reverberating hum. One would think a giant beetle was taking flight nearby, that or a distant helicopter from the sound alone.
With the now constantly changing dagger floating in the air, seemingly against all reason, I start to back up away from it. I was mystified by what I was witnessing since an object such as this being able to reconfigure itself independently was remarkably impressive, but it didn’t change the fact that this was still a weapon nonetheless; what's to say this thing didn’t suddenly dive forward in an attempt to attack me?
While the dagger continued to fragment and reconfigure in mid-air, I noticed something happening to the segments and their relocated states; it appeared that they were forming something from the hundreds of small slithers of material. I could vaguely make out a humanoid silhouette, roughly a foot tall, slowly forming from the many dozen pieces. The blade's flats slowly shifted into legs and arms, parts of the handle becoming fingers and toes; every part of the weapon was changed into something, or someone, different.
The hand of the dagger clicked a few times and broke into quarters both in length and width, slowly peeling open like the petals of a flower. I could see a tightly bound coil of a brown fibre from within, and it looked like a bundle of chestnut hair. The bundle unfurled and twisted around like thousands of centipedes, reaching around the silhouette and connecting around where its head could be, easily reaching the silhouette’s waist.
More segments reformed, slowly a face was being created from hundreds of sand-grain like fragments and filaments. As its face continued to take shape, I noticed that this thing’s face was starting to look vaguely familiar, the position of its eyes, the general shape of its “face”, it was starting to bear some resemblance to the thing I saw while looking into the memorial pool…
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After only a few more seconds, the humanoid figure had entirely formed from the fragments of the dagger; her wings continued to delicately suspend her high in the air while her eyes ignited with a bright golden glow. She looked like a mechanical mockery of a pixie. Her body was covered in plated armour, not dissimilar to The Statue’s attire, and flowing robes that flapped gracefully from the displacement of her wings.
She tilted her head and looked me in the eyes, her face twisted into a confused frown before she leaned backwards and fluttered over to the skeleton. She spent a few moments drifting around the remains; what glimpses of her face I caught while she inspected the bones suggested that she was rather confused by what precisely was happening around her.
She fluttered away from the skeleton, returning to a distant orbit of myself while she scanned me thoroughly. I could tell she was somewhat disappointed by what she saw, though whether that was because of her situation or me is an entirely different discussion. Her eyes flicked around, looking behind me, to my side and all around her.
“Well, this is certainly not what I was expecting….” She murmured in almost perfect English, albeit with a slight french accent. After a long sigh, her expression dropped entirely from curiosity to outright defeat. She looked back at the skeleton over her shoulder, turning so that her wings didn’t look entirely obscure in her view. “What a shame, I had such high hopes for that one….” She tuts then turns back to face me.
“Errrr…” I nervously mutter; truth be told, I wasn’t exactly expecting to encounter anything that I could have a genuine conversation with, let alone something that looks, acts and talks like a real person. “Wha…” I was cut off.
“You don’t look like you’re from around here, young man.” She spoke over me; her voice was sharp and clear, far louder than her size suggested. She fluttered a little closer, her arms crossed while her burning eyes locked onto me. “Who are you, and how did you get here?” She asked, though her inflexion and cadence implied that this was less a question and more an order. I struggled to maintain eye contact with her; something about her insectoid, membranous wings kept drawing my attention away from her.
“I’m Frasier.” I immediately respond; my eyes darted back to her. “I don’t know how I got here; I-I just went to sleep, then I woke up here.” I shrug; unfortunately, she wasn’t buying it.
“Nonsense!” She buzzes closer to me, easily only a few feet from my face. “People don’t just magically show up here, especially humans of all things; how did you get here?” She snarled.
“I swear that’s all I know,” I answer back, backing away from the constantly approaching pixie thing.
She sighs and flutters away to look back to the skeletal remains behind her before briskly flying around me a few times. In all honesty, the speed at which she could fly concerned me greatly; she was easily fast enough that, should she want to hurt me, I couldn’t adequately try to catch her. She finally stopped flying sporadically around me and comes to rest two feet from my face.
“Look…” She folds her arms again and gracefully approaches me, and I back peddle again, only for her to stop her approach in response. “If you honestly have no idea why you are here, then you have made a terrible, terrible mistake coming back here, accidentally or not.” She explained. “I don’t know how anyone could just get here by pure accident, but I’m telling you with all sincerity that this is not the kind of place you want to be.”
Before I could respond, she surged forth towards me; I could barely react by the time she had reached my side and landed on my right shoulder. Her feet dug into my shirt, but they were so delicate and light that I barely felt her standing there.
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“Here's the thing, though….” She climbed down and sat on my shoulder; I turned my head a bit so that I could look at her, though I could only really see her with my right eye. “I can’t really go anywhere on my own; there are things that my kind can and can’t do; if I get seen without somebody or something else being present nearby, I’ll get dismantled...”
“Dismantled?” I ask, baffled by the notion that a seemingly sapient being like her was gravely concerned about her own mortality purely on the basis that she would be ripped apart for scraps if seen without an owner or something, never mind how draconian that sounds in enough itself.
“Yes, dismantled.” The mechanical pixie sighed again while holding her head in her hands, patently disappointed by my lack of knowledge of this world. “We’re supposed to be bound to our assigned master. However, many, such as myself, were not bound for reasons that are too complicated to explain here.” She rubbed her head, digging her fingers into her scalp in exasperation.
Stolen story; please report.
“I’ll assume it would be in my best interest if I don’t ask how that happens,” I respond, turning away to look up at the massive sail-trees again; I could hear them once more groaning and crunching as they reorient their canopies for the ever-changing winds. “I’ve not got any real plans over here in this strange world, so I’m cool with you tagging along if you’re worried about being seen without somebody.”
“Probably for the best for now.” She replied. I could see that she was also looking up to the sail-trees in the corner of my eye. “Magnificent feats of natures will, aren’t they?” She points up to the leaves billowing in the wind. “I remember when this forest was first planted, the sheer volume of calculations that were made in regards to just how much propulsion such a plantation could produce.”
“Oh, that explains a lot, actually.” I proclaim while looking back at her. “I was wondering what exactly they were planted for; it’s pretty obvious that they interact with the flow of air around this world straightforwardly. I suspected they were like a boat’s sails, but it’s so strange to hear that this was their actual purpose.” I continue, looking back up to the bellowing leaves. “It’s just so surreal...”
“Yeah, you’re definitely new here….” She sounded upset. “These things have been used for such a long time now that they have become a core component of reality itself.” She explained, taking off from my shoulder with a few loud beats of her wings; I could feel her surging past me in the air. “Everywhere you go nowadays, you will find the sail-tree; even the very furthest, wildest and most untamed parts of the Iridescent Abyss are home to such miracles of nature.”
“How, though?” I scratch my chin and tilt my head. “They spread saplings across the world by spores or something?” I wonder, for such a fundamental component of the natural flora in this world, it must spread rather rapidly and violently to cover such a massive expanse.
“Funnily enough, it’s actually quite simple.” She explains, flying back down to landing on my right shoulder and sitting down again, her legs hanging over my chest. “The highest leaves on the tree will eventually mature and break away in the wind; they usually sprout a few smaller leaves around their petiole to help them drift for longer across the Abyss.” She crossed her legs and folded her arms again. “These trees, if I had to guess, probably release a few leaves each every minor cycle or so. As you can imagine, they can spread rapidly if allowed to.”
“That’s so weird.” I nod, trying to understand how this world works. I know some plants similarly spread their seeds in the real world, such as dandelions that spread their seeds through the flow of air, but seeing it on such a large scale is so surreal to comprehend. “Tell you what, I’m thinking about heading deeper into the woods; why don’t we continue talking about this stuff while I walk. Does that sound good?” I asked her; I didn’t really want to wander this place on my own; if something like her could exist, who knows what else was out there. "And what do you mean by 'minor cycle'?"
“Fine.” She sighed, not seem overly keen on heading further into the woods. “It’s usually rather boring around this place, but the last time I was actively configured was a long, long time ago, it would seem….” She kicked the backs of her feet against my chest; I couldn't tell if it was intentional or not, but for something so small, her feet had a surprisingly hefty impact. "As for the minor cycles, every so-ever many hours, a large wave of energy washes over the various floating islands; I'll tell you more about that at another time, so don't forget." She explained further while I consigned that information to memory.
“Usually?” I ask while walking by the skeleton of her previous master and heading deeper into the woods. “You mean something actually happens around here occasionally?”
“There are those who migrate around the void; I won’t worry you with the details unless we happen across them; it would be a waste of both of our energy to discuss such details.” She ominously uttered, I had a feeling in the back of my mind that I would get very few answers out of her, unless one wants to argue that a further question is, in enough itself, an answer. “What I’m more interested with right now is you; where did you come from?”
“Well.” I think carefully about how exactly I wanted to word this; odds are, she wouldn't understand due to the differences in our worlds. “I don’t know if you have a different name for it over here, but I suppose I should just call it the ‘real world’.” I pause and chuckle for a moment. “I’ll tell you this, though; it’s a lot more boring than this place.”
“I doubt the terror those that live in this place provoke in those who must survive despite them would be preferable to the boredom of your world that you speak of.” She snickered while flicking her hair. “I’m Kliviero; We might as well get to know each other a bit while you walk.” Kliviero hopped off of my shoulder and fluttered just in front of me while maintaining pace. “So, what do you do when you’re not here?” She asked. “Must be pretty mundane if this is ‘interesting to you.”
“I’m a history student,” I explain while occasionally turning to look at her, not wanting to lose sight of where I was walking for too long. “Mostly medieval history, so like knights and stuff like that. Nothing quite as fascinating as this place, though. I have a feeling that the history of this world would make for an amazing read.”
Kliviero flutters around a bit before she responds; her face was scrawled with trouble, her eyes focused on something to my side. I look behind me to see what she was looking at, but there was nothing there.
“Oh no, don’t worry, there isn’t anything there.” Kliviero jumped in before I could continue looking around. “It’s just, well, coincidental.” She fluttered back to my shoulder and sat back down. “I was fabricated to function as an Engravist. I suppose you could classify me as a historian, to a degree that is.”
“Well, that’s rather convenient, isn’t it?” I respond, stopping for a moment to look at another especially large sail-tree. I could hear a loud rumbling creak coming from above, prompting me to look up through the canopy.
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I caught a glimpse of a large leaf breakaway between the rare gaps in the branches, only for it to drift into one of the other trees with an unceremonious thud and tumble down not far away from our location. Looking back up, I could see a small, dense cloud of crimson sap floating away in the wind, leaving a fine coating of sap over the branches it drifted past.
“Well, that’s a shame….” Kliviero spoke up after the leaf came to rest; she flew over to investigate the fallen leaf; I followed her, but she got there long before I could. She formed a large needle from her left arm and took a sample from within the leaf, which she inspected intently before letting out a disappointed groan. “That’s a real shame; this one could have been successful; at least it won’t be wasted in the void,” She discarded the sample briskly and returned to my side. “Anyway, where were we?”
“You just mentioned that you were built to be an Engravist,” I said, kneeling by the leaf to get a closer look for myself. Looking at the leaf's surface, I could see thick purple venules and dark red veins within the leaf, presumably filled with the crimson sap which puffed out when it was released up above.
“Oh yeah, that’s right!” She exclaimed while watching me intently; to her, my reaction to such a plant must have been rather bizarre; after all, I was a stranger to this place.
I reached out and touched the leaf. Its surface was soft but felt taut with just barely enough flexibility to permit my attempt to poke at it, and the plant matter sprung back after I withdrew my hand rather quickly, suggesting that the insides of said leaf were remarkably spongy and springy. In all honesty, it felt like a strange floral leather of sorts.
“So, one of the many tasks I was designed to fulfil was the engraving of sculptures.” Kliviero continued explaining while she observed my interaction with the leaf. “I would normally be taken with a few of my sisters to some monument which would require some intricate embellishments. We would get a few pointers and then….” She went silent while I poked at the leaf. “W-what are you doing?”
“Just curious about this thing,” I answer back, pulled away after she asked. “Something wrong?”
“Oh, no, nothing.” She stammered briefly. “Yeah, the sap from those things have some weird properties when it comes into contact with soft tissue without some processing.”
“Weird properties?” I ask.
“The sap can burn skin if it’s in high enough quantities.” She reluctantly explained. “The leaf's skin can also cause burns as well, but only if you really try to grab at it.”
“Well, okay then….” I take another step back from the leaf and make a mental note never to touch one of these things again. I turn away and continue to walk deeper into the woods, paying close attention to a strange grey mist not too far away.
“Do you smell that?” Kliviero whispered, prompting me to smell the air, completely unable to smell anything in the air.
“No, what is it?” I ask, trying to sense what was going on.
“Huh, your olfactory arrays must be far less sensitive than mine.” She tuts, lifting off of my shoulder, elevating herself high above me to try and find what she could smell. “There is the faint whiff of carbon in the air.” She paused, “Something is burning….”